History

We began as a prayer group affiliated with Trinity Episcopal Church. Our first organizational meeting was held on January 8, 1967, and our first worship services were held on July 23, 1967. We became a parish on December 5, 1992.

We have been served by three shepherds: The late Reverend Robert Harvey (1968-1982), The Reverend Donald Stivers (1983-1991), and The Reverend Canon Brian Cox (1992-present).

Room 41

In the years that Christ the King worshipped at Bishop Garcia Diego High School, the Sunday services were usually held in the gymnasium. Occasionally the gym was not available for our use. On those Sundays we held services in the school's Room 41. It was larger than their other rooms and, consequently, also served as the schools wrestling room. On weekends the mats would be rolled up against the back wall. Room 41 also served as the site for some of CTK's meetings and social events. It was, in other words, the "multipurpose" room for our congregation. The five years we worshipped at Bishop High School were important formative years for Christ the King Church. We soon learned that the Church, the Body of Christ, is the assembled worshipping community, not the building in which we gathered. To remind ourselves to think of our people, not our facilities, as the Church, when the new buildings were erected in 1977, we named the multipurpose room "Room 41."

Purchasing Our Property in 1975

During the time that Christ the King worshipped at Bishop High School a prayerful decision was made to find a suitable site and build a church. A water moratorium that was in effect seriously complicated the search for land. After two full years of examining virtually every parcel from Hope Avenue to Glen Annie it seemed like there were no acceptable options. Every piece of land either had no water or was too expensive. Then one day in the Fall of 1975 a realtor who had been assisting in the land search called and asked, "How quickly can you get a signed offer to buy land?" Being a mission church, it would take about two weeks to go through the Bishop's office and receive approval from the Standing Committee to make an offer. The realtor then advised that an elderly owner of three prime acres located on Hollister Avenue with a water hook-up was placing the land on the market for $25,000 per acre, well under market value. He had it on hold for CTK for 48 hours. That afternoon the Executive Assistant to the Bishop was notified. He drove right to the Bishop's residence. The two of them called members of the Standing Committee that very night. The next morning the Bishop's Assistant drove to Santa Barbara, and the offer was signed less than 24 hours after the property was placed on the market. The leadership of Christ the King had done all that they could. Then the Lord took over.

In November 1975, after purchasing the property, Fr. Bob led the congregation in a service on the site to claim the land for the Lord. In early 1977 members of CTK worked six consecutive Saturdays to clear out the walnut trees that had to be removed for the buildings and the parking lot.