Category: Santa Barbara Good News

It’s been a fantastic two weeks for the Santa Barbara Church! God has indeed been moving his hands powerfully to train disciples and bring in the harvest. The entire church has been working hard to push for a great turn out for our Bring Your Neighbor Day Service on Sunday. Many prayers have been asked for God to work miracles, and that is exactly what has been among us!

 

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” 

-Deuteronomy 31:8

We had some amazing neighbors from the community come out and hear the word preached by Dennis Sloan, titled The Promises of God! The visitor turn out for service was almost double the number of members. A surprising amount of visitors were friends that have reconnected with us from a year ago.

 

 

One amazing miracle story was a woman named Keisha, who appeared at church the previous week, but arrived 4 hours after service was over! She was invited by our brother Reynaldo back in 2014. While walking in the community, she remembered the church and stopped in to find it. In God’s perfect timing, she found a few disciples still at the hotel. She has now come out to every event and is studying bible with the sisters.

 

 

 

“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ”

-Romans 10:17

Following the footsteps of the men, the amazing P31(Proverbs 31) Women got to train in the ministry of God’s word for Wednesday Midweek. Two courageous sisters Jessica Pengra and Dori Turner preached the word on how to help an atheist with their faith in God! Jessica brought the sisters incite on the often broken and hardened heart condition towards religion or God that causes many to become atheist. She explained that the best way to help them is to lovingly draw out the “deep waters” of the heart, over time, and carefully work through the real troubles in the heart. In addition, Dori brought to light that atheist often have common morals that the bible describes were ingrained in man by God.

 

 

 

 

“Love is patient love, love is kind. It does not envy it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It protects, always trusts, and always hopes, always perseveres”

– 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is the most important thing when we are trying to share the word of God! The following week the MMOG (Mighty Men of God) Men of Santa Barbara met at the brothers household for Mens Mid-week! On Wednesday night, we had two amazing warriors, Chris Baty and Andree Bedoya, preach the word on how to clear up some common questions that the Catholic Church has. Our brother Chris shared about some misconceptions that are out there, and our brother Andree called us higher to love those in a similar battle of the Gospel of Christ.

 

 

“Then the Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Then Samuel said, ‘ Speak , for your servant is listening.’ and the Lord said to Samuel: ‘ See I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.”

– 1 Samuel 3:10-11

It’s been an amazing week for the campus ministry, S.W.A.T. (Students With a Testimony). God has definitely been moving the hearts of the students on SBCC campus and blessed the Bible Talks with an average of 5 visitors per Bible Talk!

 

 

 

This week we also had an awesome Campus Devotional where Dominic Sandoval preached the word, and followed with a game of Improv to end the night off! We believe that God is going to continue to do great things in Santa Barbara this semester on SBCC campus and let his Word make the ears of those who hear it tingle!

 

Please pray for our church, this next week, as we are getting ready to give sacrificially money we collected and fund-raised for our national 3x’s Missions Contribution. As God had served us greatly here in America, we make it our heart and priority to serve our brothers and sister in foreign countries who need our help. May we exceed our goal! And May God be the Glory!

 

• Article Written by Richard Huerta & Dara Teamer

 

“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”  -Matthew 20:28

 

Greetings from the mighty Santa Barbara International Christian Church! To begin an amazing  week, the disciples were given the opportunity to serve the community for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Monday, a huge celebration was held to honor Dr. King, beginning with a huge march downtown on State Street, and ending with a program at the beautiful Arlington Theater. The program had music, dramatic poetry, public speakers, and a award ceremony for the winners of a children essay contest. The disciples had an amazing time greeting and ushering people to their seats in the theater, and as a treat were able to hear the hearts of the children who were receiving awards! Jesus came to serve and not to be served, it’s amazing to see our fellow brothers and sisters serving the community imitating Christ!

 

 

Good news from S.W.A.T.! (Students With A Testimony). This week was the start of our Spring 2016 semester on Santa Barbara City College. With our new campus ministry leader, Dominic Sandoval and his bible talk co-leader Jodian Gram, leading the way, our Bible Talks went amazingly well this first week on campus! The past month we have been praying for many souls to come to God, and specifically for those who studied the bible before and walked away. Since then one guy named Angel asked to come back to study the bible, as well as a few others we had reached out to in the past. We have faith that God is going to do amazing things and work in the hearts of all the students on SBCC campus. S.W.A.T. is ready to take on the land God has given them!

