Celebrating 30 years of God’s faithfulness 1996 - 2026
700 M St SE Washington, DC 20003
national.cc
On January 14, 1996, a core group of 19 people gathered at a DC public school.
They called themselves National Community Church. At the time, “National” was a misnomer. They didn’t have much money or many people.
And they’d be the first to admit they didn’t really know what they were doing.
But they dreamed big dreams.
And they prayed bold prayers.
The Kingdom of God grows at the speed of a seed. It has to take root before it can bear fruit. It grows gradually . . . then suddenly.
Three decades later, God has done immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine.
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
Everyone needs somebody who believes in them more than they believe in themselves.
Every dream has a genealogy. All of us stand on the shoulders of those who had the courage to dream.
We are the beneficiaries of sacrifices we cannot imagine and risks we cannot calculate. We live in cities we did not build. We drink from wells we did not dig. We harvest fields we did not plant. Why? Because people long, long ago wound the clock with their faith, hope, and love.
Bob and Karen Schmidgall and Dick and Ruth Foth are the dreamers, the mentors, who blazed the trail for National Community Church.
In the mid-1960s, Dick and Ruth Foth planted a church near the University of Illinois in Urbana. During the same time, Bob and Karen Schmidgall planted a church in Naperville, Illinois.
Bob and Karen Schmidgall are the spiritual parents of Pastor Mark Batterson, and the spiritual and natural parents of Lora Batterson, Pastor Joel Schmidgall, and Pastor Robb Schmidgall. Says Pastor Mark, “My father-in-law, Bob Schmidgall, planted and pastored Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, for thirty-one years. I had a front-row seat to watch long obedience in the same direction. I saw what God could do if you plant yourself in one place and let your roots grow deep. His dream planted a seed in my spirit, three levels down.”
Dick and Ruth Foth became lifelong mentors and friends of National Community Church.
“Right before Lora and I chased a lion to Washington, DC, in 1994, Dick and Ruth Foth relocated to the nation’s capital to work behind the scenes with the who’s who of Washington in embassies, at the Pentagon, and in the halls of Congress. The Foths not only invited Lora and me over for dinner our first Thanksgiving in DC, but they treated us like family. In fact, Dick Foth has been my spiritual father for the past thirty years. His influence on my life is incalculable.”
All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
-Edgar Allen Poe
Bob & Karen Schmidgall
Pastor Mark and Lora with Dick and Ruth Foth
AUGUST 19, 1989: THE CALL
“I had just finished my freshman year at the University of Chicago. Law school was Plan A, but that was before I asked God a dangerous question: What do You want me to do with my life? Of course, it’s far more dangerous not to ask Him that question!
“In retrospect, I’ve dubbed that summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college my ‘summer of seeking.’ For the first time in my life, I got serious about getting up early in the morning to pray. I was desperate to hear His voice, and maybe that’s why I finally did.
“At the end of the summer, our family was vacationing at Lake Ida in Alexandria, Minnesota. I decided to do a long prayer walk. At one point I went of road through a cow pasture. As I meandered my way around cow patties, I heard what I would describe as the inaudible yet unmistakable voice of God. In that moment at that place, I
Cow Pasture near Lake Ida • Alexandria, Minnesota
Show me the size of your dream, and I’ll show you the size of your God.
knew that God was calling me into full-time ministry. That one whisper prompted me to give up a full-ride scholarship at the University of Chicago and transfer to Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. That move made no academic sense whatsoever and was second-guessed by more than a few people in my life, but that’s often the way His whisper works. Nothing has the potential to change your life like the whisper of God. Nothing will determine your destiny more than your ability to hear His still small voice.”
Pastor Mark Batterson
After graduating from Central Bible College, Mark and Lora Batterson attempted to plant a church in the Chicago area. That plant failed. They weren’t sure what to do next or where to go, but God opened a door of opportunity in Washington, DC.
JANUARY 7, 1996: BEGINNINGS
God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.
On January 7, 1996, a blizzard left two feet of snow in the DC area. Only three people showed up at that first church service at the Giddings School near the Capitol building in Southeast DC: Pastor Mark, Lora, and their newborn son, Parker. The next Sunday, January 14, nineteen people showed up to worship. National Community Church was of and running.
Forty-three people gathered for their first Easter Sunday service. The fledgling church community worked
like it depended on them, and prayed like it depended on God. It took three years for them to become self-supporting, and five years to grow to 250.
Just nine months after they began worshiping there, Giddings school was closed due to fire code violations—efective immediately.
Says Pastor Mark, “With an average attendance of 25, we didn’t feel like a church yet, and we were about to become a homeless church.”
“Do not despise the day of small beginnings.”
–Zechariah
4:10
THE EARLY DAYS
They took God seriously. Themselves, not so much.
From the get-go, NCCers were serious about a theology of FUN.
This group of mostly young adults were far from family, and they were becoming family to each other. They worshiped, prayed, served, and also held variety shows and made spoof videos, just for fun.
