Meet Mark Batterson

By Ronald E. Keener

Mark Batterson Senior Pastor, National Community Church, Washington, D.C.

Mark Batterson was five years old when his parents took him to a movie theater to see“The Hiding Place,” the well known story of Corrie ten Bloom and her family in wartime Holland when they hid Jews from the Nazis. It’s a story of life in concentration camps, but also one of courage and forgiveness. “God used that medium to invade my heart and I invited Jesus into my heart that night,” he recalls.

A movie house would again play a pivotal role in Batterson’s life when years later he launched a new church in a theater in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. “I find it interesting that decades later I pastor theaterchurch.com that meets in movie theaters and has trailers for sermon series. I think we often try to reach people in the same way we were reached,” he reflects. “I think screens are postmodern stained glass that enable us to tell the Gospel story in moving pictures. One reason we are always trying to push the envelope at National Community Church is because we want to find new ways, different ways of communicating the Gospel. The genesis of that experimental approach to ministry is a byproduct of my conversion experience.”

Batterson calls himself “a church mutt.”  “Our family attended half a dozen different denominational churches in my growing up, and I’m grateful for that cross-section. I think it helped me pastor a very eclectic church in Washington, D.C.,” which is within the Assemblies of God.

“We eventually landed at Calvary Church in Naperville, IL and I’m awfully glad we did, because I  married the pastor’s daughter.  Bob Schmidgall planted and pastored Calvary Church for more than 30 years until his death in 1998.  He was my role model for ministry.  In fact, my desire to pastor one church for life was inspired by his faithfulness. I saw first hand what God can do if you plant yourself in one place and grow deep roots,” he says.

How did you come to organizing National Community Church?

I’m a failed church planter! I wanted to plant a church in Chicago while I was in seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. I had formed a core group, had a church name, and opened a bank account. But things imploded before we got to launch our first service.  It was incredibly embarrassing, because it was our first attempt at ministry, and it was incredibly disillusioning. We really felt like God called us to do it.  But sometimes our human plans have to fail to open us up to other possibilities. And in retrospect I’m so glad. It was our failed church plant that opened us up to move someplace else.

But you did move on and to the Nation’s Capital?

Now that we’ve lived on Capitol Hill and pastored NCC for 14 years we can’t imagine life anywhere else!  It also taught me a lesson in humility.

We didn’t get off to a very glorious start. Our first service was the weekend that the blizzard of 1996 left record snowfalls on D.C.  We had three people at our first service — my wife, Lora, our baby, Parker, and myself.

Of course, we did experience a 533 percent growth spurt in one week when 19 people showed up the next week! There is nothing glamorous about our first five years.  It took five years to grow from 19 people to 250 people, and I love sharing that to encourage church planters.

It wasn’t until our fifth year that we started experiencing significant growth. On August 12, 2001, the Washington Post did a front page article, Sunday edition, on NCC. It put us on the map!  In the next year we grew from 250 to 500 and we haven’t looked back. What I love about it is we can’t take credit for it. It was just God’s favor and God’s timing!

Is there something of a movement of theater churches elsewhere in the country? Or are most of them temporary situations until they can build?

I think there is a movement. Certainly some of them are viewed as short-term solutions until they can get permanent facilities. For us, it’s a long-term strategy. We love being in the middle of the marketplace and movie theaters put us there. Plus you’ve got comfortable seats, huge screens, and the smell of popcorn!  I honestly believe there ought to be a church in every theater in America. We need to redeem them and use them for God’s purposes.

You speak about “being in the middle of the marketplace” with theater churches. What does that mean to you in terms of reaching people?

Our heartbeat has always been to reach the person who doesn’t feel comfortable going to church. That means we’ve had to take a different tact. We don’t expect them to come to us so we want to go to them. That is really the clarion call in Luke 14. We need to go into the highways and byways.

That’s one reason why we built our Ebenezer coffeehouse. We wanted to create a marketplace where our church and community could cross paths.  Why?  Jesus didn’t just hang out in synagogues. He hung out at wells.  Wells were natural gatherings places, third places, in ancient culture. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells.

So everyday we brush shoulders with hundreds of customers.  And many of them find out about National Community Church via the coffeehouse.  And here’s the win/win.  Every penny of profit goes to missions!  So not only is it a great outreach, it also netted $100,000 last year that we gave to missions. One of my fundamental convictions is this: There are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet.  What if we had 10 coffeehouses all netting $100,000? That’s one way to give a million dollars to missions.

Haven’t these temporary venues become rather permanent? Are you leasing all your spaces, or have they become more permanent than you originally planned?

Most of them remain temporary. And that can be a little unsettling. In fact, the Union Station theaters where we really got our start were closed last year.  It was a very challenging season for us, but God has used it in amazing ways.  Not only have we launched in two more locations bringing our total to six, but that situation was a catalyst for a miracle.

What can you tell us about the church’s plans for 2011?

