This past weekend, we had our first Sunday service of the school year! We opened with an icebreaker, followed by a student panel with current A2F students. They answered questions ranging from favorite dining hall to what they appreciated most about our community. As the students shared honestly about their college experiences, a common theme was that the mentors at our church had loved and supported each of these students in a way that had impacted them and helped them grow closer to God.
We read through Genesis 1 in small groups and noted things that stood out or questions about the text. As we read through the passage together, I was struck by how God could have just created the world with bare-bones food and shelter for us, and yet he showed us special love by creating a world with so much diversity of life that we still haven’t discovered 90% of the species in the ocean, and inviting us to explore this world. We have a pretty amazing landscape of mountains and sea right in our backyard in Santa Barbara, and that’s just one of the many ways we can be reminded of God’s love by experiencing his creation.
I appreciated that we got time to share and pray together after the service so that we could verbalize a specific lesson and encourage each other on how to apply the message. After the service was over, we spread out onto the patio to eat lunch and played sports at Little Acorn Park across the street. Some people (including me) went to 7-Eleven to grab cold drinks to get through the heat wave.
We meet at Isla Vista Community Center every Sunday at 11am. If you’re looking for a church, curious about life’s deeper questions, or seeking a welcoming and genuine community, I invite you to check us out next Sunday!
Julia Ong is a PhD student at UCSB studying Material Sciences. In her free time she enjoys reading, playing bass, and hanging out with friends. Julia is part of a Chosen Watch Party connect crew as a mentor for acts2fellowship Santa Barbara.