In the month of May 1967 a church site was purchased by the Division for Mission in North America of the Lutheran Church of America-LCA for future mission outreach. The site purchased was across the street from the Great Falls Grange and beside the shopping center. The shopping center did not exist in 1967.
The Rev. Thomas A. Dudley was called by the LCA to begin development of a new congregation in Great Falls. His previous call was in Birmingham, Alabama were he helped in developing a mission church. He arrived in Great Falls March 16, 1981.
The LCA purchased a house for the pastor and his family. The pastor’s office was in the Great Falls Professional Building on the corner of Walker Road and Georgetown Pike. A sign was installed on what was designated as the future building site, advertising was done in the local papers, and Rev. Dudley went door to door to seek the communities’ interest for a new church. A steering committee began functioning August 16, 1981, an interest meeting was held September 13, 1981 and the first worship service was held at the Great Falls Grange Hall on September 27, 1981.
The congregation would prepare the Grange for church service and Sunday school each Sunday. This involved setting up chairs, which were stored in the balcony and setting up the paraments which were stored in our portable altar left on the stage. The portable altar is still used in the fellowship hall. Sunday school was held on the lower level. The choir used the balcony as a choir loft. The choir liked this arrangement of not being seen and not wearing choir robes, which influenced the location of the choir in our existing church. The organ was kept in the balcony and our first Organist was Carolyn McTague.
Charter Sunday was November 22, 1981. We still have active members left from the 198 members, children included, who signed the original Charter. Our Organization Day was April 18, 1982 and completion of our first every member response was May 16, 1982 at which time our congregation became self-supporting. On June 27, 1982 the congregation voted to purchase the parsonage located in the Holly Knoll area from the LCA. The Rev. Thomas A. Dudley was installed on October 24, 1982 as the first pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church. The congregation voted to purchase the Church site from the LCA.
BUILDING
The congregation voted to enter a building campaign December 5, 1982, and the building fund campaign commenced March 1, 1983. Architects and builders were interviewed. The Church chose to work with a staff architect of the LCA. He met with committees to help design what our congregation wanted in a church building. A major consideration was to keep the look of a “traditional” church. For example, we wanted a steeple with a bell tower. However, the LCA would not help with financing if we built an attached bell tower due to maintenance problems they had with previous churches. The compromise was to build a detached bell tower. The bell was found and purchased from a former Lutheran congregation in Virginia. The only minor source of disagreement in the congregation concerned whether or not to have cushioned pews. The LCA wanted us to have a multipurpose room for fellowship and worship. The congregation sent a delegation of a few members to meet with the LCA to convince them that we could afford to build both a fellowship hall and a sanctuary for worship. We did not want to continue to set up chairs as we were doing in the Grange. With the design developed for us using the LCA staff architect, the church employed a design/build firm out of Pittsburgh, PA, Neehouse Builders, to do the working drawings and construction. They were a company specializing in church construction. The congregation had a clean up day on the church lot purchased by the LCA in 1967. We quickly realized that this location due to the water drainage may not be the best location for a church and might require expensive construction. Some members knew of a woman, May Gouldman, who had a large parcel of land on Georgetown Pike closer to Springvale Road. In 1982, May sold the Church 5 acres of land next to her house. She said she always wanted to live beside a church.
Ground breaking for the church was in 1984. The construction went fairly smoothly except for a problem with the largest steel beam on the front of the sanctuary. When the brick masons started to build on it adding the weight of materials started it to move. The structural engineers were called immediately and corrective action was taken. And the walls went up! The rest of the construction went well up until near the end of construction when the contractor declared bankruptcy. The church was making payments on completed work so we did not lose money. To complete our church we acted as general contractor and either subcontracted or performed the work ourselves with member volunteers. The new Church building was dedicated in 1985.
We realized positive growth after we moved into the new building. We also did not have enough quiet classrooms. Five Sunday school classes met in the fellowship hall, a room with very poor acoustics. We realized immediately the need for additional classroom space.
The church purchased another 5 acres from May Gouldman in 1987. It was connected to the existing church property. A lot of different ideas were expressed on how to develop this property; however we were not quick to act on them.
In 1991 some members of the church with young children saw a need for a partial day child care program to provide social interaction with a Christian atmosphere. What was born out of this is our Mother’s Day Out (MDO) program, recently renamed King's Kids Preschool, which started on November 5, 1991. The program serves our church members as well as others in the community. The Preschool program is self-sufficient and is currently under the direction of Tracey Shenk, a member of our congregation. The King's Kids Preschool is operated in the church building.
