Early Thanksgiving Celebration at Local Church
By Matt Mason
on Nov 22, 2009 at 11:42 PM in Religion
SANTA BARBARA - The Santa Barbara Free Methodist Church celebrated it's All-Church Thanksgiving dinner Sunday (11/22/09) with a huge feast.
The celebration is called All-Church because it brings together churches and missionaries that sprouted from the Free Methodist church located at 1435 Cliff Drive. The church's Senior pastor, Denny Wayman has been at the church for over 30 years. Wayman's very loving approach to ministry is legendary in Santa Barbara, as evidenced by the growth under his tenure of this 50 year old church.
Pastor Denny Wayman
Here are just a few of the programs and churches that started on this beautiful mesa location overlooking the Pacific ocean:
- Pura Vida Church - A primarily spanish-speaking ministry led by Assistant Pastor Paula Sevilla.
- Goleta Light and Life church - led by Assistant Pastor David Goss
- Cliff Drive Care Center - Child care center.
- Cliff Drive Counseling Center - counseling with a sliding scale.
- Senior Center - led by Associate Pastor Collen Hurley-Bates.
- International ministries in China, Madagascar, Ethiopia, and many more.
The proof is in the pudding. In 1976 the church had only 49 people in morning worship, with annual donations at $17K, now boasts over 460 morning worshipers, and annual donations over a half a million dollars.
Growth still continues through various multi-media outreach programs. Wayman has been deploying his pod cast for some time, and will soon have his weekly sermons seen on TV with the Santa Barbara Channel TV.
Photo: Planet Santa Barbara staff
Sunday's celebration had well over 100 people in attendance. Each family brought two side-dishes and the church supplied the meat and gravy. Each year there is a clever new way to decide which table is the first to get up and get into the food line. This year it was a Turkey Trivia contest and the tables with the highest score were allowed to get in line first!
After the meal, Assistant Pastor Paula Sevilla for the Spanish-speaking Pura Vida on the East side led a short sermon with a Spanish language twist. She focused on a common phrase "Por Que" which means "why" in English, and how people often ask "'Why me?', or 'Why my family?'" . However she charismatically made a new point - "Para que?" or "What for?" meaning 'For what reason?' have tragic things happened to me? "To help someone else. To help someone else through a trying time."
