It was at the height of the Great Depression, on December 2, 1934, when the Rev. Henry J. Whiting launched the first Lutheran congregation in the Bethesda area. On that Sunday, some 163 people gathered with Rev. Whiting at the State Theater, then located near the site of the present Bethesda Hyatt Hotel, for the first service of the "Lutheran Mission of Bethesda". Henry Hiser, the theater's owner, provided free use of the theater and its organ to the new congregation. In fact, the theater, later renamed the Hiser, was the congregation's home throughout its earliest years.

Times were difficult. Building a church, it seemed, was as trying as building a nest egg. Attendance declined as the weeks passed. But Rev. Whiting and the core of people who attended regularly took steps toward becoming an official organization. In October 1935, the "Lutheran Mission of Bethesda" became "Christ Lutheran Church", with 46 charter members. Christ Lutheran soon affiliated with the Eastern District of the American Lutheran Church.

Over the next two years, membership grew. As it did, the young congregation sought a home of its own. In March 1938, in a heroic demonstration of commitment and love for their church, members raised $7,000 in only seven days. The funds allowed them to purchase the Garrett House at 8011 Old Georgetown Road. With remodeling, they gained a chapel, Sunday School rooms and a pastor's apartment. It was indeed a memorable day when members marched along Old Georgetown Road from the Hiser Theater to their new church home, carrying high their banner and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers".

By 1939, when Rev. Whiting accepted a call from the Baltimore Inner Mission Society and bade farewell to Christ Lutheran, the church had grown to 126 members. Dr. Raymond A. Vogeley, called to fill Rev. Whiting's position, served as pastor through the years of World War II. In 1941, an addition to the original church provided space for a new chapel and parish hall. But members, numbering 346 by 1945, knew the issue of more adequate facilities would soon have to be addressed. Before Pastor Vogeley left that year to become Director of the Board of Parish Education of the American Lutheran Church, master plans for future building began to be developed. In addition, a lot on nearby Rugby Avenue was purchased as the site of a new parsonage.

Christ Lutheran's third pastor, the Rev. Otto C. Schuetze, a native of Germany and a graduate of Capital University and Seminary, arrived in 1945 to begin a career of service at Christ Lutheran that would span more than three decades. Rev. Schuetze, his wife, Helen, and their family moved into a new parsonage at 5017 Rugby Avenue in 1951. The swelling population of post-war families put increased pressure on church facilities, for a time forcing the Schuetzes to invite the overflow of Sunday School classes to meet at the parsonage.

By 1953, the congregation had decided to build a new church building on the site of the Garrett House and a new educational building on the recently purchased adjacent lot, located on the corner of Old Georgetown and Glenbrook Road. The three-level Luther Hall, the name given the educational building, was completed in 1955. A year later, the church building, a Bethesda landmark with its towering steeple, was fin­ished.

By December 1959, Christ Lutheran's 25th anniversary, membership totaled 577. Including the cradle roll and Sunday School, the entire congregation numbered 956. To help Rev. Schuetze meet the pastoral needs of the expanding parish, the church, beginning in 1959, brought in a series of vicars, including Dick Miller, Larry Gardner, Robert Snyder, Charles Mays, Joe Weiss, Ron Mach, Harold Grafe, Dwayne Grawe and Paul Horn. Mary Recher and Gordon Hora each served terms as directors of education. Two associate pastors, Robert Duea and Robert Scott, also served with Pastor Schuetze during the 1960s and early 1970s. Carl Youngdahl, in addition to directing the music program in the 1950s, helped lay the plans for acquisition of an organ. His daughter, Eileen Gunberg, later assumed responsibility for the choir.

In November 1961, in a step that launched Christ Lutheran's enduring tradition of community outreach, the church opened the Christ Church Child Center as a special learning center for children with disabilities. Initially, only three children attended a single class in the church's educational building. But in a short time, students and classes outstripped the church's available space. The Christ Church Child Center looked to other area churches for classrooms. In 1966, a class was added at Bethesda Presbyterian Church; in 1970, another opened at St. Francis Episcopal Church, Poto­mac; and in 1973 Concord Methodist Church began providing space to the Child Cen­ter. In 1985, with students in four locations, and enrollment at 123 students, the Christ Church Child Center moved into a larger home — a vacated public school at 11614 Seven Locks Road, Potomac — where it could bring all its classes under one roof. With the move, the Center changed its name to the Ivymount School. Christ Lutheran continues its ties with the school. A member of the church serves on its board, and congregational contributions support scholarships to the highly regarded school. For the 1991-92 academic year, enrollment at Ivymount totaled 208 students.

