You matter more than the program
The line the staff hears most from newcomers is that it felt like family within a week. That's not an accident — it's what the greeting teams, the small groups and the serving rotations are built to produce.
About
It started in a
living room.
In April 2006, Jamey and Nicole VanGelder gathered a few friends to worship and pray. Twenty years on, there's a building, a school of ministry, and people driving in from more than 140 cities — and the same reason for meeting.
Planted 2006
The question everyone asks first
What denomination is this?
None. The House is an independent, non-denominational Christian church — there's no denominational headquarters above it and no regional body that appoints its pastors. Governance sits with the senior pastors and a group of pastoral elders drawn from the congregation.
Doctrinally it sits in the evangelical and charismatic stream. That means: the Bible treated as the authority, salvation through Jesus, and an expectation that the Holy Spirit is active in an ordinary Sunday service. Prayer for healing, prophetic words and speaking in tongues are normal here, not special events.
Practically, if you grew up Assemblies of God, Foursquare, Vineyard, or in a non-denominational megachurch, the Sunday will feel familiar. If you grew up Catholic, Lutheran or Presbyterian, expect something considerably less liturgical and more expressive.
Communion is open. You do not need to be a member, or a Christian, to take it.
What drives the place
Four convictions that shape almost every decision here.
The next generation isn't a side project
Kids from birth through 6th grade get real teaching at both services. Youth grades 7–12 meet every Wednesday of the school year. Leaders are background-checked and trained.
Nobody should be stuck alone
Pastoral care exists for the seasons that don't resolve on their own. The conviction is that the person across the aisle often carries the insight you need — so healing happens in community, not in an office.
Serving is how you find people
Greeting, ushering, kids, production, coffee. It's the fastest route from attending to belonging, and it's how most of the friendships here actually started.
The vision, in three widening circles
Steward your garden. Engage your city. Disciple the nations.
Jesus taught people to pray "on earth as it is in heaven." The claim here is that heaven arrives through the places you already stand — your address, your relationships, your job — before it arrives anywhere else.
Your garden
Marriage, kids, family, friends, the neighborhood, the workplace. Everyone has been handed something to tend. It gets attention first.
Your city
This congregation is spread across more than 140 cities. The goal isn't to gather everyone here — it's to send people back where they live, awake.
The nations
Pick a country as a household. Pray for it, give toward it, and be ready to say yes when the connection shows up.
Leadership
Jamey & Nicole VanGelder
Senior pastors. They planted the church in April 2006 out of a gathering of friends who wanted to worship together, and have shepherded it ever since. Married since 1997, eight children, and living locally in the Twin Cities.
Pastor Jamey's framing of the whole thing: the day of small beginnings mattered as much as the outcomes now — what happens today still carries the DNA of those first living-room gatherings.
Nicole hosts the podcast Choosing Happily Ever After.
Senior pastors
Pastoral elders
Elders are drawn from the congregation and carry shared responsibility for the spiritual health of the church.
Steve Smith
Pastoral elder
Austin Coleman
Pastoral elder
Dave Hauer
Pastoral elder
Jim Kuehn
Pastoral elder
Doyal VanGelder
Pastoral elder
Staff
The people who answer the phone, run the sound board, and know where the kids' classrooms are.
Lori Reed
Financial director
Chad Austin
Production & technical director
Kristen Martinez
Director, The House School of Ministry
Chris Knorr
House Kids director
Lamont Micks
House Youth director
Building The House
A legacy initiative
After nearly two decades in this building, the church is renovating and expanding: a coffee shop in the lobby designed for the conversations that happen after a service, larger prayer and gathering spaces, and updates that let the building serve the wider region rather than just a Sunday crowd.
The stated aim is a house where presence comes before productivity and prayer shapes decisions — and where the next twenty years outrun the last.