With a heart for their community, they formed the Crew, serving together in their neighborhoods. Pastor Joel Schmidgall remembers, “We did cleanups for local businesses and painted houses for single moms. We looked for places to serve, then just jumped in.”
What they didn’t have in resources, they made up for with energy and creativity. “In those days, we were just hustling, high-energy. We were having fun in our city with our friends,” says Pastor Joel. He adds, “We had lots of ideas and lots of leeway for experiments.”
Pastor Heather Zempel remembers, “We just . . . started things.” She adds, “We’d say, if God gave you a vision to do something, GO FOR IT! This attitude became part of our DNA and was the genesis of our free market groups system. We had so many creative people with great ideas, and we wanted to set them loose to make those ideas a reality.”
Other churches in the city observed the young church with varying levels of enthusiasm and bemusement. Says Pastor Joel, “We were kind of unique from the beginning, with Hill stafers worshiping next to people experiencing homelessness.”
National Community Church was 85% single twentysomethings, and they met in movie theaters. At the time, hardly anyone was doing that, and some people didn’t know exactly what to make of it. Says Pastor Mark, “Little did we know that, over the next two decades, we would help 300+ churches plant and launch multisite campuses in movie theaters.”
AUGUST
16, 1996: THE PRAYER WALK
“On a hot August day, I felt prompted to pray a circle around Capitol Hill.”
“It was inspired by the promise in Joshua 1:3: ‘I will give you everywhere you set your foot.’ I felt that God wanted me to stake claim to the land He had called us to and pray a perimeter all around Capitol Hill.
“During that prayer walk, I drew circles around things I didn’t even know how to ask for. Without even knowing it, I drew prayer circles around people who would one day come to faith in Jesus Christ at our cofeehouse on Capitol Hill that wasn’t even an idea yet. Without even knowing it, I walked right by a piece of property at 8th Street and Virginia Avenue SE that we would purchase thirteen years later as a result of a $3 million gift that wasn’t even a prayer yet. Without even knowing it, I walked right under a theater marquee on
Barracks Row, the main street of Capitol Hill, that we would renovate and reopen as a church location and movie theater fifteen years later. Those answers are a testament to the power of God and a reminder that if you draw prayer circles, God will answer those prayers somehow, someway, sometime. God has been answering that prayer for almost 30 years now, and He’ll keep answering it forever.”
–Pastor Mark Batterson
CHURCH
AT UNION STATION
We found our new home—complete with sticky floors, spilled popcorn, and even a few misplaced moviegoers: the movie theaters at Union Station.
Few churches could claim their building welcomed 25 million visitors each year, had its own bus and metro stops, train station, shopping mall, food court, and parking garage.
We attracted a wide variety of people as we were located four blocks from the Capitol and four blocks from the largest homeless shelter in the city.
Several years later, we experienced our biggest jump in attendance when The Washington Post ran a front page article on NCC. People from all over the city
began finding us at Union Station. We added additional services, but still had vision to reach more people in the DC metropolitan area. Our attendance doubled in one year.
On September 21, 2003, we launched our second location in the Ballston Common Mall movie theaters just over the river in Northern Virginia. That began our journey as a multi-site church, meeting in movie theaters across DC and Northern Virginia.
On October 5, 2009, we got a phone call that the Union Station movie theaters would be closing immediately. Our three Sunday services at Union Station had nowhere to go, so we crammed into the performance level of Ebenezers for what we hoped would be a temporary solution. Over the next few years we launched our fifth and sixth locations at movie theaters in Northern Virginia and around DC.
We came up with all kinds of creative solutions for doing kids church in theaters. (That’s a young Josiah Batterson smiling at the camera.)
Watch NCC’s farewell to the Union Station movie theaters
ON MISSION FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
On September 1, 1996, NCC wrote a $50 check for missions. It was money we didn’t have, but it proved to be a tipping point.
The following month, our giving tripled as a church. This led to one of our core convictions: God will bless us in proportion to how we care for the poor in our city and how we give to missions.
In 1997, NCC numbered less than 100 people but we impacted 5,000 people through our first outreach partnership with Convoy of Hope. In 2008, NCC
spearheaded a second Convoy of Hope outreach at RFK Stadium.
That efort brought together 80+ churches and ministries to serve the city shoulder-to-shoulder. More than 10,000 people were served and cared for.
That was when Pastor Mark asked a fateful question: “What if we did this EVERY DAY?” That “what if” birthed
the vision for the DC Dream Center. Almost exactly ten years later, DC Dream Center opened its doors.
Our very first global partner trip was to Jamaica Teen Challenge in 2001. Pastor Robb remembers, “While we were serving there, a man named Anthony Richards was a client in recovery. He had recently been introduced to Jesus. His life was being transformed.
“As we were praying over him, one of our NCC team said, ‘I feel in my spirit that you will be the leader of this Teen Challenge one day.’”
Anthony Richards, healed and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, was appointed director of Jamaica Teen Challenge in 2008 and still serves in that capacity today.
