ABOUT US
Robert Burbatt
Lead Pastor
Robert has been in ministry all over the world for over 20 years with an apostolic grace. He served for a decade in Asia where he did itinerant ministry strengthening churches, establishing bible colleges, and leading missions teams. With plans to establish a ministry base in Asia, in 2006 Robert and his wife Wendy received the word of the Lord to instead “go to the cross” and pastor a church in Santa Cruz, CA (Spanish for “Holy Cross”), where they would later start a family with 3 beautiful children. They established Freedomhouse in 2007 and the Freedomhouse Ministerial Association in 2018, where they are developing their spiritual sons and daughters into strong leaders.
Wendy Burbatt
Lead Pastor
Wendy began serving the Lord after having a radical encounter. While interning in Southern California as a dietitian, she experienced an extreme physical and emotional crisis and cried out to God, vowing “I will follow you wherever you go” if He answered her. God immediately delivered her from sickness and depression, and she made a dramatic turn to follow Him. By the leading of the Holy Spirit, Wendy moved to Santa Cruz where she met Robert and soon enrolled in Bible College, launching her into a prophetic ministry. Wendy and Robert married in 2002 and began traveling throughout Southeast Asia ministering and building Bible colleges until returning to Santa Cruz in 2007 to launch Freedomhouse, where they now serve as lead pastors. Since then, Wendy and Robert have been following the vision of building the house of God through strong discipleship and equipping spiritual sons and daughters to fulfill the high call and go into the harvest field of their territory and beyond.
OUR BELIEFS
The fundamental teachings of Freedomhouse are reflected in the following clear statements of faith:
We believe in the plenary-verbal inspiration of the accepted canon of scriptures as originally given. The scriptures are infallible, inerrant and the sole and final authority for all matters of faith and conduct.
We believe in the eternal Godhead who has revealed Himself as one God existing in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinguishable but indivisible.
We believe in the creation, test and fall of man as recorded in Genesis; his total spiritual depravity and inability to attain to divine righteousness.
We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of men, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born by the Virgin Mary, fully God and fully Man.
We believe Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day, and personally appeared unto His disciples.
We believe in the bodily ascension of Jesus to heaven, His exaltation and personal, literal and bodily coming again the second time for His Church.
We believe in the salvation of sinners by grace, through repentance and faith in the perfect and sufficient work of the cross of Calvary by which we obtain remission of sins.
We believe in the necessity of water baptism by immersion in the name of the eternal Godhead in order to fulfill the command of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit as a real experience at or subsequent to salvation, with the scriptural evidence, namely, speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance.
- We believe in the operation of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit as enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Ephesians 4, as manifested in the early Church.
We believe in the Spirit-filled life, a life of separation from the world and perfecting of holiness in the fear of God as expressing the true Christian faith.
We believe in the healing of the body by Divine power, or Divine healing in its varied aspects as practiced in the early Church and by deliverance in the name of Jesus.
Acts 4:30 ; Romans 8:11 ; 1 Corinthians 12:8-9 ; James 5:14 ; Mark 16:17
We believe in the table of the Lord, commonly called the Communion or the Lord's Supper, for believers.
We believe in the reality and personality of the Devil and eternal judgment in the Lake of Fire for the Devil and his angels.
We believe in the eternal life for believers (John 5:24; 3:16), and eternal punishment for the unbelievers.
We believe that there is one true universal Church, made up of genuine believers, but this one universal Church is also composed of many local Churches in given localities. These Churches are under the sovereign headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, exercising autonomous government under Him, administering all its local affairs and ministry, as well as the propagation of the gospel.
We believe that Government is ordained of God, and the powers that be are ordained as ministers of God to us for good. To resist the powers and the ordinances is to resist the ordinance of God. We are subject not only for wrath sake but for conscience sake, rendering to all their dues, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His Church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race. Christians are instructed by Scriptures not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers in marriage and not to engage in sex before marriage. However if one received salvation after marrying an unbeliever, the person should remain committed to the marriage and trust in God’s wisdom to sanctify the whole family.
Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15-25 ; Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:6-12; 1 Corinthians 7:1-16; Ephesians 5:21-33; Hebrews 13:4; 2 Corinthians 6:14; 1 Corinthians 7:2-5,10-16