Christ Community Church started out as a dream from God. As a pastor’s son, Carl King was devoted to serving in the church. Yet his early aspirations also included being a businessman. Married and a father of three young children, the young man served bi-vocationally as a business person and an assistant pastor of his father’s church in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Yet, God had different plans.
Early one May morning in a dream, God showed Pastor King a vision of two buildings. One building represented “business” and the other represented the church. Minister Marilynn King, the now deceased wife of Pastor King, appeared in the dream and told the Pastor that the building representing the business had to move back to allow the church to be in the prominent position. When asked why, she told her husband that nothing could be equal with the work of God. Elder Mack Carl King, Pastor’s father, then appeared and offered his assistance. Father and son then got on opposite sides of the building representing the business and pushed it back.
Each of these buildings represented the aspirations of the pastor, yet God was reprioritizing his goals. Upon moving the buildings, God showed the pastor another picture of a single mom and her son. This picture represented far too many families today which are fragmented and dysfunctional. Pastor King and this church are committed to addressing our societal ills by building strong families, communities, and economic stability through the liberating Word of God.
The church is still the only vehicle that has the ability to effectively war against the gates of hell and have victorious results. Therefore, our mission and vision entail connecting the spiritually disconnected to a vibrant relationship with a loving Savior, and seeing those lives transformed through the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord led Pastor King to name the church he was to start, Christ Community Church. It was to be Christ’s church, extending the mission of Christ in today’s world, and it was to be a community-based church—a place for the community inside the church! So Pastor King was faithful to the call and, by faith, with his wife, Marilynn, daughters, Marjalene (“Trina”) and Anna, and son, Carl II, planted a church, a community of faith.
Thus, on September 4, 1987 at 7:00 p.m., Christ Community Church held its' first bible study inside Caroline Sibley Elementary School in Calumet City, IL. Two months later on November 15, Bishop William Haven Bonner installed Elder Carl E. King, Sr., as pastor. As it grew, this would be one of eight different sites for this church.
Christ Community Church moved from Caroline Sibley Elementary School to Dirksen Middle School in Calumet City; to Community Reform Church in Dolton; to Eden’s Rock in Dolton; to Berger-Vandenberg School in Dolton; to Revival Center Outreach COGIC in Dolton; to Ginger Ridge Community Center in Calumet City; to our present home in South Holland.
Christ Community Church has become a beacon of light in the community and is home to over thirty ministries, for children, teens and adults; a School of Ministry for bible-based ministry training; and numerous community-based programs aimed at transforming lives through the love of Jesus Christ.
Pointing back to the dream, and showing God’s faithfulness, in 1995, Elder Mack King, pastor’s father, retired from pastoring at St. Stephen’s and he and Pastor King’s mother, Mother Edith King, joined Christ Community Church and have been faithfully serving there since.
After the death of his wife, Min. Marilynn King, in 2012, Dr. Carl King was united in marriage to Dr. Jeanne Porter King and she has joined him in pastoral ministry at Christ Community Church.
