The Executive Team
- Mark Batterson
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- Lead Pastor
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Mark was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Naperville, Illinois.
Mark went to the University of Chicago on scholarship playing basketball and majoring in pre-law. After a prayer walk through a cow pasture, he felt called to full time ministry and ended up at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. Thats the short story. Mark also has two masters degrees from Trinity International University. He is the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Wild Goose Chase and Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity.
Mark, and his wife Lora, moved to Washington, DC in 1994 to direct an inner-city ministry. He has served as Lead Pastor of National Community Church since 1996. Under his leadership, NCC has grown from a core group of 19 people to one church with ten services at six locations.
Mark and Lora live on Capitol Hill with their three children: Parker, Summer, and Josiah.
- Christina y Dairo Borja
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- Spanish Ministries Coordinator
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Christina is married to husband Dairo and has been on staff since January 2002. Dairo and Christina met in Cuenca, Ecuador while Christina was doing a year-long missions term. The rest, as they say, is history. They live on Capitol Hill, just a few blocks from Ebenezers Coffeehouse, and have two children, Giovanni (May 2007) and Cali (January 2009). Christina serves as our Chief Financial Officer and has done several different jobs over the years at NCC, including overseeing the construction of 201 F Street NE (coffeehouse, church offices, and meeting space for Saturday evening services and community events) and was our founding manager of Ebenezers Coffeehouse.
Dairo was born in Santa Marta, Colombia, but grew up in Bogotá. He and Christina have been happily married since December 2001. Dairo leads NCC Bilingual, our monthly service for Spanish speakers, and is one of our floor managers at Ebenezers. He and his wife feel a calling to minister to the Hispanic community in the DC metro area. He enjoys many different instruments: drums, bass, piano, guitar, and percussion and plays at our various locations on the weekends.
- Joel and Nina Schmidgall
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- Children's Ministry Coordinator
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Joel was born and raised in Naperville, Illinois. He is an unpaid marketer for all things Chicago, especially the Cubs, Malnotti’s pizza, and Portillo’s beef-and-cheddar!!!
He graduated from Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri with a BA in Biblical studies. He then spent a year working with the National Prayer Breakfast before joining the NCC team full time in 2000. Joel overseas all locations at the church as well as leading the Ballston site. He also gives leadership to the missions and outreach initiatives.
Joel & Nina were married in 2004 and have two little Cubs fans: Ella and Zeke. Favorite family traditions are music jam sessions, tickle time, and reading books over and over and over and over. They live on Capitol Hill and love this city!
- Heather Zempel
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- Discipleship Pastor
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Originally from Mobile, Alabama, Heather enjoys humid weather, SEC football, and fried dill pickles. She attended Louisiana State University (Geaux Tigers!) where she earned her B.S. and M.S. in biological engineering.
After leaving the swamps of Cajun country, Heather worked for two years as an environmental engineer for a consulting firm in Tennessee and spent 5 years as a legislative assistant on environment and energy policy for a United States Senator.
Now, she engineers environments to facilitate community and discipleship as she works with the small groups at NCC. Her blog, Wineskins for Discipleship, fuels discussion and innovative ideas for creatively discipling emerging generations. Heather is married to the multi-talented Ryan Zempel, and they live on Capitol Hill.
The Pastoral Team
- Amanda Giobbi
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- Poverty Pastor
Amanda is native to the Washington Metropolitan Area! She graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2006 (GO HOKIES!) and has been working in inner city ministry in Washington, DC since. She works as a professional “friend” mentoring seven young girls living in the inner city of Washington, D.C.. The program selects children in need of an advocate at age six and tracks them until graduation from college. She is a mentoring enthusiast and strives to help achieve social justice. As a result she was thrilled to come on board with NCC in 2010 to assist with their service ministries and to focus on the needs of the poor in Washington, D.C.
Amanda is passionate about justice, double dutch jump roping, acting, roller skating, knock-knock joke writing, dancing, arm wrestling, international travel with her mentees and, of course, Hokie football.
- Mike Godzwa
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- Campus Pastor, Georgetown
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A graduate of a Central Bible College in 1996, Mike completed his campus ministry internship @ Eastern Michigan University in the spring of 1998 and received his national appointment as a U.S. missionary that September. Mike and his wife Jen moved to DC in January of 1999 to join the newly established DC Chi Alpha Campus Ministry Team and direct of the chapter @ American University. Mike and Jen were ordained with the Assemblies of God in 2003 and took over directing the DC Chi Alpha Team in 2008.
Stepping into his new role as campus pastor for NCC’s Georgetown location is a dream come true. It gives Mike an opportunity to bring his love for the university campus and local church together and provides a chance to do ministry alongside his family which now includes 3 boys, Sam (7), Levi (5) and Nate (3)
Outside of ministry Mike enjoys watching Yankees’ baseball, playing guitar and running. He finished his 7th marathon in October of 2004.
