In 1898, Qingdao became a German concession territory. The Germans demolished the existing Chinese villages and rebuilt the area as a European-style city, complete with tree-lined boulevards, breweries, and churches. The Gouvernements-Hugel, known today as Guanhaishan, was selected as the site for both a Protestant church and a Roman Catholic church, placing the two institutions of worship at the symbolic center of the colony. On June 1, 1907, the Protestant congregation solicited design proposals from architects across East Asia. Rothkegel's design was chosen, though the bell tower's initially modern style drew criticism from Paul Richter and Hachmeister, who reviewed the drafts and suggested a more traditional treatment. Construction began on April 19, 1908, and was completed on October 23, 1910, funded by the German Governor's Office.

The church's first crisis came in 1914, when World War I brought Japanese forces to Qingdao's doorstep. The Imperial Japanese Army captured the city on November 7, ending German colonial rule. German missionaries were repatriated after the war, and the church passed to Qingdao's Lutheran community. When the Pacific War broke out in December 1941, all British and American residents in northern China were detained at the Weixian Internment Camp, and the church came under the care of Su Baozhi, a German priest associated with the Qingdao Tongshan Society. From 1945 to 1949, German and American believers held separate morning and evening services until the withdrawal of United States forces. On June 2, 1949, the People's Liberation Army took control of Qingdao.

The new government confiscated the church in December 1949. Its ancillary buildings were converted for use by the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao Medical College. During the Cultural Revolution, the church was closed entirely, joining countless other religious sites across China that fell victim to the campaign against traditional culture and foreign influence. The closure lasted thirty years. On November 2, 1980, Christ's Church reopened its doors to the public, one of the early beneficiaries of China's gradual relaxation of restrictions on religious practice. The congregation that returned found a building that had endured decades of neglect but remained structurally sound, its stonework and bell tower intact.

Recognition came in stages. In 1992, the Shandong provincial government declared Christ's Church a cultural relic preservation site. In June 2006, the State Council of China elevated its status further, listing it among the sixth batch of Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shandong. The church building covers 1,297.51 square meters and can accommodate approximately 1,400 worshipers. Its architecture reflects the particular moment in early twentieth-century German design when traditional church forms were being challenged by modernist impulses, and the compromise between Rothkegel's original vision and his reviewers' corrections produced a building that is neither purely traditional nor fully modern. It occupies the same uncertain ground as Qingdao itself: a Chinese city shaped by German hands, Japanese occupation, and Communist transformation, still finding its balance between all the forces that made it.