At the corner of Golden Springs Drive and Rancheria Road in Diamond Bar, Northminster Presbyterian Church is known for its 10:00 a.m. Sunday worship, a blend of traditional hymns and contemporary music, and a congregation that places education, relationships, justice and service at the center of Christian life. Officially organized in 1963, Northminster belongs to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and states its calling plainly: to become a congregation flourishing in God's love by helping people become their best in Christ. That combination of a long local history, a Reformed worship pattern and an emphasis on multigenerational community shapes the church's life in Diamond Bar.
Sunday Worship at 10:00 in the Sanctuary
Northminster gathers in person for worship every Sunday at 10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary. Communion is part of the first Sunday of each month, giving the congregation a monthly rhythm within its regular Sunday gathering.
The order of worship is based on a Reformed liturgy, meaning the service follows a Reformed arrangement of worship. Traditional music, including hymns, and contemporary music are combined into a blended service. Northminster's vision describes that blend as Spirit-led and calls for topical, conversational preaching that is relevant to a diverse community. The musical mix gives the service both traditional and contemporary expressions while retaining the Reformed framework for worship.
Participation in worship is shared among the congregation's pastor or preacher, a lay leader, music leaders and everyone in attendance. The result is a service in which ordained and lay leadership, music and the congregation all take part in leading the church through Scripture, prayer, preaching and song.
Seating is available throughout the room, including seating accessible for people with mobility issues. Ushers can direct visitors to an open seat. All lyrics and spoken responses are projected at the front so the congregation can participate with a common text. The practical arrangement reflects Northminster's stated aim of creating an environment in which all people, including children, can worship God together.
Children are not separated from the life of the congregation. Activities are available during worship when needed, and a table at the entrance handles requests for those activities. Northminster also extends its Sunday worship beyond the Sanctuary through a livestream and recordings of past Sunday services.
From a Rented Room on Golden Springs Drive
Northminster's story begins in October 1962, when the Presbytery of Los Angeles called the Reverend Everett B. Cowan to organize a church in Diamond Bar. On Christmas Sunday, December 23, the new congregation held its first service of worship in a rented room at Village Square Shopping Center, 23535 Golden Springs Drive. The room later became the Diamond Bar Post Office.
The church school began in February 1963 for children from nursery through junior high, placing education alongside worship from the congregation's beginning. On May 26, 1963, the Northminster Presbyterian Church of Diamond Bar was formally organized with 65 charter members. Reverend Cowan died after six months and was succeeded by the Reverend Howard Still.
Under Reverend Still's leadership, the church continued to grow. Membership reached approximately 550 people, with 350 children registered in the church school program. On April 26, 1964, the congregation voted to establish a Building Committee and direct construction of a dedicated church at the corner of Golden Springs Drive and Rancheria Road. The facility was completed in May 1965.
That building became the congregation's base for worship, education and community programs. The move from one rented room to a purpose-built facility reflects the practical growth of a church that has continued to organize its life around education and service as well as worship. Northminster continues to open its Diamond Bar campus to community programs while remaining a Presbyterian congregation governed through its Session, deacons and staff.
Children Are Part of the Worshiping Community
Northminster's elementary-aged Sunday school meets during the 10:00 a.m. worship service throughout the year except July. Its placement within the worship hour makes clear that children are part of the church's shared spiritual life rather than a separate constituency with only occasional contact.
Activities are available for children during worship if they are needed, with requests handled at the entrance table. This practical arrangement supports the congregation's commitment to an environment where children can worship alongside adults and participate in the church's life as members of one community.
The church's Family-Strengthening value calls it to foster healthy family relationships and to mentor young people throughout their developmental years and young adult lives. That commitment extends the congregation's concern beyond the classroom into relationships between children, parents, grandparents and the wider community.
Northminster also describes itself as Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Generational, valuing the abilities and life experiences brought by different cultures and generations. Its strategic ministry work reflected that idea. A group that included members identified as Baby Boomer, Silent Generation, Gen-X and Millennial met weekly, sometimes before church and sometimes during the evening, while shaping a vision for what a “New NPC” could look like. The church's approach to families and formation is therefore both relational and intergenerational.
A Vision of Flourishing in God's Love
Northminster's vision statement reads: “Be a congregation flourishing in God's love, by helping people become their best in Christ.” The vision is grounded in the promise of Revelation 21:5, “See I am making all things new.” It gives the congregation a concise direction while expanding that direction through six practical values.
The vision emerged from a Session-led effort to revitalize the church and imagine its future. Members from several generations worked together to improve the strategic vision statement and consider the life of a “New NPC.” Their work connected worship, relationships, community service and the needs of families with the church's central purpose of helping people flourish.
- Christ-Centered: Continually seeking transformation with Christ as the model and the Bible as the guide, while prayerfully reaching out to and welcoming people of all backgrounds.
- Involved: Being attentive to the needs of the surrounding community and actively engaged in serving the people who live there.
- Relational: Sharing the love of Christ through meaningful and empathetic relationships.
- Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Generational: Valuing the abilities and life experiences that multiple generations and a diversity of cultures bring to the Northminster community.
- Family-Strengthening: Fostering healthy family relationships and mentoring young people through their developmental years and young adult lives.
- Blended Worship Services: Providing Spirit-led worship with topical, conversational preaching relevant to a diverse community and musical elements drawn from both contemporary and traditional styles.
At the heart of this vision is a belief that God is continually creating and re-creating by redeeming broken people, churches and cities. Northminster wants to join the mission of Jesus Christ on earth, alleviate human suffering and develop pathways toward human flourishing. Its planning is also anchored in Jesus' command to love God with heart, soul and mind and to love one's neighbor as oneself.
