Flowers and a card are seen at a makeshift memorial in front of The New Hope Baptist Church in Newark
Flowers and a card are seen at a makeshift memorial in front of The New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang in the choir, to mourn the death of the singer in Newark, New Jersey February 12, 2012. Houston, whose soaring voice lifted her to the top of the pop music world but whose personal decline was fueled by years of drug use, died on Saturday afternoon in a Beverly Hills hotel room. She was 48. Reuters

Whitney Houston's funeral will be a somber affair for friends and family who want to say goodbye to her in person.

The funeral service was originally planned to be held Friday at the Prudential Center, a massive venue Houston's birthplace of Newark, N.J., according to The Star-Ledger, which cited a conversation with an unnamed local community leader who knows Houston's family.

But now it appears that it will instead be held at Newark's New Hope Baptist Church, which she attended as a child.

The Associated Press, which reported Monday that Houston's body was set to be flown from Los Angeles to Newark Monday evening, wrote Monday that two people who have had conversations with her family said they may also hold a wake for her on Thursday.

The two unnamed sources said that funeral arrangements are being handled by the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, which also tended to the funeral affairs of Whitney Houston's father, John Houston, according to the AP.

A woman who answered the phone at Whigham Monday evening declined to reveal any details, including whether or not the funeral is being arranged through the funeral home.

Unfortunately I don't have any information about that, she told the International Business Times, adding I can't give you any information as to what or when or how.

Houston was raised in East Orange, next to Newark, and she started her singing career as a young child at New Hope Baptist Church.

New Jersey Religion