Some of our missions partnerships predate us. The roots of our relationship with Beza International Church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for example, began long before there was an NCC. Pastor Bob and Karen Schmidgall met Betta Mengistu in the 1970s. That friendship continued into a new generation as Betta Mengistu’s son, Zeb, started Beza Church. NCC continues to send mission teams to partner with Beza today.
Our heart for those experiencing homelessness in our city has been evident since our beginnings as well. In our early days, what is now our InService ministry started with a couple taking bag lunches to the community around Union Station. Soon after, we began hosting The Living Room, where we serve a hot meal and host a community Bible study in the lower level of Ebenezers Cofeehouse and continue to do so today.
NCC now has four vibrant home-grown compassion ministries and more than 100 missions partners around the world.
NCC has sent out and supports nearly 50 missionaries who are sons and daughters of this house. These NCCers discerned a call to missions, and we joyfully send them out to use their unique gifts to transform communities for the sake of the gospel.
TODAY NCC has gone on more than 300 mission trips and given more than $30 million to missions.
NCCERS: WE’RE BETTER TOGETHER
“Unity among dissimilar people serves the purpose of being INDISPUTABLE PROOF that God is in the house.”
-NCCer David Grizzle
People come to DC from all over the country with a vision to change the world. And the cornerstone of that vision for NCCers is their faith in the transforming work of Jesus Christ.
We want to give NCCers the opportunity to change the world, not just through their chosen career, but empowered by their church. Says Pastor Heather Zempel, the original architect of NCC’s discipleship model, “We wanted people to look at their passions, their circle of influence, their interests, and leverage those organically to build community and make disciples.” This gave rise to our highly successful and gorgeously diverse system of “free market” groups, as well as our home-grown compassion ministries.
Says Pastor Heather, “The whole idea driving us was a deep belief that everyone is called to make disciples, but how we made disciples was as unique as each individual. We wanted people to get a vision from God and run with it. Many churches built small group models and say, ‘We have built a model for creating community and making disciples; come serve our model by leading one of these groups.’ We wanted to flip that.
‘Come tell us how God has uniquely designed you to create community and make disciples and we will serve you by equipping you and empowering you to go do that.’”
As Christianity Today said of NCC in 2005, “In many churches, the common denominator is social and economic status, but not at National Community Church. A congressional stafer may sit at worship next to a homeless person. The unifying factor is people with passion for creating a new culture.”
One of our four core convictions is that the church ought to be the most diverse place on the planet.
As Pastor Mark often says, “There never has been and never will be anyone like you. That isn’t a testament to you, it’s a testament to the God who created you. No one can worship God like you or for you, but we are better together! God has called us to become a beloved community–one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all.”
We are multicultural and multiethnic.
We are Republican, Democrat, Independent.
We are rich and poor, and in between.
We are as diferent as diferent can be, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Our diversity is an expression of God’s creativity. It’s evidence of a God who made us absolutely unique. It’s evidence that something is happening here that goes beyond political ideology, beyond ethnic identity, beyond cultural afnity.
Some of our More Memorable
NCC Group Names
Fantasy Baseball Women in Agricultural Policy
Ballroom Dance
Martial Arts
ESL Teachers
Enter His (Tennis) Courts
Bike DC
NCC Runners
Running With Perseverance
NCC Outdoors
Intelligence Community Freshmen of the City
For Such a Time As This
AI and the Church
Inklings (the longest-running NCC group, reading the works of C. S. Lewis and his contemporaries)
TODAY NCC ofers more than 100 groups every semester.
BLESS THE GENERATIONS
We are committed to raising up the next generation of believers.
NCC Kids
In the early years of NCC, there were few families on Capitol Hill, so there were few family-friendly activities. Compelled for our church to do something generous to love families, Joel Schmidgall and Nina Krig launched the first ever Easter EGGstravanganza in 2002. For many years, NCC was known as the church that “does that big egg hunt.” This commitment to extravagantly bless families continues now through Christmas Village.
“Church in the middle of the marketplace is a great way to reach people who might not otherwise consider coming to a church,” says Pastor Nina Schmidgall. “It also meant that we had to get extra-creative to make kids church happen during those early years. Kids worship happened on movie screens, playspaces were created in theater hallways, and we even used a giant parachute that was laid at the end of the theater hall to provide a sanitized space for babies. Those were the years of Crosswalk Kids, complete with our own mascot, the Crosswalk Dog!”
Whether we were on a sheet in a movie theater hallway, a back room of a dance club, or now in our spacious, permanent, state-of-the-art kids spaces, we still teach the same timeless Bible truths to the next generation.
NCC’s first EGGstravanganza at Lincoln Park in 2002
It is our desire that each child who is a part of NCC Kids will grow to be a fully devoted follower of Christ with a passion for His Word, excitement about his church, and a commitment to serving His people.