“ I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” -Genesis 13:16-17

 

This Thursday, the professional singles and marrieds ministry TGFF (Thank God For Family), led by our courageous  brother Jason Collier and his co-leader Dara Teamer, met at the Flury’s home for Bible Talk! Jason gave an amazing lesson on the parable of the unmerciful servant, and related it to our lives on how, at times, we can be unmerciful towards others, forgetting that grace has been given to us by God! With a new year in play, the singles ministry is planning some major events this year to gather in all the professional people in Santa Barbara. At the end of February we have already gotten approval to host a superb 90’s party at the Java Station Coffee House. The excitement is growing in how much this ministry is soon going to make a great impact in Santa Barbara.

 

 

 

 

Amazing news from MOG ( Might Men of God). Men’s Mid-week was amazing! This week we had two awesome sold-out brothers preach the word! Dashawn and Richie had the privilege to share their convictions about atheism! Dashawn preached about bringing the good news, and believing in the seed that we are planting in the hearts of those who don’t believe in God! Richie preached about how people just don’t know how to seek after God so we must show people the way and to have faith that they will come to know who God is! It’s amazing how each of the brothers are getting the opportunity during midweek to preach and sharpen each other swords in the ministry!

 

After a good winter break, followed by a powerful winter workshop, the Santa Barbara Church has hit the ground running this year with new goals and great vision. Pray for the growth of our ministry and for the word of God to spread rapidly this year! To God be the Glory!

 

– Article written by Richard Huerta

 

 

 

Greetings from the Santa Barbara International Christian Church! We had a fantastic and fruitful past couple of weeks. As fall began to descend on Santa Barbara, we excitedly got spent a great amount of time worshiping God and fellowshipping in his nature at the past sunday’s park and beach services.

 

The movement is moving on SBCC! The campus ministry’s bible talks have been extremely fruitful! The past few weeks the visitors have been ranging from 5-10+ visitors! Our new and powerful bible talk leaders are Dominic, Andree, Jody and Dori who lead three amazing bible talks on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

 

Our newest sister in Christ is campus student Beatriz! Beatriz was baptized on Wednesday September 30th at the Flury’s apartment pool! Beatriz was so eager to become a disciple that she did three night studies in a row until 2am with Corinna, Jody and Dori. It was very encouraging to have another sister added into the amazing kingdom of God! Our hearts were full with love and happiness when Beatriz became a disciple!

 

In addition, Linda, a freshman city college student, was met at the bus stop by our sister Jody who was on her way to our Karaoke Night at the sisters household. After recently moving to Santa barbara from Virginia, Linda responded well to the new friend and joined us for karaoke. She soon after began studying the bible and was indignant about the fact that she never knew that she was not a disciple. She eagerly went after studying the bible and joining the kingdom events, even zealously joined our fundraising events! Excitedly she was baptized into Christ on October 15!

 

 

Our singles ministry has had four visitors that came out to bible talk twice on Thursday evenings at the Flury’s. The visitors were Mormon missionaries, and the two girls of the four were neighbors of the Flurys. Also they all came after church service at the beach and spend a good amount of time fellowshipping, eating and singing with some disciples. One of the missionary sisters mentioned to us that she was impressed with how much our church gets into the bible and is passionate about the mission. She didn’t know that other churches did that besides theirs. Although, the two women were soon transferred to a new location they assured us that we left a lasting memory in their hearts. Please pray for the many more miracles to come as our singles ministry grows!

Greetings from the Santa Barbara International Christian Church! This good news article we have combined two fantastic weeks into one article. Starting with Sunday August 30th, David and Jordan Swann came up from the Ventura region of the LA Church to Santa Barbara to preach the word of God. Their powerful sermons inspired us to continue doing God’s work and being on fire for Him! Jordan preached that if we aren’t doing God’s work, we are doing Satan’s will. Jordan challenged us to not disobey the vision, have fire inside of us and love the lost. David preached about how many people aren’t believed in by family, friends, co-workers, teachers etc. It’s easy for people to get beaten down from the world. As disciples we are commanded to love others and we all must participate in doing God’s work and not just wear the uniform. Disciples will suffer for being a Christian at times, but we must remember that Jesus suffered more than us.

