Free Methodist Church of Santa Barbara

This Sunday, we will take a break from our study of Ruth to share in the power of a testimony. This weekend I will have the honor of being ordained as a reverend for the Free Methodist Church. I am beyond grateful for our church community, and humbled by the call to serve the church as an elder. On Sunday, I will share my testimony in the hopes of offering an encouragement to the church and a remi...

Ruth 1:6-22 This Sunday, we delve into the first chapter of Ruth in earnest. In these verses, we find the most famous words from this book, "Where you go, I will go." Although many people have used them to indicate their commitment when getting married, these words speak to a strong bond found in a different kind of family relationship. This is not about romance; it is a decision Ruth makes to sta...

This Sunday, we begin a new six-week series on the book of Ruth. We will start with an overview, so we understand the context and how this historical narrative fits in with the rest of the Bible. Then, we will look at the first few verses, which set the stage for the rest of the story. Ruth is a beautiful narrative that is rich in history and the characters are fantastic. For this week, we will be...

Our text this week is the second two of three appearance stories in John 20. Jesus has risen, and in the beginning of the chapter, he appears to Mary Magdalene is the garden outside of the empty tomb, revealing himself to her, and then sending her to tell his other disciples what she has seen. Later that day, he appears to his disciples in a locked room, when they are filled with fear and wonderin...

John 21:1-14, Luke 24:13-35 This Sunday, we have the honor of celebrating our Risen King, Jesus Christ! What a joy to gather in His name for the most important day of the year. As is our tradition, we will meet at the beach early in the morning to watch the sun rise and join our voices with Christians everywhere as we read scripture and sing amidst God's beauty. At the Sunrise, I will be sharing t...

As Jesus is ushered into Jerusalem, we are brought into the most sacred of all times in the Christian year: Holy Week. Jesus has come into the city to die. We have come to this week after many weeks of Lent, eager for what God has for us as we remember what it means that He chose to die for everyone. What does it mean that sin now can die in us? What does it mean for our own death? In the book of...

We come now to a familiar passage in the narrative we have been studying: Peter denying the Lord. As we have seen, relationships have come to the forefront in the arrest and trial of Jesus. Last week, we talked about how no one (especially Peter, who was there) stood up for their Master when people were lying and giving false testimony against Him. This week, we see that not only does Peter have n...

Accused This Sunday we will hear from four of our pastors, engaging the scripture above with different focuses: Denzyl: We'll briefly review the history of the religious high court, and roles of the priests in the trial of Jesus. Through this trial, we'll explore how their motives against Jesus are counterintuitive to their roles, and what it means to refer to Jesus, through his death and resurrec...

This Sunday we took a deeper look into Mark 14:43-52. We are going to open our hearts and minds to a story we may have heard many times. We might know the characters and the outcome. It is a story we often hear this time of year and it more or less blends in with the whole narrative of the crucifixion and the resurrection. It is a tragic story but perhaps we have become a little numb to how much i...

Our text for worship this week is a difficult one to read. Jesus, full of sadness, is imploring the Father to allow the pain of the cross to pass Him by. He is in agony. Meanwhile, the disciples sleep nearby. There are many angles to look at this scripture from. Which one might we choose? While these are familiar words to us, we want to be reminded of what God has for us in this season of Lent. As...

Our speaker on Sunday is Kate Wallace Nunneley, whom we invited to come preach because she is also our speaker for the Women's Retreat. We are so glad she agreed to stay an extra day! Kate is the Lead Pastor of Wellspring Free Methodist Church in Bakersfield, CA. She is also the co-founder of The Junia Project, a volunteer community which advocates for the inclusion of women in leadership in the c...

Synopsis: As Pastor Helen reminded us, we are now studying passages of the passion of Jesus. His suffering and death free us from the penalty of our sin. This portion of Mark gives us the account of how it happened and what Jesus endured. On this communion Sunday, we will be reading the most important passage for understanding the Lord's Supper in the New Testament. Jesus is having a meal with His...

The last five weeks Pastor Colleen has walked us through Mark 13 with her thorough and thoughtful studies. This Sunday we enter the Passion Narrative in Mark (chapters 14 and 15) with a beautiful story of an anonymous woman anointing Jesus at Bethany, bookended by Jerusalem authorities' enmity toward and Judas's betrayal of Jesus. The wasteful love shown at Bethany contrasts the hatred at Jerusale...

Well, we have now come to the end of Mark 13. What a great five weeks it has been! For a piece of scripture so daunting, I think we have done very well together. Thanks for hanging in there. It is vital that we wrestle with all the passages of the Bible, so we can know what we believe, so God can teach us His truth, so we can be ready to talk about it with others. God's word is alive because the L...

We continue our sojourn through Mark 13, but it is not really a walk in the park. This is a serious trek uphill for us, and each of us brings baggage to the climb which may or may not be helpful for the hike. Some of us have been training for the time the Lord is coming back. We have read apocalyptic literature, tried to figure out Revelation, devoured the Left Behind series, and immersed ourselve...

As we continue exploring the themes of Mark 13 this Sunday, we will be thinking about false teachers who come as leaders for God, but who have quite a different agenda than His will. They look and sound so much like people who should be followed, yet they actually only want to promote themselves or exploit others for their advantage. Jesus' words are ones we need to hear, both for our own past exp...

We continue to study the themes of Mark 13 this week. In this dialogue spoken outside the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus is giving His followers instruction for what is to come in the future. The theme of the verses I will preach Sunday are about the opposition they personally will experience as people of the faith. They have no idea what will transpire in their lives. We wonder if, as Jesus is talkin...

Mark 13:1-8 The scripture we study this week begins with Jesus and His disciples leaving the temple. As they do, they begin a conversation in which Jesus imparts knowledge about what is to come and what the disciples are to watch for as time unfolds. All of chapter 13 is Jesus telling them what will happen while also encouraging them in what they should do. This may be a challenging piece of scrip...

In this sermon, we delve back into the gospel of Mark. Remember before Advent, we were in the thick of Jesus being questioned about many issues by leaders who seemed to be trying to discredit Him, while hoping He would stumble over His theology. In the last verses of Mark 12, we will be looking at only what Jesus thinks. On this day, He has truths to convey to the people and to the disciples. A tr...

Have you ever considered what it was that made the wise men leave their homes to go and seek the newborn king? They were looking to the eastern sky and saw a star come up. This became a sign to them that a king had entered the world. Clearly, the Holy Spirit was at work...God was showing these men of learning and means that this was an opportunity for them to come and see His Son. Yet, what was it...

Over the last four weeks, we have been waiting in expectation for the birth of Christ. This Sunday falls during the twelve days of the Christmas season in the church calendar, and we have the opportunity to consider not just Christ's first coming but also his return. This child, born for us, changes everything as Immanuel, God with us. In his life, Christ revealed to us the kingdom of God and invi...

Belief sometimes gets a bad rap. We have all experienced how easy it can be to believe in something yet not give it much worth. James 2:19 reminds us even the demons believe in God. We allow the word "believe" to sound surface level. We might say "It is not enough to just believe . . . " John chapter 1 brings fresh life and depth to the act and reward of "believing." On this Sunday before Christma...

Luke 2:1-20, Isaiah 9:1-7 As we continue our portrait of the Incarnate God, who we understand to be Jesus Christ, we come to His birth. This Advent, we have talked about Him at the beginning and we have also looked at how what came before played in various ways in His story, most notably last week through Joseph’s experience. This Sunday, we read the familiar words from Luke 2 as well as words fro...

Matthew 1:18-23, Isaiah 7:13-14

Genesis 1:1, 1:26-27, John 1:1-5