NCC YTH
This year, we celebrate 20 years of youth ministry at NCC, which started with a small group of students. Look at what the LORD has done! Today, more than 100 students participate each week in NCC YTH. Dozens come to a Thursday night Bible study and a core group of student leaders lead and encourage their peers. We believe our students are the church now, and they are boldly living into that vision, as God writes a greater story than we could ever imagine through this next generation.
TODAY
NCC Kids has an average weekly attendance of 367.
NCC YTH has an average weekly attendance of more than 100.
MARCH 15, 2006: EBENEZERS COFFEEHOUSE
Jesus didn’t just hang out in synagogues.
He ministered at wells—the natural gathering places for the community.
Ebenezers Cofeehouse is a postmodern well that has served its neighbors, nearby businesses, our friends experiencing homelessness, and members of Congress alike.
So in retrospect, it’s no surprise that the Holy Spirit inspired us to build a cofeehouse. Now, we had no business going into the cofeehouse business. We barely had any people or any money, but that’s a great
prescription for prayer. And we prayed hard for nearly eight years. Pastor Mark says, “I lost count of how many circles we prayed around that old crack house.”
Originally, the two lawyers who owned 201 F Street NE wanted $1 million for the crack house because of its location: just one block from Union Station and kitty-corner to the largest ofce building in DC, which is home to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We couldn’t touch $1 million, so we prayed, and the harder we prayed the more the price dropped. We ultimately purchased the property for $325,000, but that was less of a miracle than the fact that four people ofered more money for the property than we did. So how did we get it? The only explanation is that we circled Matthew 18:18. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.”
So the dream of creating a postmodern well where our church and community could cross paths was born, and that dream is fulfilled hundreds of times every day with each customer who walks through our doors. Ebenezers Cofeehouse has been voted the #1 cofeehouse in the metro DC area. The performance space doubled as one of our seven church campuses for a long time. And to top it of, every penny of our sixdigit net profit goes to local community projects and our humanitarian eforts around the world.
Says Pastor Mark, “In retrospect, I’m glad the cofeehouse took eight years of hard prayer because it stretched our faith in the process. When you have to pray that long, you aren’t even tempted to take it for granted. This may sound commonsensical, but if it hadn’t taken a miracle, it wouldn’t be a miracle.”
Ebenezers gave birth to another of our core convictions: the church ought to be in the middle of the marketplace.
TODAY: Voted the #1 cofeehouse in DC on multiple occasions, Ebenezers has served as a third place where church and community cross paths.
We worshiped in Ebenezers Lower Level after the theater at Union Station closed.
NCC WORSHIP
When we worship, strongholds break, faith rises, and the atmosphere shifts.
Praise lifts the ceiling because God inhabits the praises of His people.
For more than three decades, National Community Church has lifted the name of Jesus in every kind of space across the D.C. metro area. From school cafeterias and cofee shops to movie theaters, nightclubs, performance venues, and even congressional conference rooms, worship at NCC has never been confined to a building—only fueled by a calling.
NCC Worship has also carried a significant call to songwriting. In 2011, we recorded our first live album, The God Anthology, followed by projects like You Alone and our most recent live record, The Jesus Way. Through each season, God has been faithful to give our community a unique sound—songs
formed in prayer, forged in our house, and written to serve the church.
And we believe He’s not done.
The songs rising from NCC today reflect a fresh move of the Spirit, and we are more expectant than ever for what God is birthing in and through our worshiping community.
NCC Worship exists to spark revival—creating prophetic, Spirit-filled spaces where people encounter Jesus, awaken to their calling, and carry His kingdom into every corner of the world.
Revival starts with one surrendered life: yours.
In our earliest days, we were all on the worship team. Now, there are 70+ members of NCC Worship and Production. They not only lead worship weekly at Sunday services and House of Prayer, but go on the road, guiding people in praise to God everywhere from a refugee camp in Greece to the Washington Nationals baseball stadium to the Lincoln Memorial.
TODAY NCC Worship’s original songs boast more than 85,000 listeners and 257,000 streams.
We met in movie theaters, where the screens functioned as modern-day stained glass, using pictures to tell the gospel story.
Our “theaterchurch” years included as campuses at Regal movie theaters and a sportsplex in Northern Virginia, and in DC at several theaters and a school. These rich years planted us firmly in the middle of the marketplace and enabled us to hold church in rented spaces already equipped with a stage, big screen, and sound equipment. It was an ideal setup for that time in the life of our church.
Our theater locations functioned as modern-day stained glass, similar
to how medieval churches used pictures to tell the gospel story. We fully embraced our theaterchurch years in DC and Virginia, attracting people from all over the DMV to church “at a theater near you.”
NCC campuses each had their own campus pastor, kids ministry, and live worship band. They benefited from weekly teachings on the big screen and were fully immersed in NCC’s DNA through their own local groups, ministry, and mission.
“What more accessible and visible location could we want?” says Pastor Mark. “I can’t imagine a better place to reach the unchurched and dechurched in D.C.”
Meeting in theaters removed an obstacle to anyone intimidated or threatened by a church building.
