Our Story
Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor
The School Days
On January 7, 1996, a blizzard left record amounts of snow on Washington, DC.
Only three people showed up our first Sunday: my wife, Lora, my son, Parker, and myself. Of course, the upside is that we experienced over six-hundred percent growth in one week when 19 people showed up the next Sunday!
During the first nine months of 1996, a core group of twenty-five people gathered for weekend services at Giddings School in southeast Washington, DC. That September, a voice-mail proved to be a defining moment for NCC.
I was retrieving messages during an out-of-town trip. In one message, the individual in charge of leasing DC public schools informed me that the school where we met was closing due to fire code violations—effective immediately!
NCC was on the verge of becoming a homeless church, but God opened an amazing door of opportunity.
Now Meeting at a Theater Near You
President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill of Congress allowing for the creation of Union Station on February 28, 1903. It simply stated: A bill of Congress to create a Union Station—and for other purposes. A century later, Union Station is serving God's purposes through the ministry of National Community Church. The church held its first public service in the movie theaters at Union Station on November 17, 1996.
Home to nearly 150 retail shops and restaurants, Union Station is strategically located four blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Twenty-five million visitors pass through the station each year, making Union the most visited landmark in DC. The station is also highly accessible: it has a Metro™ stop, train stop, bus stop, and parking garage. Nearly one-third of NCCers get to church via Metro™.
Our goal is to be a church for the unchurched so I can't imagine a more strategic spiritual beachhead than Union Station. Doing church in the middle of the marketplace is part of our spiritual DNA.
One Church. Multiple Locations.
The vision of National Community Church is to meet in movie theaters at Metro™ stops throughout the metro DC area. On September 21, 2003, NCC launched a second location in the movie theaters at Ballston Common Mall in Arlington, VA.
In the spring of 2006, NCC completed construction on Ebenezers, the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. Located one block from Union Station, the vision was to create a place where the church and community could cross paths. Ebenezers is a fully operational coffeehouse open seven days a week. It also doubles as NCC's third location. Saturday night services were launched on March 12, 2006.
The driving motivation behind building a coffeehouse was the fact that Jesus hung out at wells. They were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Ebenezers is a postmodern well.
NCC en Español at Ballston Common Mall launched on February 4, 2007. The following November, NCC opened a fourth location in the Loews Theaters in Georgetown.
Online and In Person
Small groups are the community in National Community Church.
More than seventy-five NCC small groups and ministries meet every day of the week around the metro DC area. Topics range from interest groups to Bible studies to blog groups. Small groups work on a semester system with new groups starting in February, June, and September of each calendar year.
As part of its expanding outreach, NCC launched its theaterchurch.com podcast in July of 2005. Today, the podcast is available in audio and video formats. Weekend messages are also available as an audio or video webcast.
Jesus told us to go into the highways and byways and compel people to come in. That's what we're trying to do. The message is sacred. The medium isn't. We want to use every tool at our disposal to share the good news.
Approximately 70% of NCCers come from an unchurched or dechurched background.
Along with dozens of ministries focused on meeting the needs of the church and DC, National Community Church also supports nearly one-hundred missionaries and ministries around the world. The sun never sets on NCC's missionary family.
There is nothing like being part of something that is bigger and more important than you are. I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone looking for a church home to become part of the next chapter God is writing at NCC.