 

 

 

As we begin the fall session, we now have three bible talks going on and have come up with names for each. Our professional singles and married bible talk is called T.G.F.F., which stands for Thank God For Family. The Santa Barbara City College bible talk is called SWAT, Students With a Testimony, and the UCSB bible talk name is The Truth.

God showed us his power to bring the harvest outside of our own efforts this past week. SBCC had a campus club day where the campus ministry set up a very simple table, compared to the other clubs. They simply made a sheet of paper for students to sign up if they wanted to study the bible. However, to God’s glory, seven men and eleven women said that they wanted to study the bible!

 

 

Additionally, at the professional singles and marrieds bible talk Thursday, we started off the evening with at great meal but sadly had no visitors until about 40 minutes in. Right when we were preparing our hearts to go back out and share our faith to get some visitors, we heard a knock on the door and four Mormon neighbors came to join our bible talk! Jason led a powerful lesson that opened up a great discussion. The Lord is the master of the harvest.

 

The Saturday before labor day, our church got to participate in our 1st annual Women’s volleyball tournament at William Mason Park in Irvine. The Santa Barbara sisters that participated were Dara Teamer, Corinna Sloan and Jessica Pengra. Their volleyball team consisted of sisters from the Ventura and North regions of the LA Church. The team first met each other that day of the tournament. Most of the sisters had the heart to play volleyball but the only experienced player was 7th grader Bella Swann, from Ventura! Although, the sisters lost the first six games against some very talented regions, they persevered and practiced continuously. At the last game, the sisters prayed and relied on God’s strength, and miraculously they played their best and closest game of them all. After a neck to neck game with the West region, the North and Ventura region sisters came in with their 1st victory!

 

 

 

Monday, we returned to Irvine for the congregational Labor Day picnic of all the churches in Southern California. It was a fun day filled with fellowship, games, and food. From soccer, to volleyball, to capture the flag, disciples and visitors were able to enjoy a day with many exciting activities. Our church brought along two visitors from Santa Barbara who had a great time. It was a great way for our visitors to see the fellowship of God’s family from all over.

 

 

It was a heart filled week as we prepared our hearts to send out our dear brother Brian Lin to soon move to Australia. After women’s midweek at the Flury’s, the brothers came over to join the sisters to have a goodbye party for Brian. We celebrated with brownies, shared how Brian has impacted our lives, and wrote down special memories that we had with Brian. This was a great time of fellowship with the family and sharing with him the love of God’s Kingdom!

 

 

 

On Friday evening, the church went down to LA for a congregational devotional at USC about pure dating. Tim Kernan preached about the importance of purity because it separates us from the world. Our true worth is that we are priceless because Jesus died for our sins to give us a new life. Tim emphasized that brothers and sisters both need encouragement dates, but we must act with absolute purity. After Tim’s lesson, we had a speed dating session outside which was encouraging for the brothers and sisters from the same or different regions to get to know each other better.

 

 

We are excited to see the great and exciting news to come this next week in Santa Barbara!

 

– Laura Lewis

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” – John 3:8

 

It is an exciting, yet very sad week for the Santa Barbara Church, as this being the last week we are able to fellowship with our dear brother Brian Lin. After witnessing Brian’s birth in the kingdom just slightly over a year ago, and seeing his exponential growth, the spirit has called him to move on to be trained in Australia under the evangelist Joe Willis, and will be continuing his education at the University of Sydney. Prayfully from there he will be sent out as a part of the Hong Kong Mission Team in 2017! Having a Taiwanese heritage, Brian will be able to use his gifts of speaking mandarin to preach the word of Jesus to the Chinese nation! His dreams do not stop there, but he prays to one day reach out to his family and save his own people in his home country of Taiwan. This weeks good news article features Brian Lin’s powerful testimony on how he was sought by God during his darkest moments in life, which brought him to become now a sold-out disciple of Jesus.

 

Hello, my name is Brian Lin and this is my testimony. I grew up in the small city of Diamond Bar, California. It is a very quiet place and from what I’ve seen, the dominant demographic is of Asian descent. From a very young age, I was taught that school was very important and that I must put education as my first priority. In addition, my mom also encouraged me to have a love for God and to go to church every Sunday.

