NorthGate has been around since 2014 when it was founded as "NorthGate Church" by Pastor Tyler Barrett. In 2018, Pastor Tyler lead the church in joining the General Council of the Assemblies of God and officially changed the name to NorthGate Assembly to reflect the new affiliation. This change reaffirmed our commitment to seeing ourselves as a Spirit-filled Body of believers who were connected to a global movement of making Jesus known to the ends of the Earth.
In 2025 Pastor Kyle Semple was elected as the new lead pastor after Pastor Tyler accepted a new pastoral assignment in Albany, GA. Shortly after settling into the role it became apparent that the storefront location on Bemiss Rd where NorthGate had called home since the beginning was no longer suitable for the growing congregation. As a church, we began asking ourselves what it meant to really be "the church" and began developing the following core values:
Church is a family before it's a function.
Church is a people before it's a place.
Church is a celebration before it's an obligation
Through this lens, we decided to be proactive (instead of reactive) and began looking for a new home for NorthGate. After lots of prayer and exploring all of our options, the church decided to enter into an agreement with Highland Christian Academy and use their chapel space for Sunday services.
On Easter Sunday 2026 we had our first service in our shared location where we continued to reach our neighbors in North Lowndes County. Not only has this opened doors of opportunity to partner in ministry with the school, but it has allowed us to continue reaching the same neighborhood where we were originally planted with the Good News of the Kingdom.
We fully believed God was at work in this move and that we were following where He wanted us to be. But what we didn't know is that He was also about to open a door we never expected. While we were finalizing the details of our move to Highland, we were made aware that a beautiful church building on another side of town was now available to us for a cost we couldn't refuse. Was God changing direction on us?
After lots more preayer and conversation among our church leadership we came to the simple conclusion:
God is faithful, not fickle.
We realized that God had opened up both doors of opportunity to reach our neighbors all over town. He has given us a chance to be present in two different neighborhoods and work toward growing a vibrant body of believers in each location.
Our goal is not to build one big building that everyone comes to visit, but to build smaller neighborhood churches all over town to reach those who might feel overlooked in a crowd. We believe God calls us as individuals into real community and that means a greater focus on people than places. A greater focus on family than that of functions. And a greater focus on celebrating all that God has done over the sense of obligation we might feel to become like what our expectations of church might be.