Property expansion continued in the 1960s with the purchase of the Barrett prop­erty next to the new church building and another house on Rugby Avenue, directly be­hind the church. In 1963, the prized Aeolian Skinner organ was installed in the sanc­tuary. Roger Petrich was organist and choir director at the time. He was succeeded in 1965 by David Myrick who headed the music program until 1968. Lawrence Savage arrived in 1969. In a special gesture to the church, Mr. Petrich composed a choral work in honor of Christ Lutheran's 40th anniversary, December 8, 1974.

In 1968, the Whiting Memorial Altar Rail was completed, and in 1973, the needle­point kneeler cushions were dedicated. Around the church, the Bethesda community was growing rapidly, and in 1965, Old Georgetown Road was widened. The high re­taining wall in front of the church was completed in 1966.

With the additional space of the Barrett property available, the congregation in 1972 broke new ground in the community with its opening of a day care center for the elderly. In late 1985, a new wing was added, allowing the center to offer care to 23 people daily. In 1991, a major renovation brought the facilities up to current code. Designed to serve people who are too hearty for nursing homes but who need care dur­ing the day, the Bethesda Fellowship House continues to enjoy an excellent reputation for its program. Bethesda Fellowship has been led by: Goldie Rogers, director; Marian Warburton, director; Nancy Dezan as director and co-director with Cynthia Farley, Ken Brown and Susan Richardson, serving in succession; and Susan Richardson, Anna Polisar, and Sarah Nichols, each serving as director.

Rev. Schuetze retired in December 1976. His 31-year tenure had spanned a dra­matic period of growth in the community and congregation. Not only did the church acquire most of its buildings and property, but it also grew to its greatest levels of attendance during his service. Programs to meet the needs of its membership flour­ished. And notably, during Pastor Schuetze's tenure, Christ Lutheran's spirit of com­munity service and outreach took shape: first, through its Child Center, and later, through the establishment of the Bethesda Fellowship House. That spirit continues to define the church today.

The Rev. K Roy Nilsen succeeded Rev. Schuetze, serving from 1977 until 1982, when he took a position with the local synod of the Lutheran Church of America. Pas­tor Nilsen was the first to occupy the Church's then newly purchased parsonage at 11905 Enid Drive, Potomac. During Rev. Nilsen's tenure, Robert Clawson and, later, Helen Petcovik led the church music program.

Following Pastor Nilsen's departure, Christ Lutheran was without its own pastor for over a year. Services were led by visiting pastors. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, church membership declined as the Bethesda community aged, older people left the area for retirement, and new, younger people with fewer children (and often a "dif­ferent" view on church membership) began to move into the neighborhood.

In 1983, the congregation called a new pastor, the Rev. Marvin T. Tollefson. Prior to joining Christ Lutheran, Pastor Tollefson served as pastor at Community of Christ Church, Billerica, Massachusetts. When he arrived, membership totaled around 550. Two years after Pastor Tollefson's arrival, the congregation called Associate Pastor Nicki Parrish, Christ Lutheran's first woman clergy. Pastor Parrish left the church in 1991 to become pastor of a mission congregation, later chartered as St. Nicholas Lu­theran Church in southern Maryland, near the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. After Helen Petcovik resigned as organist and choir director, David Erwin was hired in 1987 to head the music program. Mr. Erwin left in 1991 and was replaced in early 1992 by Michael Wu. In October 1992, Pastor Douglas Mose, previously associate pastor at First Lutheran Church in Geneseo, Illinois, accepted the call to serve as Christ Lutheran's associate pastor.

With the educational building freed up by Christ Child Center's departure in the mid-1980s, the congregation explored other community needs which the space might be used to meet. One trend was clear: women were entering the workforce in growing numbers — and a new baby boomlet was under way. Quality, affordable child care had become a pressing concern. Christ Lutheran thought it could help.