I was eight years old when the leaders of the church I was going to asked me if I believed Jesus was my Lord and Savior. I purely responded “yes”, as I did with many other things around that age that I didn’t know much about. As I grew older, still not quite grasping what I was supposed to believe, I went to church disinterested and uncommitted. I would struggle with my belief in Jesus Christ for many years, especially in middle school and high school, where my life did not reflect the life of a sold-out Christian.

For the most part, I did well in school and had a wide range of hobbies such as skateboarding, badminton, piano, guitar, ping pong and basketball. Although in my sophomore year of high school, I was introduced to marijuana and hated it, but I continued to smoke from time to time because I wanted to fit in with people. I eventually found a group of friends that I felt I could identify with because they all loved to skateboard, but in the end most of them ended up smoking marijuana and I would again be pulled into smoking. I never smoked frequently because I believed it was morally wrong, but slowly I began to enjoy the effects of the drug more and more. Now about to graduate high school, I had already narrowed down my choices to two colleges, which were UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara. UC Santa Barbara was the more appealing choice to me not only because of its party reputation, but also because of its top 50 rank. I was excited to begin my new life at UC Santa Barbara with one of my best buddies from my hometown, named Curtis.

We moved into the freshman dorms and even shared a room together! One day, when Curtis and I went downstairs to head toward the dining halls, two guys named Richie and Dale approached us. They invited us to church and challenged us to play a game of ping pong with them. In my prideful head, I knew I had played ping pong quite a bit, so I observed Richie and Dale rallying.  To me, ping pong had always been an Asian sport, so for me to watch a 5’7” black guy and 6’4” white guy playing ping pong, I thought these guys were toast. Yet, they were actually pretty good and both Curtis and I agreed to go to a church service.

 

We attended the Santa Barbara International Christian Church (SBICC) and thought it was pretty cool, but we believed that our focus had to be more on school and maintaining a decent social life. Richie and Dale spent hours upon hours studying the Bible with us two, but I was just not convinced because my heart was so hardened with sin. I admittedly gave up on studying the Bible with them for about 6 months and went into my own little world. I stopped caring about God and began to think God was holding me back from accomplishing the things I wanted to do. But Richie, Dale, and the rest of the brothers and sisters at Santa Barbara did not give up on me.

One Thursday night, about 7 months after our last bible study, I went to Richie and told him something very traumatic that had happened to me. I was trying to hold back my tears, but couldn’t, I was just so ashamed that I had fallen this hard. I told him that I wanted to get baptized, to be forgiven of all my sins, and he told me something that blew my mind! On Thursday morning, Richie prayed to God that a person who had almost made the decision to be a true sold-out disciple, but just barely slipped away would come back to them and want to be baptized. His faithful prayer became a reality in me, as I came to him that same day at night and told him I was ready!  Richie, Dale, and all the awesome brothers and sisters of SBICC came and supported me.  I was baptized on July 27th, 2014, on the same day as Joshua Galindo, a fellow brother who I will now forever share that awesome moment with.

I still have many friends back in Diamond Bar that I want to reach out to and help to strengthen their relationship with God. I pray that God will use me to reach out to them and to any place in the world that needs to know about Jesus. God’s miracles didn’t stop there. As soon as I returned from our church’s Global Leadership Conference in Palm Desert, I prayed that God would reach out to the Isla Vista community, (where I live by the university) and save people. I went outside to pray and in less than a minute, a guy walked by me and said “Hi”. I introduced myself and gave him a handshake.  We talked a little bit about life and I invited him out to church on Sunday. I told him how awesome it is and it persuaded him! He even offered to give me a ride and said, “Let’s get breakfast before we go”.  After we hugged, I immediately called Richie and Dale and went into my room to pray some more.  I prayed that my family and friends, and the rest of the world would be saved.  I know it may take some time, but I truly believe God will use all of his workers (a.k.a. disciples) to reach out to every part of the world and change lives.  I have a lot of growing to do as a disciple, but the old me is gone! I now put my complete faith in God and know for a fact that Jesus truly is my Lord and Savior.

 

I want to thank all the brothers and sisters at the Santa Barbara International Christian Church, and the rest of the disciples all around the world.  God bless!

Greetings from the Santa Barbara International Christian Church! We had another fantastic week! Dennis preached part two of becoming Mighty Warriors of God. He spoke on the significance of prioritizing the word, worship, and walking with God. Dennis stressed the importance of eagerly examining the scriptures everyday and to love God with our lives because the Bible is our foundation. We had four visitors at service, which was encouraging to see disciples harvesting the fruit!

