Founded December 8, 1946 with 69 charter adult members and aligned with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) since the denomination's 1988 formation, St. Peter's by the Sea Lutheran Church occupies a clifftop site at 1371 Sunset Cliffs Boulevard purchased for $7,000 in 1945. The seafaring iconography — anchor fronting Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, ship-compass pulpit, clamshell baptistery — runs through the sanctuary and continues into the on-campus Saint Peters by the Sea Pre-School, the parish-operated early-childhood program housed in the 4,300-square-foot two-story education building with eleven classrooms. As a member of the ELCA Pacifica Synod, the congregation participates in "God's Work. Our Hands." service Sundays, Lutheran Social Services food drives, and clothing collections for Haitian refugees staying at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church in La Mesa. Synod-level partnerships and joint pulpit exchanges connect St. Peter's to fellow ELCA congregations across the peninsula and county, with Bethany Lutheran Church serving as the closest sister Pacifica Synod parish for shared programming. A 2015 facility renovation converted part of the parking lot into a community park and native-plant garden, and a solar-roof installation cut the church's electric bill from roughly $6,000 annually to a $10 monthly grid-connection fee. The largest current capital project is the 2025 sanctuary remodel and restoration campaign, which involves architectural planning for the historic 1947 building, stained-glass conservation, organ refurbishment, and ELCA constitutional review of the worship-space modifications before reconsecration.