The absence of a church building in that season really fueled our reach, creativity, and flexibility. We served local schools and neighborhoods, and built relationships with theater and nightclub managers.
We became nimble and portable, setting up and tearing down church and kids ministry every week.
NCC HAS MADE CHURCH IN SPACES ALL OVER THE COMMUNITY:
Giddings School • Union Station
Ballston Common Mall • Club Nation
Barracks Row • Lincoln Theatre
Ebenezers Cofeehouse • Echostage
Gainesville Regal Theatre • Gala
Theatre • Georgetown Visitation School
Georgetown AMC Theatre • Kingstowne
Lincoln Theatre • Potomac Yard
The St. James Sportsplex • Waterford
Events Center
TODAY NCC’s vision has evolved. God is now calling us to do more things without our name on them. So far, we have launched 11 independent churches and sent out more than 50 homegrown missionaries from this house.
MIRACLE THEATRE
“At the time, I thought the vision was for us. Now I know it was for you.”
The People’s Church was founded in 1963. Their home was in the oldest movie theater in Washington: the turnof-the-century Meader Theater on Barracks Row. Rev. Michael Hall, son of the founding pastor, led the church for decades until the 1990s, when the majority of the congregation had migrated to the suburbs.
Pastor Hall had considered selling at one point, even looking at an ofer from a nightclub. But the People’s Church believed that the building would always be used for God’s purposes. Knowing their situation, we prayerfully asked Pastor Hall if we could make an ofer to buy the theater. That led to
a double miracle that answered prayers for both our congregations.
Pastor Hall would later share a vision he had of young people filling the building and praising God. “At the time,” he said, “I thought the vision was for us. Now I know it was for you.”
The Miracle Theatre became NCC’s Barracks Row location, bursting at the seams with four services every weekend.
Our intention was to fully honor the building’s legacy as a place of worship— but also to honor its historic legacy in the city. Renaming “The Miracle Theatre,” we engaged in a multimillion dollar restoration project, restoring the opulent red velvet seats and all the gold, gilt, and glitz of the theater’s heyday.
We also installed updated sound and lighting— ideal for movies, but also for church services.
After a decade as an NCC church location, The Miracle Theatre now operates as a repertory movie theater, including family programming, community events, and specialty film screenings.
The Miracle Theatre also serves as a home for multiple church plants while they seek a permanent location.
Reverend Michael and Terry Hall with Pastor Mark and Lora
MOUNTAINS MOVE
What’s the boldest prayer you’ve ever prayed? God honors bold prayers because bold prayers honor God.
Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).
That has been our experience over, and over, and over again at National Community Church.
Prayer is our greatest responsibility and highest privilege. At NCC, we pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. We pray in the will of God and to the glory of God. We pray the scriptures, and we “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Eph. 6:18). We dream big and pray hard—and we have witnessed God’s miracles in our own lives and in our city!
We have so many stories of God moving mountains in this house. Here’s a testimony from Pastor Mark:
“I sufered from severe asthma for four decades. There weren’t forty days in forty years that I didn’t take multiple pufs of a rescue inhaler. I slept with it under my pillow and played basketball with it in my sock. I prayed hundreds of times that God would heal my lungs, but it didn’t happen. Until it did. For some reason that is beyond my pay grade, God answered my prayer on July 2, 2016. I haven’t taken a puf of an inhaler since.”
Excerpt from A Million Little Miracles
The corner inside Miracle Theatre where God healed Pastor Mark’s asthma on July 2, 2016
YOU ARE ONLY ONE PRAYER AWAY FROM A DREAM FULFILLED, A PROMISE KEPT, OR A MIRACLE PERFORMED.
God isn’t ofended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is ofended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don’t require divine intervention. . . . There is nothing God loves more than keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams. That is who He is. That is what He does. And the bigger the circle we draw, the better, because God gets more glory.
I promise you this: God is ready and waiting. . . . you are only one prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed. It is absolutely imperative at the outset that you come to terms with this simple yet life-changing truth: God is for you. If you don’t believe that, then you’ll pray small timid prayers; if you do believe it, then you’ll pray big audacious prayers. . . . Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life.
Excerpt from The Circle Maker
God has made us a House of Miracles. We steward our miracles by believing God for even bigger and better miracles.
• Physical healings
• People returning to faith
• Decisions for life
• Real estate miracles
• Healing from cancer
• Cycles of generational sin broken
• Marriages restored
• Miracle babies after seasons of infertility
• Mental and emotional breakthroughs
• Addictions broken
• Supernatural financial provision
• Divine callings into ministry
• Dreams for the future fulfilled
Let us know about your miracle. Use the “Share your Story” button on the NCC app.
Watch Pastor Mark’s testimony
CORE CONVICTIONS
If you stay humble and stay hungry, there isn’t anything God can’t do in you and through you.
1The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.
We want to be more known for what we’re for than what we’re against. The church is called to criticize by creating. We believe that the people of God should tell better stories, produce better movies, write better books, compose better music, start better businesses, draft better legislation. How? With the help of the Holy Spirit.
