Refuge Church Ojai Valley

If you see or experience something that changes your life, you probably tell a whole lot of people about it. That is what a witness is; people who experience something life changing or important and must tell others about it. What does your life witness to? How does Jesus play into that? This week we see that every Christian is called to be a witness and every Christian can only do that if the Hol...

During Jesus’s life one of the things that attracted people to His message and mission was His willingness to heal people. After His ascension, the early church has story after story of miraculous healing.  What about today? Are healings still happening? Is God still moving this way? This week we dive deep into God’s gift of healing and what it is supposed to look like in the life of His people. 

A church service can be a pretty tame and predictable place. We know we are going to sing, hear a message, some prayers, and say hello to a few people. But what if a tame place is nothing what God had in mind when his people gathered.  What if he wanted it to be a place where His Spirit made people come alive, where heaven touched earth, and things changed that were never the same again. This week...

Are you good at spotting fakes? Can you see when someone or something or some advice that might look or sound good actually isn’t? When it comes to God it can be tough. We can think he is leading one way, but in the back of our minds we can be second guessing. Thankfully the gift of Discernment is there to lead us in this.  Discernment is not just a big word, but a must have for anyone seeking to...

The Holy Spirit might be the most misunderstood person in all of Christianity. What do you think of when you think of the Holy Spirit? If someone asked you to describe Him what you would say? Do you feel like He is a part of your life? Do you want Him to be a part of your life? During this message and this series we jump into a study of the Holy Spirit so that we can misunderstand Him no more! 

What does it look like to produce the harvest that Jesus calls us to in Matthew 9? Dive into that question this week with our Associate Pastor, Zack Totten. 

Our world loves talking about sex, but it doesn’t like talking about what Jesus has to say about it. From the beginning of God’s creation sex is there, the question is, do we know why it was given to us? Do we care why it was given to us? And do we see the destruction it wreaks when we ignore its purpose and intention?

Everyone who ever takes a breath holds some measure of power. God creates us as humans who have an effect on one another and the environemnt around us. We don’t think about it much, but it's there. The question is - how do we and should we use that power? The world is telling us all the time that we should use it to serve ourselves, but Jesus has a different message and someone close to him lives...

Who do you go to to teach you and guide you in your relationship with money? For followers of Jesus we must go to him. The world has all kinds of ideas about how we should view money, but for followers of Jesus his way is the only way. #RCOV #ojai #god #healing #money #faith #truth #Jesus #faith #moneytalks

What does it look like to be not just a fan of Jesus, but a true follower? Join our Associate Pastor, Zack Totten, in this message on what the resurrection means for our lives. 

It’s not hard to meet someone who believes that faith is a good thing, but when you dig deep, it's not actually real or true. For a Christian, Easter is THE thing that makes our faith real and true. Every human wants to know that hope is possible, Easter is God’s response to that desire.

We all have things that we just can’t seem to get distance from. We worry and fret or hurt and suffer from things that we just can’t seem to leave in the past. What does Jesus say to that? Is there any hope? 

We like to hide our shame. Even when it’s obvious we will try and direct attention elsewhere. But what if the things that make us most uncomfortable about ourselves are the things that, once we give them to Jesus, can be a witness to us actually having hope in our lives?

If Jesus showed up in the flesh in your life right now, what would you expect Him to do? Is there a miracle you would ask him for? Is there a problem you would ask Him to solve? In the Bible it seems that whenever He showed up, He made things happen, but often they weren’t what people were expecting him to do. Is there something we are missing about what we need and what God wants to actually give...

What does faith in Jesus look like? In the book of Luke, we see faith embodied when a group of friends stop at nothing to get their friend to Jesus. Once they get to him, he surprises them and everyone by not only healing their friend, but pointing to a much deeper issue that he is also healing him from. Their willingness to get their friend to Jesus changes everything, not only for their friend,...

It doesn’t seem like we talk about Sabbath much in our world today. Even churches rarely speak on the topic. But in Jesus day talking about Sabbath in the wrong way could get you killed. In fact, it's after he heals a man on the sabbath and proclaims himself the Lord of the Sabbath that the religious leaders of his day start plotting to put him to death. Why? What was Jesus claiming? What was he t...

Have you ever been rejected or felt isolated or abandoned by people you cared for? Have you ever felt unwanted or unable to earn your way into a relationship that seemed like it would give you life? How have those experiences marked you? At the heart of the gospel is a message for people who have felt “less than.” At the heart of Jesus teachings is an invitation to not forget about your wounds but...

It can be really easy to get obsessed with how we think things should go. Our plan or our agenda can dominate how we see ourselves, others, and especially God. If our plan is working out then God must be on our side. If it's not, then he must have something against us. But the book of Ruth doesn’t see it that way. In the book of Ruth, God shows us that even when we are obsessed with our plans and...

When Ruth and Naomi show up in Israel together they have two very different approaches. One is bitter and wallowing, while the other is eager to trust her new God. One is living letting their suffering be their greatest identity, while the other is embracing their brand new life in God. Where do you find yourself? #RCOV #ojai #god #healing #healingjourney #faith #truth #ruth #faith

Life can hit pretty hard and the Bible never pretends it doesn’t. In the story of Ruth we see what it looks like to be rooted in God when life hits hard. We see that it doesn’t matter where you come from, or if you have strayed, but that Yahweh is always calling you back to be rooted in Him.

Obedience is never a word we like to hear. In our world obedience is seen as less than or something to escape, but in God’s Kingdom, it’s at the heart of knowing Jesus. It’s so easy to want to skip this part of following Jesus and it’s so tempting to want to ignore it when it comes to our life as a church. But Jesus is serious about obedience so we must be.

Maybe the hardest thing, as a follower of Jesus, is knowing what to do with our anger. People can do harmful and painful things to us and the world can dish out a whole lot of struggle, so what do we do with our anger? Thankfully, God gives us a clear and focused way to stir one another up when anger comes our way.

When Jesus teaches us how to pray, he is not giving us some religious words to sound holy or spiritual. He is stirring us up! When he teaches us to pray, he is teaching us how to see ourselves, inviting us to see God differently and telling us a new way of living is coming.

Our Guest Speaker, Zack Totten, breaks down with us what it looks like to spend time with Jesus and have a relationship with him. This is a super practical message where he lays out how to walk through a time of study and prayer in a way that actually helps us hear from God. 

Community centered around Jesus is radical because it's a community that's not centered around you. Most of us say we want community, but often we want an echo chamber or a group that exists to serve our own wants. Jesus community is different; it says we really find what we need and we really serve ourselves and others when we are 100% focused on him.