OUR STORY

Beginning in 2013-2014, a small group of people living in Lakeland began attending Aletheia Tampa with a vision, dream, and prayer for a new church to be planted in our city. As God watered the seed for this church plant over many years, Aletheia commissioned & sent out a team of 30 adults and a dozen children to plant The King’s Church in September of 2018.

We started meeting for corporate worship at Dixieland Elementary School on Sundays and in smaller gatherings (City Groups) scattered throughout Lakeland during the week. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, our congregation was required to shift locations for our Sunday gatherings. We began to worship at Union Hall on Sundays and acquired our own office space where we hosted kids ministry and various gatherings throughout the week.

Just as we began to outgrow our gathering spaces, God opened up an incredible opportunity for our church family. In the fall of 2021, The King’s Church went under contract with the intent to purchase a historic church building in the heart of the Dixieland historic district here in Lakeland. Through the generosity of our church members and ministry partners, God graciously provided all that we needed to acquire this property and we officially moved in January of 2022.

GROWTH AND CHANGE

In response to significant growth at The King’s Church in the past few years, the TKC Elders entered a season of prayerful discernment, specifically asking the Lord for clarity on how to faithfully shepherd and care well for our growing flock, while remaining committed to generously supporting the work of planting new churches. 

In January of 2026, we announced that the Lord is leading us to begin restructuring as one church across multiple congregations. In the short term, we are hoping to plant two new TKC congregations, with the first coming to South Lakeland in early 2027. Long-term, The King’s Church will be committed to planting both new TKC congregations (that are institutionally interdependent) as well as new autonomous church plants. 

As one church, all TKC congregations will share the same church name, mission, vision, core values, theological foundations, philosophy of ministry, and high-level governance. At a local level, each congregation will have their own lead pastor, congregational elders, membership, contextual local ministries, programming, and areas of missional emphasis. We are viewing these new TKC congregations as “planting” efforts, as they take on the feel, strategy, and urgency of a church plant, while having a high level of institutional structure and support. We also hope this strategy will allow us to plant new TKC congregations with strong leadership and core teams in place.

In addition to becoming one church across multiple congregations, we have moved our Sunday corporate worship gatherings to Geneva Classical Academy as of August 2026. As the Lord has added to our number, we have outgrown our sanctuary and kids space at The Chapel, and were in need of increasing our gathering capacity on Sundays. This move was made in order that more people can hear the gospel, and so we can adequately “welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us, to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7).

As we transition our Sunday corporate worship gatherings to Geneva, we will be keeping The Chapel building, utilizing it as a central ministry hub for all of our congregations. We hope to see The Chapel used to facilitate ministry for our church family during the week, while also being leveraged for the flourishing of our city through like-minded rental opportunities and partnerships. The sanctuary will also be available for weddings for our church members, funerals, and other special services, and continues to give us an established presence in the center of our city.