2
The church ought to be the most diverse place on the planet. There never has been and never will be anyone like you. That isn’t a testament to you, it’s a testament to the God who created you. No one can worship God like you or for you, but we are better together! God has called us to become a beloved community–one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all.
3 4
The church belongs in the middle of the marketplace.
A church that stays within its four walls isn’t a church at all. We aren’t just trying to build a church, we’re trying to bless our city to the third and fourth generation. God has planted us at a crossroads of politics, commerce, and influence—just like Paul at the Areopagus in Athens. God has positioned us and called us to shine his light and to be his representatives at the heart of the nation’s capital.
God will bless our church in proportion to how we give to missions and care for the poor in our city.
A church is not measured by its seating capacity, but rather by its sending capacity. Missions is our heartbeat at NCC—we have taken more than 300 mission trips and given more than $30 million to missions. The mission field is wherever we live, wherever we work, wherever we go. We are on mission every day, in every way.
On August 23, 2017, a years-long dream came to fruition.
DC Dream Center’s history goes back three decades to the founding of the Southeast White House by Sammie Morrison and Scott Dimock. These two DC residents, one black, one white, had a passion for racial unity. These two friends established regular reconciliation events, mentoring, and family support programs that DCDC continues today.
In 2010, Morrison and Dimock, both in their seventies, bequeathed their vision, ministry, and the Southeast White House building to National Community Church. Led by Pastor Joel Schmidgall, NCCers worked together
with community members to dream dreams and raise funds for this new community center. A nearby abandoned apartment building on Q St. was razed in 2016 and the new DC Dream Center was built and Executive Director Ernest Clover took the helm.
DCDC now encompasses a spectrum of programs from lowbarrier after-school activities and tutoring, to programs that ofer deeper engagement such as oneon-one mentoring. They serve the needs of Wards 7 and 8 through a holistic approach, caring for the
DC DREAM CENTER
mind, body, and spirit of individuals and communities. One person at a time, the DC Dream Center inspires youth and adults to dare to dream, equipping them to live life, and live it to the full.
DCDC is a true community partner, working with Howard University on ending opioid addiction, with the Community Service Agency Building Futures Program, DC City government, and others. During the pandemic, the Center repurposed to give out more than one million pounds of food and more than 64,000 free meals. Now entering its ninth year, DCDC continues to grow as an incubator for hope to become habit.
National Community Church, the DC community, and Mayor Muriel Bowser gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the DC Dream Center on August 23, 2017.
The Southeast White House
CAPITAL TURNAROUND
On August 16, 2014, God gave us a castle on Capitol Hill.
We did not have a category for this $29.3 million dollar building the size of a city block. It sits on the corner of 8th and M Sts. SE, exactly where God led Pastor Mark on that 4.7 mile prayer walk in 1996.
It was a real estate miracle. An investment firm ofered cash for the building, but we won the contract. And the generosity of NCCers helped make it a reality.
We signed that contract exactly 18 years—to the day—of that prayer walk.
The Romanesque Revival building now known as Capital Turnaround was built in 1891 to serve as the Navy Yard Car Barn, the last stop on the red line. Streetcars were repaired, rerouted, turned around, and sent back out across DC. The building supported the DC mass transit system until January
28, 1962, when the last streetcar making its final run on Route 54 pulled into the Navy Yard Car Barn.
After 1962, various entities rented the aging facility. Some time in the 1980s, the entire thing was painted bright blue, earning the moniker The Blue Castle.
When we purchased it, the building was still bluer than blue on the outside. And inside, it was carved up into a labyrinth of narrow hallways and small classrooms. We deconstructed all the way down to the original columns; then we reconstructed our vision in phases. We renamed it Capital Turnaround: a nod to its historic past and a prophetic statement over its future as a place where God turns around lives.
We removed all the blue paint from the exterior to restore the original brick. Our auditorium, which seats a thousand people, was the garage where mechanics fixed streetcars. We held our first worship service in the newly-renovated Capital Turnaround on June 30, 2019.
Besides worship and spacious kids ministry space, we’ve turned the historic car barn into a gorgeous industrial-chic event venue with a variety of spaces for hosting retreats, corporate meetings, conferences, weddings, parties and other social events.
Phase 2 completed a state-of-the-art child care center to answer the call of city ofcials for additional child care facilities in the city. The final phase will include an Ebenezers Cofeehouse and Roastery, and an open hall marketplace where incubators of new ideas can launch and grow their dreams.
Watch the story of Capital Turnaround
ONLINE AND AROUND THE WORLD
The pandemic prevented us from gathering in person for 13 months–so we had a digital diaspora. Now we reach more than 2,000 people online every week.
In March 2020—just nine months after our first worship service at Capital Turnaround—the city suspended all in-person gatherings when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. In the space of a week, we set up online church. Within a month, we had fully implemented Life Church’s interactive online church platform, live. national.cc, complete with online chat and live prayer teams. Our pastors, Worship Team, Production Team, and Creative Team showed up faithfully to broadcast a weekly worship experience in an empty auditorium. We printed out head shots of NCCers and taped them to the seats so we could see your beautiful faces.