Opened in 1986 under the leadership of Pastor Dean Anderson as director, the Christ Church Children's Day Care Center accepted children, ages 3-4. Filling the available openings was no problem. In 1987, the center increased its enrollment to in­clude two-year-olds. In the fall of 1988, the Day Care Center expanded again - this time to the church-owned house at 5017 Rugby Avenue. Cherub House, as the new portion of the center was called, answered a critical need in child care: a quality envi­ronment for infants and toddlers. 

In November 1990, fire struck the Cherub House. No one was hurt, but the house sustained heavy damage - and without major repairs could not be used. Though it meant tight quarters for a number of months, the infant and toddler center immediately moved to the "family room" in the sanctuary's undercroft. Parents and children using the Day Care Center suffered little or no loss of service. The Cherub House re-opened in 1991. And with its re-opening, the Day Care Center expanded again by retaining the "family room" space. This expansion brought to 62 the Day Care Center's total capacity.

In 1987, Christ Lutheran launched an active program of lay ministry under Pastor Tollefson's leadership. Called Stephen Ministry, interested members were invited to undergo training to learn caregiving skills. Trained Stephen Ministers were then de­ployed to assist people in the congregation and community in need of care and personal attention. Stephen Ministry's first lay leaders were Dottie Davis and Cliff Hartley. Other key leaders were Joy Ernst, teacher; Doris Gilmore, referral coordinator; and Lena Lindberg, who handled supervision. Growth of the program was noteworthy. In the first six years, 48 Christ Lutheran members and two non-members had earned Ste­phen Minister designation. Among them, they had given care to more than 70 individ­uals.

In 1988, responding to the need for quality, affordable counseling services, the church initiated the Christ Lutheran Church Counseling Center in the Howard Davis Memorial Room on the educational building's third floor. Headed by Mary P. Daly, a licensed clinical social worker, the Center provided counseling on a sliding-fee schedule to accommodate people at all income levels. With Ms. Daly's departure, the church af­filiated briefly with the Washington Pastoral Counseling Service in 1990. In 1991, a new, less formal affiliation with Ms. Daly again enabled Christ Lutheran to offer "in-house" counseling to Church and community members.  Ms. Daly moved on in the mid 1990s, and there are currently two counselors in-house, Patricia Corbey and Brian Depenbrock.

While the Children's Day Care Center occupied the undercroft, questions remained about the best use of space in the educational building. A study in the mid-1980s rec­ommended a series of renovations aimed at making the space more inviting: air condi­tioning throughout; an elevator to make the building fully accessible to people of all abilities; enclosure of the colonnade between the Church and educational buildings; and renovation of Sunday School rooms on the educational building's main level to cre­ate a new fellowship room and small kitchen. In 1989, the congregation voted to pro­ceed with the recommended renovation. The improvements were completed in 1991.

In the late 1980s, Christ Lutheran opened its space for the first time to other church congregations seeking a regular meeting place. Adat Shalom, a Jewish reconstructionist congregation, a Korean congregation, and a Hispanic congregation have used the sanctuary and educational building for their weekly services.  Christ Lutheran has also become a regular meeting place for members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Al Anon, and other 12-Step groups, in addition to church, community and multi-cultural social events.  Bethesda Cares, an organization formed to help the Homeless in Bethesda, provides a free lunch at the church each weekday the second half of every month.  Donations from the groups which use the facilities have helped defray building operating costs. And by offering the use of its facilities to a range of organizations, Christ Lutheran has gained another avenue of outreach to the community.

In the mid 1990s and early 2000s, many more changes took place.  The administrative and music staff went through many changes, and an evolving new vision for the future of the church was taking place.  A dynamic contemporary service was added in 1996, and is a vital part of our worship culture today with a talented full praise band.  Our Traditional Service still retains some of the rich heritage and style of our Lutheran liturgy and traditionally-minded music, while being somewhat “seeker-sensitive” to those who may visit the church who are not familiar with the Lutheran liturgy or tradition.  Pastor Tollefson’s 20^th Anniversary was celebrated in 2003, and his 25^th Anniversary is fast approaching. 

Currently, the church is planning on completely rebuilding a state-of-the- art, environmentally-friendly administrative building/community center while completely renovating the existing sanctuary and daycare facilities.  In addition, a portion of the church’s land and surrounding houses will be developed into a new condominium housing community.   The massive project is slated to be finished before the end of the decade, in lieu of all county, legal, and planning procedures.  The days and years ahead are exciting for the people and ministries of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church!