Category: Congregation
-
Life as a Youth Counselor by Dan Stirling
A little over 20 years ago my good friend Mark Burnett was the youth director at First UMC, and he occasionally asked me to help take the kids to the beach or to Magic Mountain during the summer. In 1995 he invited me to become a Senior High youth counselor, joining Ben and Karen Ing.…
-
Bearing Witness: Connie Casillas – As Told By Shalimar Carducci
As the 93 years young Mrs. Casillas lets me into her lovely Santa Monica home, I notice all the photographs on the walls – old glamour type shots that make one look like a 1940s Hollywood movie star, school portraits from all ages, baseball card pictures, family celebrations, vacations – and I think to myself:…
-
Bearing Witness By Mira Pak
Having been asked to write what this church community means to me forced me to organize my feelings in some way to better convey them, and so I’m sharing a few highlights to spare you the autobiography (my second choice). I first came to First UMC Santa Monica when I was 11 years old, simply…
-
Bearing Witness By Sam Johnson
In January, 2008, I was unmoored and disconnected – sometimes a ball of rage, sometimes a bundle of nerves, but never the man I thought I would be at 44. My career seemed to be limping to a close; I battled unhappily with my ex-wife; my children lived far away from me; my union was…
-
Bearing Witness by Gale Williams
My family and I joined FUMC SM after we arrived in 1946 from our farm in Nebraska where we were Methodist. We attended church services at 4th and Arizona until we moved into our new church on 11th Street. Some early memories include: In the late ’40s, Mildred Stewart was superintendent of Sunday school classes…