The Church of the Good Shepherd is an Episcopal church located in Norfolk, VA, an historic city established in 1682. At the turn of the 20th century, the City of Norfolk was growing northward, stimulated by the grand 1907 Jamestown Exposition in the Sewell’s Point area, which would become part of the world’s largest Naval Base in 1917, and a population surge after World War I. Families settled into the open spaces beyond the Lafayette River along a trolley line to the Exposition grounds and, eventually, a jitney began to make runs between the “suburbs” and downtown.

It was about this time that the people of the community realized they needed a church of their own. To avoid the lengthy trek all the way to town and back for children’s Sunday School, especially when parents wanted to attend church themselves, volunteers began teaching the youngsters at home on Sunday afternoons. This was the nucleus of what would become the Church of the Good Shepherd. By 1917, the Church was an actual building on its present site, with 22 communicants.
In 1939, the Church dedicated a much-needed, much larger parish house, Memorial Hall, which includes a large auditorium, a well-appointed kitchen and office space. This was only the beginning. In 1969, new construction was crowned by an architecturally remarkable church, completing 40,000 square feet of "home" for a congregation then numbering in the hundreds.

Like the City of Norfolk, Good Shepherd has blossomed in number and diversity. Its congregation is drawn from the adjacent neighborhoods, no longer farm land and swamp, as well as from Old Dominion University to the South and the Norfolk Naval Base to the north and parts scattered more widely.