More than 200 NCCers gathered weekly for an online prayer meeting we called Upper Zoom (which is still going on–join us Wednesdays at 7:14am).
DC Dream Center immediately retooled to become a major hub of food distribution for the city, serving more than 100 hot meals a day. NCC Missions and Ebenezers Cofeehouse began serving hot meals to our friends experiencing homelessness. NCC Kids provided a wealth of online discipleship resources for families, and NCC YTH ministered on Instagram Live.
What could have been a disaster became a diaspora. Our ability to encourage and equip believers, and our reach to share the good news, increased immeasurably more than all we could have asked or imagined.
Today, several hundred people around the world call NCC their church home. Pastor Robb Schmidgall pastors two online live Sunday services every week, and has online small groups, online prayer teams, and semi-annual inperson gatherings. We minister to people in more than 50 countries. TODAY
4,521,507 views on YouTube*
503,803 hours viewed on YouTube*
241,981
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SERMON SERIES
The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.
Our desire to preach the gospel in the most compelling and creative way possible is what is behind our sermon series planning. Each series is a season of discipleship. Each is original and unique to NCC. We plan an annual “diet” of Bible teaching and discipleship based on the pastoral discernment of our teaching team. Then our Weekend Planning Team, Teaching Team,
Discipleship Team, and NCC Creative Team go to work, creating memorable themes, stunning visuals, and study guides to give NCCers a “handle” on which to study scripture and grow as followers of Jesus.
From God at the Box Ofce to Elephant in the Church to Long Story Short, Mountains Move, and Gradually Then Suddenly, NCCers need only look at a visual of a series to remember important biblical concepts—or to remember a pivotal work the Holy Spirit did in their lives during that particular series.
“If
my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
–2 Chronicles 7:14
HOUSE OF PRAYER
In August 2021, Pastor Mark was on a silent retreat. The Holy Spirit repeated Jesus’ words to him: “My house will be called a house of prayer.”
The Lord said, “Mark, if this church, National Community Church, is a House of Prayer—if you prioritize prayer, if organize around prayer—I’ll turn it into a house of HEALING, a house of MIRACLES, a house of DREAMS.”
“What do you do with a prompting like that?” says Pastor Mark. “You OBEY it.”
In 2022, we launched House of Prayer on Thursday nights. It sets the tone, sets the table, sets the pace for NCC. An average of 283 people gather every Thursday night at 7:14pm.
Missionaries and church planters pop in from out of town. Sister churches come by the busload to pray with us. We raise the roof in worship. We spend time at the foot of the cross and share communion. We pray for each other, and God brings healing, hope, and fresh vision.
The bottom line? Prayer is the way we write history before it happens. We continue to see God show up every week at House of Prayer.
“These that have turned the world upside down . . .” from Acts 17:6
These words were shouted in accusation by a mob in Thessalonika as they dragged Jason and other early followers of Jesus before city ofcials. They are also fitting words to describe our House of Prayer. We gather weekly to “turn the world upside down” through prayer and worship.
Our good friends Lead Pastor John Jenkins and First Lady Trina Jenkins, who lead First Baptist-Glenarden, brought a busload of their congregation to pray with us at House of Prayer.
ANCIENT PRACTICE, CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSION
We’re orthodox in belief, but unorthodox in practice.
We have always believed there were ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet. We met in movie theaters and cofeehouses, scripted and filmed trailers for sermon series, and passed a popcorn bucket to receive the ofering. Some called it innovative. Others simply acknowledged it was . . . unorthodox.
As the Proverbs teach, true wisdom has two sides. We still want to dream of new ways to contextualize the gospel for the unique culture of our generation, but we also found a desire to recreate ancient practices to ground our generation in a history longer than their own and a story larger than their making.
We recognized that movie screens were really just a modern-day expression of stained glass—a canvas on which we could tell the stories of faith with moving pictures to our generation. Standing on the shoulders of those who came before us meant stretching ourselves to find other modern wineskins for ancient practices. We began observing sacred seasons like Advent and Lent for intentional and heightened spiritual disciplines. We commemorated Good Friday with candlelight and sacred readings. We commissioned artists to create a Stations of
the Cross experience to invite NCCers into the age-old practice of reflection and prayer on Jesus’ final moments on the cross. In 2025, we hosted our first Ash Wednesday service. These practices ground us in an historic faith and connect us to a global cloud of witnesses that have gone before us. Through them, we can invite a disconnected and disenchanted culture to experience the mystery, transcendence, and beauty of Jesus.
–Pastor Heather Zempel
We have a calling as a church:
to BLESS.
WHAT NEW THINGS WILL GOD DO IN AND THROUGH US IN THE NEXT DECADE? HERE’S A SNAPSHOT OF WHERE WE ARE AS 2026 UNFOLDS.
