Welcome to the website of the Anaheim Seventh-day Adventist Church. If you are looking for a place to worship, we would be honored to have you join us. We are very close to Disneyland and the surrounding hotels.
We are located at 900 Sunkist St., Anaheim, CA 92806. Our main worship service is on Saturdays at 11:00 AM. We also offer Sabbath School classes for all ages beginning at 9:30 AM. In addition, we offer a Spanish speaking Sabbath School and Devotional service that begins at 9:00 AM. You can go here to see recent bulletins from our worship services.
Our office hours are Tuesday – Thursday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. For more information, you may contact us via phone at 714.635.0990, or via email at anaheimsda@gmail.com.
Recent Sermons
Pastor’s Update
“Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.”
Revelation 1:7
How much is our attention worth? Our church was recently offered a value of $2,000 dollars in 40 30-second radio spots in which to advertise our “Revelation Revealed” series on a Christian radio station (Kbrite AM 740)*. If you do the math, that figures to $50 for 30 seconds of attention. Consider, comparatively, the cost of purchasing 30 seconds of airtime advertising in the Super Bowl (which had approximately 100 million people watching earlier this month) at $5.6 million dollars, or approximately 5½ cents per person for that 30 seconds. Being curious, I also looked-up billboard prices in both New York and L.A. Of course, depending on location and prominence of the billboard, in New York a month can cost between $3000 to $20,000 per month, whereas in L.A. it can cost from $2,000 to $15,000/month. That’s anywhere from $66/day to $667/ per day!
And what do advertisements do? They simply exist to make people aware that something is available. Somewhere around 98% of people, upon hearing a radio ad, or seeing a billboard, or a banner ad on the internet (one can get something like 7,000 views online for about $100), will disregard it as unimportant to them. In fact, the over-saturation of advertising makes it less effective, since we essentially say “no” to hundreds of offers per day that make themselves known to us!
With this being an election year, campaigns are both raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get the idea into the public’s head of “this candidate good, that candidate bad!”. In fact, there has been much talk recently of the ability to “buy” an election, as Michael Bloomberg is now among the top tier of democratic candidates, having almost exclusively only spent money on advertising (some $250 million as of yesterday). Tomorrow’s democratic debate will likely reveal whether he can stand his own in a more conventional setting.
What all this reveals is, our time and attention are valuable! Your time and attention are valuable. And you get to decide where you direct it each day. Yes, we all owe several hours of our attention and skill each day to our work, but what about the waking hours spent outside of work? We can spend it on video games, streaming services, sports, etc. But guess what? You will be advertised to in all these platforms as well.
I view it as an act of defiance to the world and its ways when we intentionally direct our valuable attention to God’s Kingdom and Righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Jesus says it is like investing in heaven! “For where your treasure lies (and I believe this includes time), there your heart will be also” Matt. 6:21). Even if you consider our equation above as to the value of 30 seconds in a super bowl ad: approximately 11 cents per minute: have we given God even a dollar’s worth of attention in the recent days?
Though we recently tried multiple methods of payment to get the word out regarding our Revelation Series (flyers printed, paid Facebook ad, etc.), God himself needn’t stoop to our system of economy to do so. He can grab anyone’s attention any time he likes! He can do so through dreams (See Genesis 41 and Daniel 2, for instance), road-side encounters (as Jesus did Paul in Acts 9), and calling people audibly (see 1 Samuel 3). What’s amazing to me is, that though God can do these things any time He pleases, for the most part, he chooses not to! He shows incredible respect for our autonomy and free will: deferring to us to how we will spend our time and attention.
The epic prophecy quoted above about Jesus’ 2nd coming shows that at some moment in the future, God will impact everyone’s attention simultaneously. For most it will not be a pleasant interruption! Those who have spent their attention and investment in climbing the corporate ladder, gaining personal wealth, political power, or military might, will see it all as fragile as a sand castle before a tidal wave. “Woe to us!” they cry, and will seek to die, rather than be exposed any longer to the brightness of God’s coming (see Rev. 6:15-17).
But there will be another group as well: those who have invested their time and attention and skills in the Lord. They will say “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us! This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation!” Isaiah 25:9 We, who have sometimes been mocked for how we spend our time, attention, and resources, will be vindicated in what we have focused on.
1 John 2:17 says“The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” Will you trust this to be true in your own life? Perhaps you want to, but you don’t know how to start on a practical basis. “What am I supposed to fill my free time with? If not violent and lustful entertainment?” Well, I praise the Lord for placing in this gem of practical advice. See if your entertainment matches-up to this: let it be your guide, and you can’t go wrong.
The Apostle Paul writes: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”
May God bless you and your loved ones the remainder of the week.
Sincerely,
Pr. Mark Tatum
*the deal our board agreed to with Kbrite radio is that we would get the 40 spots free if they could come set-up a booth outside of church after service one day. So we will be seeing them in our courtyard this Sabbath after service. Just a heads-up. (By the way, we have had a woman come due to hearing the radio spot! A lovely lady who’s been attending the meetings regularly, including last Sabbath. 😊 )