There were windmills in the yards and chicken and pigs running loose on the dirt roads of Kensington, MD, when a small mission that was to become Christ Episocopal Church held its first service there. The time was 4pm, Sunday, August 21, 1898. The place was the Town Hall, just south of the train station, which has since burned down. The local newspaper reported record-breaking head and drought for that week, but just before the services the skies poured fourth a deluge.  A sign from above?

A congregation of 20 or so was led by the Rev. David Barr, the "Protestant Episopal missionary for Kensington and Garrett Park." Grace Church-Woodside of Silver Spring was the mother parish. With a few months, the women of the mission ("Please don't call us 'ladies,'" they begged.) added th emoney from ice cream socials and musical evenings to a generous gift from fellow Episcopalians Mr. and Mrs. George Peter for the purchase of a former Methodist Chapel at the southeast corner of Plyers Mill Road and St. Paul St. -- now a private home. The initial service was held on Good Friday, 1899. The Rev. Barr stayed on as vicar until 1907, commuting from Washington for nine years, with little pay.

In 1913, when Rev. George W. Atkinson was rector, the mission became an independent parish. Eleven years later, the church built a parish hall in what is now the Safeway parking lot. The rectory was in the same block. For unknown reasons, the hall became the church and remained so for 26 years, until 1952 when the Rev. Gerald Catlin, the rector, moved the flock into the vacated Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church at Connecticut Avenue and Prospect Street. They were barely settled before the county shooed them ou tin order to widen Connecticut Avenue. Thye now had a hall and rectory, but no church.

With Baby Boomers arriving by the dozens, and their parents (mostly World War II veterans) moving into Kensington, the time had come to build their own church. Under the Rev. Mr. Catlin, with tremendous help from a motivated parish, funds were raised and Christ Church Parish, Kensington moved into its own building on August 24, 1958. Even when the church was built, the need for education wing for the Sunday school was apparent, but it was not until 1998 under the Rev. Dr. William Hague when it was built. It was essential to the life of the church, since the rapid increase in new members and their children taxed the limited available space. With the generous support of the congregation and the leadership of the Rector, there is now adequate space for the Sunday school.

What started out as a mission with a congregation of 20 or so more than a century ago is now an active and vibrant parish of 700 communicants and 225 children attending Sunday school. The worshipers of years past and those of today have all contributed to the making of Christ Church Kensington.