Grant Fishbook
Executive Teaching Pastor
Since the day we became Christ the King Community Church, it's been our goal to create a place where people from every walk of life can experience a transforming relationship with God—in community with others. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you're welcome here.
We are a church for the unchurched and the de-churched. Our mission is to create authentic Christ-centered communities that love God wholeheartedly and reach out intentionally so that others experience new life in Jesus and a transforming life of discipleship.
Leaders are healthy when their private, personal and public lives are surrendered and align with Jesus and His ways. We create sustainable, healthy growth by identifying, deploying, training and supporting those to serve as Jesus did.
We choose a simple approach to language, systems and processes. We work hard to make access to Jesus simple for everyone.
We choose to live lives of sacrificial generosity, by joyfully giving of our time, our abilities and our resources to love others in Jesus's name.
We value healthy, Christ-centered spiritual growth. We choose to be real with God, real with others, and real with ourselves. We will not live false, idealistic, or hidden lives.
We choose to be relational in ministry, communication, conflict, and decision making.
Because God loves every single person He's created, we are as committed to loving those outside CTK in the same genuine, tangible way that we love those within our family of faith.
We create sustainable growth by identifying, deploying, training and supporting healthy leaders who take personal responsibility for their spiritual, relational, emotional, and financial health.
We love people who are far from God, tell our story and God's story to others, and bring our whole selves (including our faith) into every environment.
We make disciples through worship (loving God), community (loving others), and outreach (loving others to God).
We meet practical needs in our community and beyond through individual efforts, ministry partnerships, and church-wide partnerships.
In 1988, a group of 54 adults in a struggling, bankrupt, and declining church decided to give “church” one more try.
Under new leadership, they let go of an inward-focused approach and committed to three things: 1) to worship God as a lifestyle, 2) to reach out in love to people who didn't know Jesus, and 3) to live out the Bible's “one-another” model of community through small groups.
As they laid down their old ways of doing church and sacrificed their resources to make a place for “those who were about to come,” they experienced God’s blessing and favor. People did come, and the church grew.
After 7 years in one location and out of room, CTK expanded to three locations each Sunday. Then in 1998, a vacant retail building caught our eye that was big enough to accommodate our weekly attendance, midweek ministries, and offices all under one roof.
Again, people gave sacrificially to make a place for others to meet Jesus. We purchased and renovated that building in several phases. Within a few years, a core of people were driving from Skagit County to attend CTK Bellingham. God led us to plant a church one county south, and CTK Mount Vernon was launched in 1999.
In the years following, we planted churches to the north to reach out in Lynden (CTK North County) and to Blaine, Birch Bay, and Custer (CTK North Bay). Soon, each of those new churches became their own entities, still sharing the CTK name and mission. We watched and worked humbly as God continued on his mission to reach our corner of the world.
Today, Christ the King Community Church is a network of five churches with the same name, the same mission, and the same central services to help organize our network.
Though there’s a lot we share, each campus has its own unique flavor, shaped by its leadership team and the community it serves (Bellingham, Blaine, Downtown Bellingham, Ferndale, and Sudden Valley).
Some campuses are small, some are big, and many people now join us online — from just across the street to around the world. In the end, "our story" is not really ours. It's God's story of his goodness and faithfulness, through easy times and hard, as we listen for his voice to guide us toward what he wants for his children, his church, the community around us, and the world he loves.