Santa Barbara International Christian Church

Category: Santa Barbara Good News

  • Dashawn’s Baptism – April 27, 2014

    Dashawn’s Baptism – April 27, 2014

    Dashawn is an incredible young man that was met in our neighborhood and invited to a Friday Night Devotional. He came and immediately fell in love with the church, and spent a lot of time with the disciples afterwards even joining us for our 10.5 Mile Walk-a-thon for Special Missions! During his very first Bible study, he boldly declared, “I’m all in!” He came to almost every church meeting for the next couple of weeks, continued studying the Bible, and was baptized last Sunday night! Dashawn has been such a great addition to the church, bringing much “refreshment to the hearts of the saints” (Philemon 7) in Santa Barbara because of his pure, humble heart.

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  • New Additions – April 20, 2014

    New Additions – April 20, 2014

    Richie McDonnell – April 20, 2014: Greetings from beautiful Santa Barbara! Of recent, there has been great excitement in the Santa Barbara Church! This past week, God has added one to our number through the incredible birth of Elizabeth’s & my first baby, Sawyer Samuel McDonnell at 7lbs. 15oz and 20″ long! He was born on Saturday afternoon, April 12th. Sawyer and Elizabeth are both very healthy and doing great! So is Dad!

    Sawyer Samuel McDonnell!
    Sawyer Samuel McDonnell!

    Elizabeth & I are both very encouraged as the Lord has really been blessing the Santa Barbara Church with other additions as well! The original mission team started with just 11 disciples in January, and by next Sunday we will have two more disciples move in from San Diego which brings us to 17 sold-out disciples! And there are a few people who Lord willing will be baptized very soon! The faith goal we set before the Lord when we planted the church in January was to double the original mission team to 22 in six months! Please be praying for the Lord to multiply His disciples in Santa Barbara!

    The Santa Barbara Church runs to raise mission funds!
    The Santa Barbara Church runs
    to raise mission funds!
  • Jessica, Jennifer, and Reynaldo – April 6, 2014

    Jessica, Jennifer, and Reynaldo – April 6, 2014

    Richie McDonnell – April 6, 2014: Greetings from sunny Santa Barbara! The Lord has been moving powerfully here by adding five to our number these past few weeks – three through placed memberships and two through baptism! Jessica Pengra moved here from the awesome Las Vegas Church and has been an immediate help to our women’s ministry.

    jessica

    Also, Jennifer Habib moved here from the LA Ventura Region to be an intern, and Reynaldo Velazquez has moved here from the mighty Chicago Church!

    rey&jen

  • Andree’s Baptism – March 30, 2014

    Andree’s Baptism – March 30, 2014

    Andre was baptized last week! He is also a student at SBCC, which is rated the number one community college in America! Throughout studying the Bible, he has been a man of faithful decisions, with his most recent decision being to stay here in Santa Barbara for Spring Break instead of going home where sin was waiting to ensnare him. And after repenting in some final areas, he was baptized last Sunday!

     
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  • From Pier to Pier – 2014 Walk-a-Thon

    From Pier to Pier – 2014 Walk-a-Thon

    From Pier to Pier is this year’s theme for the Santa Barbara International Christian Church walk-a-thon! We are raising money for local missions as we impact and transform lives through compassionate service.
    “As a faith-based organization, we are called by the scriptures to have a heart of compassion – which we consider to be “passion in action”. Our compassion must be manifested in our daily lives through our actions: looking after the poor, healing sickness and disease, providing food and shelter and defending the weak.” (www.mercyworldwide.org)

    The Santa Barbara International Christian Church is part of a worldwide fellowship. Santa Barbara is one out of five national and international church plantings planned for 2014. The others include: Gainesville, Florida (January), Toronto, Canada (March), Dallas-Ft. Worth (August), Moscow, Russia (December).

    Since our Inaugural service in January, we started 3 new bible studies located on both UCSB and SBCC Campuses. In February we fundraised and sent two of our members to Santiago, Chile for a Missions conference. We have already began a monthly MERCY worldwide volunteer outreach. We partner with organizations in our local communities where we Maximize our Efforts to provide Relief and Care and serving the Youth. So far we have served Y-STRIVE For Youth Inc., a program focused on youth with high risk behaviors, by helping them prepare for their yard sale fundraiser.
    Our plan for this walk-a-thon is to help our newly planted church sustain these already incredible efforts by asking for donations of $20 ($2 per mile). However a donation of any amount is appreciated. For contributions greater than $250 a receipt will be issued for tax deduction purposes. We are asking for your help to make this event effective and impacting by becoming a sponsor.

    The walk will be on Saturday, April 19th. We will start at Goleta Beach, and complete the 10 mile walk at the Santa Barbara Stearns Wharf.

