Pastor Seth

As the Creative and Teaching Pastor, Seth McCoy oversees weekend services, preaching occasionally but typically working behind the scenes to plan and coordinate the messages delivered. Here, he speaks on outside perceptions of Woodland Hills, challenges they face because of them, and what the church means to him.¹

“I think some people would look at it and go, that’s a church in a shopping mall, and make all kinds of assumptions about what we’re doing based on that. I think that’s something pretty significant to overcome.”

“Yeah, it is a church in an old shopping center; there’s some real cute parts about that to me. For me I guess I would also say, this church has a strong vision; it’s one that I made a significant choice to walk away from work I was doing in order to come be a part of this team. I think there’s an authenticity about where we feel confident as a church and where we have doubts as a church, and you can bring both of those at the same time. That we’re trying to pull together as a team and make a difference in our own lives and in our city, and at the same time not trying to assume that we have all the answers for how that should happen, and that we’ll need to partner and work collaboratively with people across the spectrum in order to make that happen.”

That large auditorium is just full of regular people like me, and like my family, and like other families.

“And that my family is here. So that you walk in the door and yeah, certainly it’s an old mall, and it’s a large auditorium, but that large auditorium is just full of regular people like me, and like my family, and like other families, and like some of my single friends that I know. Younger people, there’s a lot of older people, there’s a lot of racial diversity here. The fact that it’s big means that we’ll struggle at some things, and it means that we’re actually pretty good at some other things. You know,  I guess I would ask people to not judge a book by its cover. Give it a chance. And at the end of the day, it may not be the church for you and that’s totally fine. But I think that oftentimes if people open up the door they’d be surprised.”