The Chapel By The Sea was founded in 1949 after a Canadian winter visitor, Nora Adkins, decided that the children who lived on Clearwater Beach should have a Sunday School in their community.

She met with friends and neighbors, a committee was formed, and her plan grew to the point that this community church became a reality. The land was donated by the Skinner family of Dunedin and a building was constructed.

The Chapel has always been the beach's church with its programming open to the entire community. It places a heavy emphasis on outreach and was one of the founding congregations of Religious Community Services (RCS).

Chapel By The Sea is involved in all aspects of community life, belonging even to such "secular" organizations as the Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce (being the first church to join it), the Clearwater Beach Chamber of Commerce, and the Clearwater Beach Civic Association. And it has been a member of the International Council of Community Churches, the world's most fully integrated religious association, for most of its half-century of existence.

The Chapel's first fifty years have been exciting and productive. Its members and friends look forward to the next fifty with equal enthusiasm, anticipation, and hope.