Tucked along a busy stretch of Gallows Road in Annandale, Virginia, Capital Baptist Church has spent more than four decades building a reputation as one of Northern Virginia's most diverse and busy Baptist congregations. Founded in 1982 by Lead Pastor Steve Reynolds, Capital describes itself as a multiethnic, multigenerational church that wants to help people find their purpose, build community, and transform lives. The seven-acre campus on 3504 Gallows Road is home to three Sunday morning services, a large children's wing, a youth center known as the Upper Room, a gymnasium, a school-age co-op, and rooms for more than a dozen weekly groups.
Sunday Mornings at Capital
Capital's main worship gatherings take place three times on Sunday: 8:15, 9:30, and 11:00 am. The earliest service features a more traditional style of church music, while the 9:30 and 11:00 am services are led by a live band. Each gathering runs about seventy-five minutes and centers on uplifting music and a practical Bible message, with Lead Pastor Steve Reynolds preaching most weeks alongside guest speakers. Services are held in the main sanctuary and are also livestreamed, so people at home can watch the same message at the same time.
The dress code is informal. Visitors see everything from jeans and t-shirts to business casual and full work attire, with many attendees heading straight to the office after the late service. Coffee and other drinks are available, and a welcome team stands ready at the door to greet newcomers, answer questions, and help families register children for the kids' program.
Communion is observed together during the morning services several times a year. On those Sundays, the church invites everyone to pause and reflect on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ at all three gatherings.
Capital Kids: A Safe Place to Grow in Faith
Children from birth through sixth grade have a building of their own. The Capital Kids wing sits next to the main sanctuary and is organized by age, with separate rooms for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-aged children. Newborns and the youngest toddlers are kept apart from older kids for safety, and a private nursing room is available for mothers just off the nursery area.
Programming is offered during the 9:30 and 11:00 am services. The preschool and elementary rooms are brightly themed to fit a community called Kids Town, where children play games, sing, learn Bible stories, and build friendships with kids their own age. Every volunteer who works with children is background-checked and fingerprinted, and a security tag system pairs each child with the adult who drops them off. If a child needs a parent during a service, a discreet notification goes to the parent's phone.
Capital also runs a full week of summer day camp every year, with eight themed weeks running from late June through mid-August. The Glory to God Curriculum mixes sports, water games, STEM and robotics, Bible lessons, and character-building activities for campers who have completed first through eighth grade. Each camp week runs Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.
AWANA on Sunday Nights
Sunday evenings belong to AWANA, a Bible-centered discipleship program for kids as young as two and continuing through the senior year of high school. The acronym stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed, drawn from 2 Timothy 2:15. From 6:00 to 7:30 pm, children and teens move through age-specific clubs: Puggles for two-year-olds, Cubbies for preschool, Sparks for kindergarten through second grade, T&T for third through sixth grade, Trek for middle schoolers, and Journey for high schoolers. Each club balances scripture memory, Bible teaching, games, and small group time. Although Capital sponsors the chapter, children from other churches are welcome, and Spanish-speaking leaders are available to translate.
Horizon Students: Youth Ministry for Grades 7 to 12
Capital's youth ministry, branded Horizon Students, aims to raise up a generation of students who know their identity in Christ. The group meets three times a week. On Sunday mornings at 11:00 am, students gather in the Upper Room for growth groups, fellowship, and teaching. On Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, middle schoolers join AWANA Trek while high schoolers are in AWANA Journey, with separate outings for each age group. Wednesday nights from 6:00 to 8:00 pm are set aside for worship, a message, prayer, and time together in the Upper Room. Throughout the year the youth calendar fills with social events, service projects, and retreats designed to help teens build lifelong friendships and apply their faith at school, at home, and on the field.
Youth Pastor Anthony Parquette leads the ministry. A Liberty University graduate with decades of experience working with teenagers, he welcomes parents to observe classes and encourages their involvement in what their students are learning.
Adults Groups: A Place for Every Season of Life
Capital's small group ministry is built around the conviction that the Christian life is best lived in community. The church runs Capital Adults groups during both the 9:30 and 11:00 am services for men and women, with parallel Spanish-language small groups meeting in Room 212 at 11:00 am. Other recurring options include:
- Capital Young Adults for ages 18 to 35, meeting Sundays at 11:00 am in Room 206-208 and Thursdays at 7:00 pm
- Capital Men, gathering biweekly on Fridays at 7:00 pm
- Capital Women, with two weekly groups meeting Sundays at 9:30 am and 11:00 am
- Capital Singles, hosting monthly events around the region
- Capital Seniors, meeting Fridays at 9:30 am in Room 208/206
Each group is intentionally short-term enough to invite newcomers in and long-term enough to develop real friendships. People interested in joining a group can request to join through the church's online form.
Capital Counseling and the Bible Institute
Capital Counseling exists to care for the anxious and hurting parts of the community through individual and group counseling, companionship support, and practical teaching workshops. The ministry partners with Capital's Bible Institute, which offers a three-year program of classes meeting one night a week, designed to produce a working knowledge of Scripture in the spirit of 2 Timothy 2:15.
Workshops rotate through the year, with several running concurrently in a recent winter and spring cycle. They include Divorce Care, a thirteen-week video-based support group for those dealing with separation; Anxious About Decisions, a nine-week study on decision-making and anxiety; Single Adults: A Table for One, an eight-week workshop for never-married, divorced, and widowed adults; I Am Stressed, an eleven-week look at fear, control, and temptation; Finally Free, an eleven-week men's study on overcoming pornography through gospel-centered strategies; and The Hour That Changes the World, a fourteen-week prayer workshop. GriefShare meets Wednesdays at 7:00 pm, while Divorce Care, Finally Free, and Heart of Addiction continue as ongoing groups throughout the year.