    There is a $10 registration fee for anyone desiring to participate in the Walk-a-thon.
    Checks can be made out to the Santa Barbara International Christian Church. Donations can be sent by PayPal to:
    Santa Barbara International Christian Church

    For information please contact
    Karyn Bowman 602-505-2022 karyn.bowman@asu.edu

  • Alex’s Baptism – March 23, 2014

    Alex’s Baptism – March 23, 2014

    Alex, a student at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC), first came to church and was immediately impacted by the love of the disciples! Since that first service, he came to every event, including helping a non-Christian friend move! He took on the challenge to make Jesus his Lord, repented and was baptized just shortly after being met! “Un-coincidentally” he also possesses dual citizenship to both the US and Sweden, and speaks Swedish fluently! (I’m sure Argo will be calling him soon!)

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  • Juan Carlos’ Baptism – February 23, 2014

    Juan Carlos’ Baptism – February 23, 2014

    Richie McDonnell – February 23, 2014 Greetings from Santa Barbara and Santiago! I had the privilege of going to the CSA Missions Conference this past week and it was an incredible time and a life-changing experience for myself! The church showed incredible love by housing so many of us and giving us tours of the city! A special thanks to Carlos & Lucy Mejia, as well as the loving Santiago Church for organizing such a memorable event! It was special to meet the disciples for which we gave sacrificially for many years while my wife & I were members of the Phoenix Church. Never did I think I would have the privilege to meet the disciples our church supported before meeting them in Heaven! What a privilege it was!!

    Richie (far left) singing in Spanish at the CSA Conference!
    Richie (far left) singing in Spanish
    at the CSA Conference!

    Here in Santa Barbara, we held our Inaugural Service on January 26, 2014! Today, less than a month later, we witnessed our first baptism as a small but prayerful 11 man mission team! Juan Carlos made Jesus Lord and was baptized in the ocean after Friday Night Devotional!

    The first baptism of the Santa Barbara Church - Juan Carlos!
    The first baptism of the Santa Barbara
    Church – Juan Carlos!

    Lastly, this weekend was historic because the SBICC had the first ever of our monthly MERCYworldwide Events! Karyn Bowman, our awesome MERCY Coordinator, arranged for us to serve STRIVE For Youth Inc., a high risk youth program, by helping them prepare items for their yard sale fundraiser. Thank you so much for all of your prayers! We love you all!

  • Inaugural Service – January 26, 2014

    Inaugural Service – January 26, 2014

    Kip McKean – January 26, 2014

    Greetings from Santa Barbara! Yesterday, on a cold and rainy morning, the Lord blessed the 11 member Santa Barbara Mission Team (with only Elena & me visiting) at the Inaugural Service of the Santa Barbara International Christian Church with an attendance of 32 adults!

    2014-26-01_santa1.1
    Richie & Elizabeth McDonnell – the charismatic leaders
    of the Santa Barbara International Christian Church!

    2014-26-01-santa12
    As is the custom of the SoldOut Movement, all mission teams are
    celebrated with a tasty specialty cake emblematic of their cities!

    One of our most gifted young preachers, Richie McDonnell, delivered a very impassioned sermon simply entitled, Zeal For God! One visitor that I talked to immediately following this moving service exclaimed, “I just love the energy here! I’ve never seen any other Christian group like it before!” Continue to pray for Richie, his incredible wife Elizabeth, and our other dear disciples in what is already a tremendously dynamic congregation!

    2014-26-01-santa3
    With 32 in attendance at the Inaugural Service – almost two visitors for every disciple – Jason leads a powerful communion song!

    2014-26-01-santa2
    It is so remarkable that at just 22 years old, Richie’s enthusiastic
    and in-depth preaching of the Word moves the entire Inaugural Service crowd!

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  • Teddy’s Baptism – January 19, 2014

    Teddy’s Baptism – January 19, 2014

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    Dale Bryant – January 19, 2014
    Greetings from beautiful Santa Barbara! Today we all gathered for an awesome House Church Service, followed by a delicious Taco Bar Pot-luck! I was given the honor to preach! In my sermon Destined For Greatness, to illustrate my first point – Great Faith – I shared a prayer that I prayed when I started working at In-n-Out Burger: “Father please have one of my co-workers become a disciple before I leave!” Incredibly, seven months later, with this week being my last week at In-n-Out Burger, my co-worker, Teddy, was baptized and became the first addition to the Santa Barbara International Christian Church after being sent out just two weeks ago!
  • John’s Baptism – November 17, 2013

    John’s Baptism – November 17, 2013

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    Richie McDonnell – November 24, 2013
    Greetings! God is doing incredible things here in beautiful Santa Barbara! Last week, God added John to our number through baptism! John is a freshman at UCSB, whom I met on the second day of this Fall semester. He has been coming around ever since, and after studying the Bible for several weeks, John came to the conviction that he was never Biblically converted to Jesus! John is very zealous and has already brought out his roommate – who is now studying – to Bible Talk and church!John’s baptism gives the Santa Barbara Ministry a
    solid foothold at the incredible UCSB Campus!

    Lastly, I am very encouraged and inspired by all the hard work and faith of the Santa Barbara disciples through hours of tagging, selling personal possessions, and personal financial sacrifice to give to our 3X Special Missions Contribution! With only 16 disciples, we gave over 4X for our Special Missions Contribution – all by the grace of God! Please keep praying for us, as Lord willing, we will be sent out in January to become the Santa Barbara International Christian Church!