- Paul Irwin
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- Pastor of Marriage and Counseling
Paul and Colleen Irwin have lived in Washington, DC since 2005. They’ve been married over twenty-nine years and have four young adult children: Justin, Brandon, Christine and Kent.
Paul lived in Egypt and Malawi in his childhood years. He has an abiding interest in Africa and the Middle East. With a background in Biblical studies, psychology and pastoral counseling, Paul has served as a university campus pastor, Bible college teacher, and in church leadership in diverse settings. His passion is to encourage and equip emerging servant leaders, those in DC and beyond. He also coaches interns and young adults in urban ministry. Paul loves to see people catch God’s heart for world missions outreach.
Paul currently serves his NCC church family with team initiatives to prepare couples for marriage, to strengthen marriages and to give guidance to those who need extra support.
Colleen is a registered nurse. She has a passion for single moms and fatherless kids, particularly from under-served families. She has worked alongside Paul in marriage and family classes and small groups. Together they have been involved with young-adults and married couples everywhere they have lived: California, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and DC.
- Chris Jarrell
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- Campus Pastor, Kingstowne
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Chris and Lora have been happily married since 1993 and live in Northern Virginia with their son, Torin, and their beagle Pebbles. They both enjoy a little healthy competition whether they are challenging each other in a 10k or their respective football teams are locked in battle.
Chris was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia and has a passion to serve in the Washington metropolitan area especially Northern Virginia community.
Chris is an avid fan of all Pittsburgh sports teams. “Steelers, baby!” Chris can also be found rocking it out in the office that he shares with two other dudes rocking it out with his headphones on to some face melting music. “Harder the music the better, I also love the beats of good hip hop.” Chris has also been known to play a mean game of Cornhole.
Chris and Lora have been in ministry since 1994. They have been serving at National Community Church since May of 2007. Chris’ unofficial tile is the Pastor of Cheers and Tears.
- Will Johnston
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- Small Group Catalyst
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A transplant from the Chicago ‘burbs, Will has lived in the DC area with his wife Rachel since 2006. In 2010 they added two members to their family: Charlie the cat and a leaky house.
Will graduated from Wheaton College with a BA in Theology in 2005 and worked on Capitol Hill for 2.5 years before coming on staff at NCC. Will works with small groups, and his short form job description is “git-r-done!” He’s responsible for recruiting leaders, promoting groups, and multi-campus strategy.
His unofficial office duties include dancing and serving as the front office communications director.
- Jenilee LeFors
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- Childrens' & Student Ministries Pastor
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Jenilee comes from the great state of Washington, Everett to be exact. Majoring in Political Science and History at Northwest University, she ended up following God’s leading and became a youth pastor at Bethany Christian Assembly before making the jump to the “other” Washington. Jenilee loves meeting new people, and going on new adventures!
- Matt Ortiz
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- Digital Pastor
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Matt comes to us from the state of Pennsylvania where he considers several towns home: Erie, Bedford and Philadelphia.
He graduated from Valley Forge Christian College with a degree in Pastoral Counseling but quickly found himself more involved in the IT field. After being an IT manager for a counseling firm for over 5 years he landed a dream job at The Travel Channel as their Sr. front-end web developer.
Still having a passion for God and His church, when Matt learned of an open position at NCC he quickly jumped on it. Now as our Digital Pastor Matt heads up all things web, IT and live production related.
Matt & Kellie were married in 2004 and have a fun and energetic household with three kids Ellie (6), Keaton (5) & Brianna (1)
Outside of work Matt can be found chasing after the kids, playing bass, building MORE websites, and watching Eagles football!
- Kurtis Parks
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- Campus Pastor, Potomac Yard & Worship Leader
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Kurtis has spent the last 4 years in Nashville, touring the country with his rock band The Season, and leading worship at camps, conferences, and churches. While on the road, he visited and led worship as a guest at NCC and felt an undeniable connection to the church, and to DC. Months later, Kurtis and his wife Sarah (who might be the most talented cook on the East Coast) moved to join the staff at NCC. They both have a heart for missions, and Kurtis writes songs to reach this generation, and bring Christ’s hope to the hopeless.
- Alan Pastian
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- Campus Pastor, Ballston & Ebenezers
- Dave Schmidgall
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- Campus Pastor, Gala
- Jeremy Sexton
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- Media Pastor
Jeremy graduated from Valley Forge Christian College in May of 2007. After having completed an internship with NCC in summer 2006, he was thrilled to have the opportunity to come back and serve on staff. In college, serving on a ministry team with some friends, he developed many of the skills and abilities with multimedia that he puts in practice every day as Media Pastor.
Originally from the Cleveland, OH area, Jeremy is one of those Buckeye fans as well as a bit obsessive over the Cavs, Browns, and Tribe. He also is a hobbyist magician and loves performing. To add to his list of strange interests, he is also an avid mixed martial arts fan and will never miss a Brock Lesnar fight.
