On Monte Vista, Between Nob Hill and UNM
St. Mark's Episcopal Church has anchored the corner of Richmond Place NE in Albuquerque's Monte Vista neighborhood since the late 1940s, a few blocks east of the University of New Mexico and within walking distance of the Nob Hill business district. The parish describes itself as a progressive faith community centered in worship, inclusive to all, active in loving service, and generous with the gifts that God has given. Together, members say, they are blessed to be making something beautiful for God in their neighborhood.
St. Mark's is known for several things at once: warm Sunday Coffee Hour that visitors often cite as their first taste of the community's spirit; a building designed by famed New Mexico architect John Gaw Meem; an in-house Montessori preschool; an unusually deep ministry with LGBTQ+ young adults and students at UNM; weekly outreach to unhoused neighbors through Church Unbound; and an eight-month sanctuary renovation project that, when completed, will deliver a new Letourneau pipe organ, a rebuilt columbarium, and an accessible worship space.
Worship on Sundays and Thursdays
Two liturgical services anchor the weekly rhythm. On Sundays, Holy Eucharist is celebrated at 9:00 a.m. with preaching and congregational singing. On Thursdays, a quieter Holy Eucharist Rite II is offered at 11:00 a.m. (preceded at 10:30 a.m. by Contemplative Prayer), followed at noon by a hybrid Bible Study that takes a deep dive through books of the Bible such as the Beatitudes and the Gospel of Matthew.
Sunday worship follows the Book of Common Prayer and uses the 1982 Hymnal alongside other resources including Gather, Lift Every Voice and Sing II, Wonder Love and Praise, and the songbooks of Music that Makes Community. Services are broadcast on Facebook Live and Zoom, and an Order of Worship is posted each week. A typical Sunday liturgy lasts roughly seventy-five minutes.
During the current renovation, Sunday services and most Thursday programming are hosted by First Church of Christ, Scientist, directly across the street at 500 Richmond Place NE. Parishioners are asked to park in St. Mark's own lots and walk over; following the service, Coffee Hour and Sunday School return to St. Mark's own Parish Hall.
Reverent Welcome, the Episcopal Way
St. Mark's welcomes everyone, regardless of ethnicity, background, socioeconomic or marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious background, political leaning, or spiritual experience. The parish's language is deliberately broad: people arrive as questioning, ever-growing children of God, and the church does not put up barriers between visitors and a relationship with Christ and the spiritual community.
Visitors are invited simply to come as they are. There is no dress code; what makes one comfortable in the presence of God is the right thing to wear. Reserved seating is set aside near the front left of the worship space for people attending with children, but families may sit anywhere. Nursery care is available for children up to age four (9:00 a.m. to noon), and Children's Chapel, with songs, stories and prayers drawn from the day's readings, gathers ages four through eight following the Gospel. Children ages zero to three may attend Children's Chapel with a caregiver, and youth nine and older are welcome to serve as helpers.
At Holy Communion, all who seek the presence of Christ are invited to share. Bread is received in the open palm; the cup is taken by sipping. Intinction is discouraged to slow the spread of germs, and gluten-free wafers are available. Anyone who wishes to come forward for a blessing rather than communion may cross their arms over their chest. Arriving late or stepping out to use the restroom during the liturgy is treated as simply part of life.
The Building Renewal Project
Construction on St. Mark's long-planned Building Renewal began in May 2026 and is expected to last six to eight months. The project, the parish explains, grew out of a need for a new organ and modest accessibility improvements in the pews and chancel and blossomed into a vision for a transformed worship and fellowship space.
The centerpiece is a new Letourneau pipe organ that will replace the parish's 1954 36-rank Reuter organ, which served St. Mark's for nearly seven decades and whose roughly 2,000 pipes, ranging from a third of an inch to fifteen feet long, were carefully dismantled and shipped to Rocky Mountain Organ Services for storage at the start of construction. The columbarium will be rebuilt in a new location with about one hundred additional niches and refreshed plaques, and existing ashes will be reverently moved into the new niches in the same order. The renovation will also include accessibility improvements throughout.
During construction, Sunday worship and most Thursday worship and formation take place across the street at First Church of Christ, Scientist. Two years of architectural recordings, building surveys, and parish listening sessions led to renderings and floor plans from the project architect and liturgical consultant. The project is being managed by Oso del Rio Hart Construction.