A lot of time and energy is focused on designing a campus on Capitol Hill. It’ll be a two-year process of dreaming and building, but it’s a major step forward for us. It was a $3.5 million financial miracle that provided the land. We affectionately refer to it as “the last piece of property on Capitol Hill.”  In the providence of God, and with a little help from the recession that kept developers from developing, we secured the property. It has 200 feet of frontage on the expressway giving it tremendous visibility and accessibility. And it’s right at the vortex of Capitol Hill, the Navy Yard, and a new development called the Riverfront.

Having said that, it’s very important to us that “we own the building” and “the building doesn’t own us.”  We’ve been nomads for 14 years. And we’ll always have that in our blood.  This building isn’t an end in itself. It’s a means to an end: reaching more people for Christ.

We will build a coffeehouse, theater and offices. We certainly won’t collapse our locations. In fact, we’ll probably launch a few more before that urban campus is built. But what that permanent facility will do is accommodate our 2020 vision, which is 20 locations.  Most of them will be in the D.C. area, but we’ll launch our first international location in Berlin, Germany in 2011. It will be a café like Ebenezers. Our goal is to recruit a core team to move to Berlin to help launch the ministry. Our campus pastor was on the ground in Berlin in November of last year laying the ground work.

What did it mean to your attendance when administrations changed after the 2008 election?

We already experienced 40 percent turnover per year so it probably bumped it up a few percentage points, but we’re used to it. It’s the nature of this town! We’ve learned to adapt to the rhythm of life in D.C. and part of that is the election cycle. We love the opportunity to influence new folks who are moving into town.

We are more diverse than your average church just by virtue of where we do ministry. We have a great diversity both in terms nationality and economics. I’ve always felt like God will bless us in proportion to how we bless the poor in our city. That’s a big part of our heartbeat so we’re always doing servant evangelism. We want to reach down and out. In fact, we are actively looking for a Dream Center space in SE D.C.

There is a “third world” country in the middle of our nation’s capital and we want to be part of reaching that part of our city. We also feel called to influence influencers. And we’re grateful for the opportunity God has afforded. We certainly touch a cross-section of folks who hold political power, but the bulk of our congregation are the twenty-somethings who are not only drafting legislation, advising members of Congress, and making decisions that effect districts.  They are also the future leaders of our country.

What are your plans for other venues in the coming year or two? What is the average weekend attendance?

We’ll probably launch a location in Maryland next year but we still need to survey our congregation and survey the area. We currently have three locations in DC and three in Virginia.

We have so many hill staffers, military, state department, and transient twenty-somethings that we’re always sending out missionaries to the four corners of the earth. That’s how we view it. It’s also a reason why my blog (www.markbatterson.com) and our podcast/webcast (www.theaterchurch.com) are such critical elements in our outreach.

So what does it feel like rubbing shoulders with the political set in Washington? Do any of your attendees come from the highest political elite in the city?

We really reach up and out and down and out. And we’ve learned not to be a “respecter of persons.” We love our homeless community. And we love influencing influencers. Over the years we’ve had senators, congressmen, and cabinet members attend.  And, for the record, they’ve been from both parties. Because this is such a political town we’ve actually tried to remain apolitical. In other words, we steer clear of party politics.

Why? Because I felt like so many churches had turned into public policy platforms instead of preachers of the gospel. We want to lead people into relationship with Christ. We feel like if we do that, He’ll inform their politics.

It’s not that we steer clear of issues. We like hitting things head on. We aren’t afraid of offending people.  We live in a culture where it’s wrong to say something is wrong. And that’s wrong. I’d rather be biblically correct than politically correct.

Were the political dynamics of being in Washington something that dawned on you later?

At one point in my life, I thought I might come to D.C. for political reasons. I find it ironic that I ended up coming for ministerial reasons. I was well aware of the political dynamics right out of the gate, and it’s one of the things I love about this city. For what it’s worth, many of the Old Testament stories we celebrate had a political dimension to them.

It was about God positioning people like Joseph and Esther and Daniel in places of power to represent his purposes. I believe God is still in the business of positioning us in those places.

You have said that you “wanted to influence influencers.” How does that play out in daily contact with people?

It’s amazing how one conversation with someone in a position of influence can have a ripple effect. Your effect on them affects millions of people.

I respect those in power, but I’ve learned that they are people with issues and insecurities and challenges just like everybody else.  I don’t need their autograph. I don’t have pictures hanging in my office. That’s just not who I am. I just want to pastor them and help them any way I can.
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Discovering the person God wants you to be

My most recent book, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, is about being great at the Great Commandment. It helps readers re-imagine what it means to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength.

My next book, Soulprint, is about discovering our unique destiny. I use the defining moments in the life to David to help readers discover their own destiny. The book really celebrates uniqueness as a gift from God and our gift back to God.  There never has been and never will be anyone like you, but that isn’t a testament to you. It’s a testament to the God who created you!

One way we honor God is by discovering our unique design and destiny. I’m afraid that lots of people live their entire lives as complete strangers to themselves.  I think Soulprint will help people rediscover the person God meant them to be. 
— MB