The Support Team
- Sarah Bayot
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- Office Manager
A lover of travel, chubby babies, chow chows, and ‘So You Think You Can Dance,’ Sarah joined the NCC team in May of 2010. A reluctant “jersey girl,” Sarah moved to Washington DC in 2003 to attend school at George Washington University. Attending NCC since her first semester at GW, she always had a God-given inkling that this church would play a significant role in her life and now is thrilled to be part of the NCC family. Continuing on at GW and recently completing her Master’s in International Affairs & Development in 2009, she has a heart for humanitarian missions particularly working with organizations that aid orphans, refugees, and impoverished children. With wedding bells on the horizon in July of 2010, Sarah is excited to embark on a new life adventure in mawwiage to fellow NCCer, James Bayot. Fun fact: they are both hip-hop dancers and while they do not dance on their college team, Capital Funk, any longer - they will not hesitate to crazy horse or shake their groove thangs at any event.
- Jennifer Connell
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- Assistant to the Lead Pastor
- Melissa Cummins
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- Finance Team
Melissa spent the first 22 years of her life in Kansas, learning to love KU basketball and flat skylines. After studying social welfare and Spanish (and watching dozens of home basketball games), she graduated from the University of Kansas. Melissa moved to DC for a two-year placement with Teach for America in the DC Public Schools that soon turned into an eight year teaching career. While in DC, Melissa met her husband, Dan, and they now have a son, Eli. After Eli was born, Melissa decided to put away the chalk and joined the NCC staff part-time in June of 2009. She has been attending NCC since 2002.
- Chris Douglas
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- Worship Leader
- Tiffany Dukes
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- Executive Assistant
- Diana Fang
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- Music & Arts Assistant
Having lived in various cities, Diana considers Brooklyn, NY to be her “hometown”. She graduated from Adelphi University with a double Bachelors in Business Management and Music Performance. She is currently studying at American University, getting her Master’s in Arts Management.
After having completed an internship (via American U) with NCC, she is thrilled to have the opportunity to serve on staff with the proteges. Diana has a passion for making the Church a welcoming place for those in the arts field. Her favorite cuisine is Asian (seriously, all types) and can often be found eating weird snacks in the office because of it. She does not have a favorite sports team (much to the staff’s dismay), but will root for NY teams if it comes down to it.
- John Hasler
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- Assistant Discipleship Pastor
A proud Midwesterner, John grew up in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago and spent his summers with family on the other side of ‘the lake’ in Sister Lakes, Michigan. He received his B.A. in International Economics and Cultural Affairs and German from Valparaiso University in Indiana.
Combining an undergraduate exchange program, a Fulbright Scholarship, numerous internships, and a Masters Degree program in European Studies, John spent four years living in Germany. In addition to his academic studies there, he worked with campus ministry in Berlin and completed a Discipleship Training School with Steiger International in Karlsruhe.
His tenure at NCC started in a volunteer capacity in 2004, where he helped create NCC’s In Service homeless ministry. Over the years he has been instrumental in cultivating small groups that focus on social justice. After interning with Heather Zempel in 2007, John joined the staff in early 2008. Officially part of “Team D” (Discipleship) John has his hand in any and all things involving social justice and community building, while bringing his unique passion and international experience to the team.
- Juliet Main
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- Events Manager
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Juliet joined the NCC Team in 2006 as the Buzz Coordinator and the Events Manager at Ebenezers Coffeehouse.
Originally from Belle Fourche, SD, Juliet went to the University of Wyoming on a rodeo scholarship where she studied Communications and International Relations and Comparative Government. Upon graduation she headed east to Washington, DC to work for a US Congresswoman. After working on the Hill for five years she escaped the Beltway and did a stint with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in Townsville, Queensland Australia where she was part of an event management team that coordinated events in Australia, New Zealand and Greece.
Juliet began attending NCC in 1998 when it was just one church, one location and Pastor Mark wore a suit.
- Andy Pisciotti
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- Visual Storyteller
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Andy was born and raised in upstate New York. He graduated from SUNY Brockport with a degree in Broadcasting and spent several years working as an AV Specialist for a hospital in Syracuse before relocating to DC to join the NCC Protégé Program. After completing his Protégé year, Andy fulfilled a God given dream by joining NCC full-time as a Visual Storyteller.
Andy is passionate about storytelling by living great stories personally and telling great stories through media and art that help people encounter God. He loves film, Settlers of Catan, and sports, specifically the Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Braves, and Syracuse Orange.
- Maegan Stout
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- Executive Assistant
- Jim Tanious
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- Operations Director
- Amy Wall
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- Maintenance
The Protégé Team
- Ashleigh Bicevskis
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- Family Ministries Protégé
- Emily Hendrickson
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- Discipleship Protégé
- Sunshine Marion
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- Missions Protégé
- TJ Wallace
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- MIssions Protégé
- Aaron Watnik
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- Events Protégé
- Elissa Wilcox
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- Coffeehouse Protégé