Music for the Soul of the Parish
Music is described by the parish as part of its mission: Together we are building something beautiful for God in our neighborhood. The music program is led by Music Director and Organist Jeremy R. Wirth, who holds a doctorate in choral conducting from the University of North Texas, a master's in organ performance from Emory University focused in liturgical theology and practice, and a Juris Doctor from the University of New Mexico. He is also Director of Development for Opera Southwest in Albuquerque.
The volunteer choir, made up of twenty to twenty-five adult and youth voices supported by paid section leaders, rehearses on Wednesday evenings during the academic year and at 8:50 a.m. on Sundays, singing at the 9:00 service every Sunday of the year and on major feast days. The choir sings anthems, psalms and service music, supports congregational singing, and prepares at least once a year a special musical homily offered in place of the sermon.
Liturgical music is led primarily by pipe organ and piano. Soloists and guest instrumentalists are featured throughout the year. The Music that Makes Community song circle has also become a regular offering.
Children, Youth and Family Ministry
St. Mark's describes its ministry with children and youth as creating opportunities to grow in friendship with God and experience loving service to the world through music, story, small group discussion, community building, worship, outreach, laughter, art and fun. The Sunday morning rhythm for children and families runs as follows: nursery open from 9:00 a.m. to noon for infants through age three, optional Children's Chapel during the sermon for ages four through eight (with three-year-olds and helpers nine and above welcome), refreshments in the Parish Hall from 10:30 to 11:00, and an education hour from 11:00 to noon during the academic year.
The nursery is staffed by trained, attentive caregivers in a safe, joyful space with regularly sanitized toys and bedding. During the week, the nursery doubles as the two-year-old room of the Montessori school.
Children's formation includes:
- Godly Play. A Montessori-based, multi-age program for children approximately three years old through early elementary, Godly Play is a spacious, contemplative approach to spiritual formation. Biblical sacred stories are told with simple materials, and children respond through art and hands-on retelling.
- Seasons of the Spirit. A class for fourth and fifth graders that invites deeper exploration of Christian community.
- Rite-13. A middle-school class for sixth through eighth graders that introduces church history, the story of the Old Testament, and the life of Jesus as told in the New Testament.
- Journey to Adulthood (J2A). A high-school program for ninth through twelfth graders that engages real-world ministry and service, bringing young people into contact with the wider world through storytelling, neighborhood outings, travel, and guest speakers.
- Holy Troublemakers. A Sunday morning class for approximately ages eleven and up that studies people of different faiths and backgrounds who have worked tirelessly to bring God's love to all people, even when their efforts met skepticism.
The Summer of Conversation
One of the parish's most distinctive formation practices is the annual Summer of Conversation, an intentional invitation to every member to engage in a series of one-on-one conversations with other parishioners throughout the summer. The parish estimates that during the 2025 summer, members easily participated in more than five hundred such conversations. Each year the rector offers a kickoff training event on Pentecost Sunday and a brief Blessing and Commissioning on Trinity Sunday.
Adult Formation and Small Groups
On Sunday mornings during the academic year, three or four short adult offerings run during the eleven o'clock education hour. Topics rotate through Bible and religious study, current events and social justice, and conversational groups, presented in a variety of formats from video lessons to discussion-based classes. Recent and ongoing offerings have included George Herbert and Christina Rossetti poetry seminars in Lent, an online Lenten Vocations Course hosted by the Diocese of the Rio Grande, a Lenten theology series on what really happens on the cross led by a theologian in residence, and a Lenten series titled Cutting Through the Chatter: Trans Truths and Realities.
The Music Director leads a song circle through the Music that Makes Community network. A Celtic Spirituality small group meets monthly. A book club gathers several Saturdays a month in the Parish Hall. The Eldering Group meets twice a month. A New Members Class runs each fall and spring, serving as preparation for Confirmation, Reception, or Reaffirmation for those wishing to join the Episcopal Church or this particular parish.
Five Practices, and a Sixth
St. Mark's identifies five core practices as touchstones for its life together: Worship, Prayer and Meditation, Service, Nurture, and Giving. It then adds a sixth: Fun. The parish often quotes the Talmud: One will have to give account on the Judgment Day of every good thing which one might have enjoyed and did not.
Worship is placed at the center, with scripture, music, fellowship, Eucharist, prayer and silence described as essential to becoming God's people. Prayer and meditation offerings throughout the year include beginning iconography, study of different types of prayer, open sanctuary and chapel time, an Intercessory Prayer Community, and resources that encourage members to commune with God at home. Nurture is described as the most important work given to a faith community, with intentional care for children and youth alongside adult formation. Service is rooted in the conviction that out of the heart of worship the desire to serve is kindled. Giving is framed as a heartfelt response to God's generosity.