Men's and Women's Ministry
The men's ministry meets for an in-depth Bible study called Friday Night Lights, led by Orlandon Howard, on alternating Fridays from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. The study is designed to give men eighteen and older a working understanding of Christian doctrine and the confidence to share their faith in everyday settings, whether at home, at work, or in conversations with skeptics. Each evening includes food, fellowship, and dialogue. A biyearly men's retreat at the Skycroft Conference Center in Middletown, Maryland, gives the men of the church an extended weekend for prayer, study, reflection, confession, and fellowship.
The women's ministry gathers through several ongoing touchpoints. Heart to Heart, hosted by the Bondage Brakers Women's team, is a quarterly event in the church's Upper Room that combines teaching from God's Word with food, fellowship, and practical packets for those who attend. Each year, women also have the option of joining the Winter Women's Weekend at Sandy Cove in North East, Maryland, a three-day retreat featuring Bible teaching, worship, breakout sessions, and time for rest and connection.
Fitness, Pickleball, and Losing to Live
Capital takes the spiritual and physical health of its members seriously. The church hosts a weekly pickleball night in the gym on Thursday evenings at 7:00 pm, open to anyone who wants to play. It also runs the Losing to Live Weight Loss Competition, an extended team-based program created by Lead Pastor Steve Reynolds that grew out of his own weight loss journey and his best-selling book Bod4God. The competition is open to men, women, and young adults, and includes on-site and online options.
Homeschool Co-Op
The Capital Co-Op is a long-running homeschool support group that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the traditional school year, from early September through mid-May. Children in early elementary rotate through enrichment classes in art, music, physical education, and drama, while upper elementary and high school students choose from a wide menu of year-long elective classes, including subjects like sign language, Spanish, government, robotics, debate, public speaking, and science labs. A kindergarten, preschool, and nursery program runs alongside the older students, and one parent from each family is expected to serve as a teacher, assistant, or administrator during the co-op day. The Co-Op also organizes field trips around the Washington, D.C. area, two musical performances each year, a Fine Arts Festival, standardized testing, and a graduation ceremony for high school seniors.
Trunk or Treat and Community Outreach
One of Capital's most popular outreach events is Trunk or Treat, an afternoon of decorated trunks, an inflatable corn maze, yard games, a petting zoo, cotton candy, popcorn, and snow cones held in the church's backyard. The event draws families from across the area and relies on dozens of volunteers to run smoothly.
The Clothing Ministry is another regular outreach. Held in the church gym, the event gives away free clothing to anyone in need and serves as an open door to invite friends and family to the church. Other community-facing efforts include the year-round counseling workshops, recovery and grief groups, and a missions emphasis that has sent teams to Mexico and supported a network of missionaries around the world.
What We Believe
Capital's doctrinal foundation is laid out in a clear statement of beliefs. The church confesses faith in the full, verbal inspiration and authority of the Scriptures and in one true God existing eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Capital teaches the deity, virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, and present intercession of Jesus Christ, and believes in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit and His work of convicting, regenerating, indwelling, sealing, and filling believers.
Humanity, in Capital's teaching, is created in the image of God, marred by the fall, and in need of salvation through Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace through faith, apart from works, with repentance and faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as the only conditions. Righteous living and good works are evidence of salvation, not the means of obtaining it. The church also affirms the personality of Satan, the visible, personal, and pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ, the eternal conscious existence of the saved in Heaven and the unsaved in Hell, and one true Church composed of all true believers organized into autonomous, cooperating local churches. All Bible readings and quotations in the homeschool co-op are read from the King James Version, the standard Bible text of the English-speaking church.
Leadership and Church History
Capital Baptist Church was started in 1982 by Steve Reynolds, a graduate of Liberty University and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Louisiana Baptist University. Reynolds is the author of several books, including Bod4God: Twelve Weeks To Lasting Weight Loss, Get Off The Couch, and co-author of Taking God To Work, The Healthy Renegade Pastor, and Wise Up! He is a founding board member of Outreach To Asia Nationals and currently serves as chairman of its board.
Pastor Bob Eagy serves in a combined role of educator, counselor, and worship leader and oversees much of the discipleship pathway, including the homeschool co-op. Pastor Anthony Parquette leads Horizon Students, and Pastor Steve Reynolds continues to serve as Lead Pastor. The capital staff includes Andres Ostria as Young Adults Director; Sean Hart as Single Adult and Losing to Live Administrator; Bakary and Crystal Coulibaly as Children and Family Directors; Allen Boichot as IT Manager and Videographer; Fernando Quezada as Facilities Management and Sound Engineer; Ola Kabazzi as Financial Administrator; and Bryna Parquette as Outreach Director, Guest Services, and Pastoral Support. James Raeford leads the weekly Zoom prayer meeting.
Joining the Capital Family
Capital's Growth Track outlines a clear path for newcomers: Belong through baptism and membership classes, Connect through a small group, Serve by joining a ministry team, Bring friends and family to church, and Worship through weekly attendance. Visitors who want to plan a first visit can fill out an online form, and a team member will meet them at the welcome desk, help with child check-in, give a tour, and introduce them to a few friendly faces. The church can be reached by phone at (703) 560-3109 or by email at wecare@capitalbaptist.org. Online giving is available, and sermons can be watched live each Sunday morning and on demand afterward through the church's livestream and sermon archive.