Bless the LORD
1 2
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD” –Psalm 150:6
• Sunday worship gatherings, in person and online
• House of Prayer, Thursdays at 7:14pm
• Thousands attend our Christmas Eve services
• Easter Sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial • April 5, 2026
• Annual DREAM Revival
• Upper Zoom online prayer • Wednesdays, 7:14am
• Prayer Walks
• Artist in Residence program
• We’re making disciples who MAKE DISCIPLES
• We host 100+ small groups every semester
• In 2025, we launched Nova Community Church and Genesis Church
Bless the CITY
“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city. . .” –Jeremiah 29:7
• 10 local missions partners
• 4 homegrown missions initiatives
• Through the Dream Fund, we have given more than $1.5 million to church plants and missional ventures
• Our DC Dream Center ofers 60+ programs
• Common Fund
• Marketplace Expressions
• Renew Conference
• Capital Turnaround renovations continue this year with an expanded event venue and Ebenezers Cofeehouse second location.
• Culture House is open to the community for event rentals
3
Bless the NATIONS
“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation.” –Mark 16:15
• We’ll go on 21 missions trips this year.
• NCC has sent out and supports more than 50 missionaries who are sons and daughters of this house
• We partner with 93+ local and global missions organizations in 16 time zones
• We gave $4 million to missions in 2025.
• Online campus reaches 50+ countries
4
Bless the GENERATIONS
“Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord” –Psalm 102:18
• EGGstravanganza and Christmas Village: free family events
• Kids Ministry
• NCC Youth
• Youth missions initiatives
• Young Adult ministry
• Paul and Colleen Irwin have mentored more than 600 engaged couples in marriage prep
• Our Dream Fellows program celebrated 17 years this year. This year, we’ll graduate seven Dream Fellows into ministry and missional business ventures.
EASTER SUNRISE
It’s not about the name over the church door. It’s about the name above all names.
Easter Sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial started back in 1979 when Pastor Amos Dodge of Capital Church was prayer walking around the Lincoln Memorial and he heard a whisper of the Holy Spirit: “Host a sunrise service on Easter morning at the Lincoln Memorial.”
127 people showed up that day to proclaim He has risen to our city, our nation and ultimately our world. And that became a tradition, one of the most loved traditions in Washington, DC.
In fact, Washingtonian magazine listed it as one of the top 10 bucket list things that you should do when you’re in DC. Over the years, this event has grown from 120 people to literally thousands of people showing up on Easter morning to celebrate as the sun rises over the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol. It’s such a beloved event that even the National Park Rangers invite people to come to the Easter Sunrise service.
In 2022, Pastor Amos and Sue Dodge bestowed this sacred trust on National Community Church. We’re honored and humbled to be able to carry on the tradition of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on the National Mall. It’s one of the largest Easter services in the country and attracts people from around the world. More than that: it’s an assignment from the Holy Spirit, a sacred trust to bless our city.
“Do more things without your name on them.”
On its 26th birthday in 2022, National Community Church launched the Dream Collective so that we could turn outward and seed the dreams of the next generation.
The Dream Collective is an incubator of God-given ideas and dreams. We serve church leaders, pastors, entrepreneurs, and artists by helping them turn their visions into tangible realities.
We do this through gatherings that inspire, networks that equip, and resources to implement.
A number of years ago we felt prompted to move from a multi-site model, launching NCC church locations
around the DC area, to a network model. We felt the Lord positioning us to move from addition to multiplication. We had felt a prompt from the Lord to do more things that don’t have our name on them. We wanted to position ourselves to plant and support churches and to advance kingdom initiatives such as redemptive businesses and creative endeavors. We wanted to ofer a birthright and a blessing.
DREAM COLLECTIVE
NCC NETWORK CHURCHES
Through the Dream Fund, we have given more than $1.5 million to church plants and missional ventures.
Says Pastor Nina Schmidgall, “We know that fulfilling God’s mission in our generation requires that we net gain 2,000 churches per year just to keep pace with the population growth. If we want to see God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, church planting is a key catalyst.”
Bridges Nashville Nashville, TN
Adonis & Heather Lenzy
Hopeville Baltimore, MD
Joshua & Ericka Symonette
New City Church Chicago, IL
Steve & Jessi Andres
New Season Community Church
Gainesville, VA
Rick & Nia Sarmiento
Cross Church
Cumming, Georgia
Josh & Monica Mayo
NoVA Community Church
Springfield, VA
Marion & Tamika Mason
Rise Church Chattanooga, TN
David & Missy Russell
Genesis Church
Bladensburg, MD
Sam & Lu Akin
The Hope Community Sacramento, CA
Caleb & Michelle Crenshaw
Tahoe Forest Church
Truckee, California
Terrence & Kate Sutton
Church at the Well Washington, DC
Jimeka Jones Setzer & Gene Setzer
TODAY
$458K given to church plants in 2025
$158K given to missional ventures/ nonprofits in 2025
$455,804 in-kind donations of rental space to missional partners
7 churches incubated in NCC properties