Welcome at the Table
The parish's welcome extends concretely through the sacraments. Weddings and Blessings of Lifelong Covenants are prepared with the rector over time; the central nave seats about four hundred and the chapel seats forty, with the fellowship hall available for catered receptions. Baptism is offered for infants, children, youth and adults, always described as a joyful celebration that reminds the whole community that we belong to God and to one another. Confirmation is practiced as an adult profession of faith for those who sense God at work within them, with the annual New Members Class serving as its ordinary preparation. Funerals and memorial services are open to non-parishioners, and the parish offers a deep library of end-of-life planning resources, including a Funeral Brainstorming worksheet, a Funeral Template with Scripture Links based on the Book of Common Prayer Rite II, suggested hymns, a worksheet for a Christian funeral, a Funeral Information Form, and an Emergency Contact Form.
Church Unbound: Sundays on Central Avenue
Every Sunday except Christmas Day and the Fourth of July, a team from St. Mark's gathers at the Albuquerque Inn parking lot at 7640 Central Avenue SE, across from the public library, to share sack lunches, conversation and a brief open-air Eucharist with neighbors experiencing homelessness. Setup begins at 1:00 p.m., bag lunches are served at 1:30, and the Eucharist is at 2:00. On the Saturday before the second Sunday of each month, parishioners gather in the Parish Hall kitchen to make about one hundred and twenty sack lunches, at a cost of roughly three hundred dollars, supported by donations to St. Mark's Matthew 25 dedicated account.
The Open Table Connection at UNM and CNM
St. Mark's is one of an ecumenical group of LGBTQIA+ affirming Christian churches that make up the Open Table Connection, which provides a free weekly meal, text study, prayer, spiritual activities, public theology, and intentional community for young adults connected to the University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College. The ministry meets on Thursdays from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. at 1805 Las Lomas Road NE. Members of St. Mark's clergy typically participate in an Open Table meal or event several times each month, and a member of the parish currently represents St. Mark's on the Open Table board. Donations of home-cooked or takeout Thursday dinners can be made through the parish.
Rio Grande Borderland Ministries
St. Mark's is the only church in the state along the United States-Mexico border that serves as a parish partner of Rio Grande Borderland Ministries, a ministry of the Diocese of the Rio Grande that engages with long-term systemic needs on the border by working collaboratively to provide humanitarian support to vulnerable people in border communities. Through a formal Ministry Covenant, St. Mark's members advocate and volunteer alongside the larger ministry, which is based at 318 Silver Avenue SW in Albuquerque and helps to ensure that migrant neighbors are embraced in the service of justice, the interest of dignity, and the spirit of love.
The LGBTQ+ Ministry of the Diocese
St. Mark's also hosts and partners with the LGBTQ+ Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, which exists to make sure every person knows they are welcome in the parishes of the diocese, regardless of gender or sexual identity. The ministry gathers for prayer and Eucharist, retreats, social events such as game nights, drag queen bingo, picnics and concerts, and participates in the Albuquerque Pride Parade each June and in pride events elsewhere in the diocese. The Deacon David Martin serves as a parish contact for the ministry.
Roadrunner Food Bank and Project Share
St. Mark's is a contributing congregation to Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico, the state's largest food bank and a Feeding America affiliate. Boxes in the Narthex collect non-perishable food items for the food bank's programs in food rescue, healthy food access, food safety and food security.
The parish also continues a ministry that began in the 1980s when two St. Mark's men began serving soup, sandwiches and coffee to the homeless from the back of a pickup. That effort evolved into Friends Feeding Friends, an organized group of volunteers who gather every third Saturday of the month to cook and serve a meal at Project Share, a nonprofit meal site for homeless and needy neighbors.
Sacred Arts Guild and Iconography
A Sacred Arts Guild quietly works to celebrate and encourage the gift of creation in members of the parish. Each quarter, an invitational art show open to the public is hung in the Parish Hall, and the guild maintains a small twenty-percent commission on art sales that supports the purchase of art for the church. The guild also teaches iconography classes, and members of the guild have created many of the icons used in St. Mark's liturgies and displayed in the nave.