Session, Deacons and the Staff
Northminster is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA), placing it under the church's Presbyterian polity. It is a member of the San Gabriel Presbytery, which is part of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii. This connection places the local congregation within a larger structure of Presbyterian governance and fellowship.
The church is governed by a board of Elders called the Session, which serves as the congregation's council. Its elders include ruling and teaching elders. Ruling elders are chosen by the congregation to discern and measure the church's fidelity to the Word of God and to strengthen and nurture its faith and life. Elected elders serve two-year terms.
The deacons carry a ministry described as one of compassion, witness and service. Their work shares in the redeeming love of Jesus Christ for the poor, hungry, sick, lost, friendless and oppressed, for those burdened by unjust policies or structures, and for anyone in distress. The deacons are elected to two-year terms and work with the Session to meet the needs of the Northminster community.
Programming and daily maintenance are handled by the staff. Yvonne Harmon serves as Congregational Care Pastor, and Dorothea Okada serves as Organist and Accompanist. Together, the Session, deacons and staff embody the church's commitments to ordered leadership, compassionate care, worship and practical service.
What Northminster Means by Christian Life
Northminster states that God calls people together in a faith community to celebrate the good news of Jesus Christ in the world and work together to share God's love. The church describes itself as a group of individuals who connect with one another for the purpose of growing in their understanding of Christian life so they can participate in the transformation God intends for humanity.
Jesus Christ is the church's example for leading a Christian life. Northminster welcomes everyone and strives to be Christ-like to all people. Its understanding of Christian life becomes concrete through six shared practices.
- Making the worship of God central to everything the church does.
- Teaching Christ's ways through worship, education and service.
- Nurturing people through fellowship and friendship.
- Reaching out to meet the needs of others.
- Working for justice for all people.
- Remaining faithful through prayer, presence, gifts and service.
These practices explain why education, relationships, care and justice are not separate additions to worship at Northminster. They are expressions of the same Christian life the congregation seeks to share, each helping the church participate in God's work of redemption and flourishing.
Prayer and Scripture as Practices of Attention
Northminster's pastoral messages give a clear view of how the church approaches prayer and spiritual formation. Many daily devotionals follow a deliberate pattern: begin by becoming still, ask the Holy Spirit for help in hearing and discerning, read a biblical text, pause over what stands out, and pray for insight and guidance. The goal is not simply to complete a reading but to remain attentive to what God might be saying.
Those messages often encourage reading a passage quickly to see its overall shape, slowly to notice important phrases and aloud to hear the words more fully. Readers are encouraged to return to a striking passage, consider what it means, and pray for the Holy Spirit to help them understand its significance and possible application. Prayer extends from the individual to loved ones, the church, the surrounding community and the wider world.
The pastoral voice does not treat lament as a failure of faith. Northminster's messages repeatedly hold grief, fear, uncertainty and praise together, sometimes using the Psalms and other biblical prayers as a way to speak honestly about suffering. Alongside lament, they emphasize Christ's resurrection, the transformation of those who trust in him and the freedom to live by the Spirit.
Yvonne Harmon has written messages that explore the call to listen to Jesus in Mark 9:7, steadfastness and the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, and the Christian life in other biblical texts. The wider pastoral collection also draws from 2 Corinthians 4 for its portrait of transformation amid hardship, Galatians 5 for freedom and the fruit of the Spirit, and Romans 12 and 13 for love of neighbor, peace and the call to serve.
Harmon quotes Eugene Peterson's description of prayer as “the disciplined refusal to act before God acts.” That theme joins discernment, patience and trust. It also reflects Northminster's wider conviction that people are called not only to hear about God's love but to receive that love, share it in relationships and express it through service.
This pastoral approach gives practical shape to the vision of joining Jesus Christ's mission. The church's prayers and Scripture teaching move between encouragement and challenge, personal transformation and public responsibility, confession and hope. They seek to form people who can participate in God's work of alleviating suffering and opening pathways toward flourishing.
A Campus for Community
Northminster describes itself as a beacon to the Diamond Bar community and continues to offer its campus for community programs. The church's involvement in the surrounding area is grounded in attention to relationships and in service to people beyond the congregation.
The Involved value calls Northminster to be attentive to community needs and actively engaged in serving those who live nearby. The Relational value gives that engagement an important shape: love is to be shared through meaningful and empathetic relationships rather than treated as an impersonal task.
Its Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Generational commitment brings different cultural backgrounds and age groups into the same vision for the church's future. The strategic ministry group that shaped that vision represented four generations, making diversity of age and experience part of the congregation's shared work.
Service also has a strong biblical meaning in Northminster's life. The deacons' stated ministry includes people who are poor, hungry, sick, lost, friendless or oppressed, as well as those burdened by unjust policies or structures. The church's wider commitment is to meet needs, work for justice and use its presence in Diamond Bar as a means of caring for the community.
Online Worship and Giving
Sunday worship and memorial services are livestreamed through the NPC YouTube livestream channel. Recordings of past Sunday services are also available there, giving people another way to encounter the church's blended worship and preaching.
Northminster accepts online gifts by credit card or through PayPal. The church connects this financial support to its shared purpose: contributing to the work of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in the world. The church also offers online giving for supporting its worship, education, care and service.
Rooted in Rancheria Road
At Rancheria Road, Northminster remains a congregation whose history and present life point in the same direction. Its worship is centered on God and Jesus Christ, its children are included in the church's life, and its leaders carry distinct responsibilities for governance, care and music. Prayer and Scripture shape its approach to formation, while its Session, deacons and staff support a community that values education, relationships, justice and service.
Northminster's story began in a rented room on Golden Springs Drive in 1962 and continues in a church that calls itself to flourish in God's love and help people become their best in Christ. For the Diamond Bar community, it remains a place for blended worship, intergenerational belonging, compassionate care and service directed toward the people and needs around it.