Starting this summer, local church Reality Santa Barbara will be changing locations for its services to the auditorium of a local high school.

Beginning July 7, Reality’s Santa Barbara campus will be convening at the Santa Barbara High School auditorium and has signed a one-year contract with the Santa Barbara Unified School District

The church has an agreement to use the auditorium and parking lot from July 7, 2013, to June 29, 2014, every Sunday from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to a SBUSD contract signed on Feb. 28.

The contract says that about 500 people will attend the event each week, gathering for a mix of music and preaching.

The church signed the $60,464 agreement with the district that includes the use of the auditorium, a theater manager, custodian and application fee.

Pastoral staff at Reality Santa Barbara could not be reached for comment about this year’s move.

The church began in Carpinteria and expanded to Ventura, but announced it would be launching another campus in Santa Barbara in 2011.

The church also has locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stockton, Boston and London.

Since beginning a Santa Barbara campus, the church has had a contract with Santa Barbara City College to use the sports pavilion, 18 classrooms, a storage container and three parking lots.

The church is also renting a 10,000-square-foot office space at 10 E. Yanonali St. for support staff.

Reality Pastor Britt Merrick told Noozhawk in 2011 that church leadership has been thinking about opening a campus in Santa Barbara for about three years, and rapid growth at the Carpinteria campus meant that space was becoming an issue.

A large portion of the congregation was driving from Ventura to the south and Santa Barbara from the north. As a result, the church opened a campus in Ventura nearly two years ago.

“That’s gone really well,” Merrick said. “The church has grown, and we knew eventually we would do the same in Santa Barbara,” with Merrick and other pastoral staff preaching from the Santa Barbara location and appearing over video at Ventura and Carpinteria.

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.