 

While the sisters were at midweek service on Wednesday, the brothers were at their Mighty Men of God (MMOG) meeting. This week the brother’s gathered at the Sloan’s apartment for a BBQ and lesson on how to become pure men of God. This was a time of fellowship, prayer and breaking of the bread, just like the first century church demonstrated in Acts 2:42!

This week was the first week of classes at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC). The campus ministry was excited about going after the harvest this semester! The church had many bible studies going on we were excited to teach the men and women about God and His purpose for their lives.

 

The singles ministry gathered Thursday evening for the free drive-in movie night at the West Wind Drive In. We watched a double feature “Home” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron”! It was a great time of fellowship with the family and Stephanie, Dara’s co-worker who joined us too! Before the movie started, some disciples threw the football and spent time together. While watching the movie, there was a full moon and many stars visible to remind us of God’s amazing creation.

 

Friday night, the Santa Barbara and Ventura church had a combined devotional at the Swann’s house.  Both Javier (from Ventura) and Dennis preached powerful sermons. First, Javier preached on how to find and make a warrior for God’s kingdom by having quiet times, prayers, sharing our faith, and fellowship. Javier emphasized that God believe we can do more and that we must go beyond our borders of our current campuses. Dennis preached on living and embracing your purpose for God. He emphasized that our purpose is to make disciples. If you are on the vine, you will bear much fruit. Dennis also mentioned that when we encourage others, we will be encouraged in return. As disciples we find joy in our salvation, and because of that God commands us to share the good news with the world!

 

On Saturday evening, some of the Santa Barbara disciples joined the City of Angels region churches for a pure dance for the singles in North Hollywood. This was a great opportunity to fellowship with other brothers and sisters from other branches of our church. It was like a mini Global Leadership Conference (GLC) reunion!

 

To finish our good news, an amazing opportunity happened back in July when our leaders Dennis and Corinna Sloan went on a family reunion in Louisiana. There they were invited to preach and run their family’s sunday church service. Dennis preached to approximately 40 family members about seeking God and making the Word of God their standard. The sermon sparked great interest in many of Corinna’s family members, specifically her cousin Oleviya, who lived in Baton Rouge,LA. Now she has been studying the bible virtually with Corinna! We don’t have a church in Louisiana yet, but hopefully we will someday soon! The movement is always moving!

 

 

Article Written by Laura Lewis

The Santa Barbara International Christian Church had a great week! Starting off, Dennis preached a powerful sermon on how to become mighty men and women of God. After service, the church came together and made impactful plans to go sharing together, and set up bible studies for the week.
 

 

In the bible, some in the church in Corinth had the gift of speaking in different languages. So, it was on some of the disciples hearts to use their gifts and go sharing with the spanish speaking nation in Santa Barbara. Tuesday, some of the brothers and sisters came together to share their faith in Old Town Goleta. Our brother, Richie, and sister, Michelle, excitedly got to use their gifts of speaking spanish for God!
 

 

Wednesday, while the brothers were at midweek service, the sisters gathered at the Flury’s home and laid out goals to become powerful women of God. Since we wanted to portray all the character traits of the woman of noble character in Proverbs 31, we settled that the name “P31” would best represent our group. Look out for the powerful growth that will happen in the Women’s ministry soon!

Friday evening consisted of a combined campus and singles devotional at East Beach. We were excited to have two campus students, Jocelyn and Layla, as visitors! To start of the evening, Dennis gathered the church for a fun trust game called “Blind landmine.” In this game, everyone partnered up; then one partner closed their eyes and had to follow their partner’s verbal directions as they walked across a mock minefield obstacle course created with cups in the sand. In order to keep from touching the mines (cups) in the course and make it safely to the finish line, the partners had to rely on good communication, and active listening.
 

  

  

 

After the game, Dennis inspired the group with Christian Apologetics and preached on God’s creation. We saw that God’s existence is shown all over in nature; and that everything shows prove of a creator. As we looked up at the moon and the stars, and looked out to the ocean, it was humbling to look at God’s creation. P​salms 148:3­6 “​Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded that they were created. He has also established them forever and ever; He has made a decree which will not pass away.” We are excited to see what God has planned for us this next upcoming week!

  
– Laura Lewis