Religous Society of Friends (Quakers), Santa Barbara California

Santa Barbara Friends Meeting (Quakers)

An Unprogrammed Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Meets Sundays at 10:00 AM at the Santa Barbara Friends Meeting House
2012 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara, California 93105
(See travel directions below)
For information, call (805) 687-0165

Worship and Spiritual Study

Santa Barbara Friends meet for Unprogrammed Worship each first-day (Sunday) at 10 AM at the Santa Barbara Friends Meeting House. Visitors are always welcome. (The meeting place is handicapped-accessible.) A map is included below. Child-care is provided every week.
A Worship Group under the care of our Monthly Meeting meets weekly in Ojai, California For more information, see here.
A Seeker's Meeting, a prayerful consideration of a topic of interest to Friends, follows Meeting for Worship on the first first-day of the month.
An adult Quaker Spirituality Reading Group meets fifth-day (Thursday) evenings from 7-9 PM at the home of Sanjiv and Mary-Kay Kamath (3230 Braemar Dr., off Cliff Dr. near Henry's Beach). For more information, please contact Sanjiv Kamath at 682-7666.
A Devotional Telephone Message (updated weekly) called Quaker Dial-a-Thought that presents our members' thoughts can be reached at 646-0939. See also this web site.

Meeting-related Activities

Our Meeting is affiliated with the Southern California Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting.
Business Meeting follows Meeting for Worship on the second first-day of the month.
W. Normal Cooper's memoirs, OK, God. Let's see how you work this one out, are available on-line; for details, please see here.

Free Friday Films

Winter 2009 - Friends in the movies
Join local Quakers to see classics

Where: Quaker Meetinghouse
2012 Chapala, just above Mission St.
When: 7 p.m.
What: Spend Friday evening with your family. Get a peek at how Quakers, through small deeds, make a huge impact on American social fabric.
Children: Bring little ones in PJs. A children’s film will be available in another room.

January 30: Friendly Persuasion
(1956 Oscar Nominee) Indiana Quakers disagree over their son’s desire to join the Civil War. Gary Cooper, Anthony Perkins, Dorothy McGuire. Screenplay written by blacklistee Michael Wilson.

February 27: Iron Jawed Angels
(2004 Golden Globe winner) Defiant young activists (including Hilary Swank, and Anjelica Huston) take the women’s suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to with the right to vote.

March 27: The Courageous Mr. Penn
(1941) English Quaker William Penn fights religious persecution and founds the colony of Pennsylvania, Clifford Evans and Deborah Kerr. A fine historical drama.

SBMM Mailing List

We maintain an email mailing list for meeting-related announcements;

to join it, please click here, or send email to this address;
to leave it, either go back to the list management page, or send email to this address.

There are also mailing lists for the peace and social concerns committee, the meeting house committee, etc.

Peace and Social Concerns Activities

Santa Barbara Friends Meeting has taken under its care Alternatives to Violence Project workshops offered in the Ventura, Santa Barbara and Ojai area. For more detail see here.
A number of our members are active in a local peace action group called Conscientious Objectors and their Supporters (COS).
We are also affiliated with the Santa Barbara Chapter of Death Penalty Focus, which organizes a vigil to abolish the death penalty every Tuesday 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. at the Farmers’ Market on State Street; they meet near the corner of State and Cota Streets, and collect signatures for a moratorium on executions. For more info, send an email

Other References

The following sites may be of interest to those who would like to learn more about the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers):

For further information on the Santa Barbara Meeting, please call (805) 687-0165, or write to us at Santa Barbara Friends Meeting, P.O. Box 40120, Santa Barbara, CA 93140.

Directions to the Santa Barbara Friends Meeting House

The Santa Barbara Friends Meeting House is located at 2012 Chapalla Street (just North/West of Mission St.) in Santa Barbara, California. To get there, take highway 101 to the Mission St exit and proceed north-east towards the mountains. After the light at De La Vina St, Mission St goes up-hill, and Chapala is the next light. Take a left turn, and the Meeting House is about 25 yards up the block on the right-hand side (just before you get to the former church building).

Map

Map to 2012 Chapalla St.