Saint Mark's Choir School: The Montessori Preschool
Housed in the same building as the parish, St. Mark's Montessori School is a nonprofit preschool offering an authentic Montessori curriculum for children eighteen months through kindergarten, with three-day and five-day toddler enrollment and before- and after-care options for older children. The Toddler classroom is designed as an ideal first-learning environment, supporting social, emotional and physical development including potty training and foundational language development, while the Primary classroom offers a prepared environment with self-guiding Montessori materials and daily lessons for children three years old through kindergarten. The school is led by Director Caitlin McGuire and shares the parish nursery space during the week.
Coffee Hour and the Hospitality Ministry
Coffee Hour at St. Mark's is, in the parish's own words, somewhat legendary. It is the moment when Sunday worship flows into a meal that visitors often describe as their first real taste of who St. Mark's is. The ministry is supported by coffee teams that arrive early to brew coffee, a hospitality rotation in which members sign up by last name to bring snacks at least once a month, and the option to sponsor a Coffee Hour financially in honor of a loved one, milestone or ministry. Nametags, friendly greeters at the door, and ushers with orders of worship are part of the same Christian practice of hospitality the parish extends throughout its life together.
A Progressive Parish in the Diocese of the Rio Grande
St. Mark's is part of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, the regional body that covers New Mexico and far west Texas. The parish is an active member of the ABQ FaithWorks Collaborative, an alliance of congregations seeking wholeness for the Albuquerque community as members learn, serve and advocate alongside those living on the margins. St. Mark's has been a partner congregation of Episcopal Relief and Development and works with The Storehouse of New Mexico and other local efforts to address hunger and homelessness.
The Clergy and Staff
The Rev. Christopher McLaren has served as Rector of St. Mark's since September 2011. A native of Medford, Oregon, and a graduate of Willamette University and the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, he previously served as Rector of St. George's New Orleans for six years before relocating to Albuquerque after losing his home to Hurricane Katrina. He served five years as Associate Rector at St. Michael and All Angels before joining St. Mark's. His ministry energy goes toward shaping a community that is faithful to the Christian tradition, progressive and open to all, passionate about children and youth ministry, deeply relational, intellectually curious and deeply engaged in service to the larger community.
The Rev. Sylvia Miller-Mutia serves as part-time Associate Rector with a focus on outreach, evangelism and family ministry. A former Rector of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Albuquerque, she previously served at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco and at St. Stephen's in Belvedere, California. She holds a BFA from the University of Utah, an MA in Liturgy and the Arts from Pacific School of Religion, and Certificates of Anglican Studies and Theological Studies from Church Divinity School of the Pacific.
The Rev. David Martin, ordained a Vocational Deacon in June 2017, also serves as Director of Christian Education. A married gay man and former architect and interior designer, he has described his mission as making sure every young person knows they are a blessed child of God loved for exactly who they are.
Jeremy R. Wirth, who holds a DMA in choral conducting, an MM in organ performance, an MBA in arts administration and a JD, has served as Music Director and Organist since 2018. He also serves as Director of Development for Opera Southwest in Albuquerque.
The parish staff is rounded out by Parish Administrator Jennifer Lind, Communications Coordinator Deb Bluestone, Sexton Chris Montgomery, and Montessori School Director Caitlin McGuire.
Seventy-Five Years on Richmond Place
Parishioners first gathered in a Nob Hill storefront in 1948, with groundbreaking on the original chapel, now the Parish Hall, that same year. Plans had been drawn by John Gaw Meem, the architect whose Pueblo Revival style defined much of the public and sacred architecture of New Mexico. The parish was the fastest growing in the diocese in the 1950s, expanding from 216 communicants in 1948 to 856 by 1954, and the present Sanctuary was dedicated in 1955. The Sunday school wing that still serves children today was begun in 1961. Parishioners sponsored St. Aidan's in the far northeast heights in the 1960s and opened a public weekday nursery and kindergarten in 1965. The stained glass windows of the Sanctuary were designed and made by parishioner Caryl McHarney.
By the mid-1970s, communicant rolls reached nearly two thousand, and after a long period of gradual decline and a difficult 2009 departure in which most of the clergy, all but one vestry member, and about eighty percent of communicants left to form a separate Anglican congregation, the parish rebuilt under the Rev. Constance Delzell and then, beginning in 2011, under the Rev. Christopher McLaren. Today the parish counts roughly one hundred and eighty members, opened the Montessori school in 2013, formed supporting partnerships with Albuquerque Interfaith and New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, and is now in the middle of its largest building project in decades.
Office hours are Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The Messenger, the parish's weekly e-newsletter, keeps members connected throughout the year. Together, those who enter the doors of St. Mark's say, they are blessed to be making something beautiful for God in their neighborhood.