Ministerial Team

The Buddhist Church of Santa Barbara is supervised by Rev. Ryuta Furumoto, the resident minister of Senshin Buddhist Temple in South Los Angeles. A graduate of Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan, Furumoto-sensei served temples in the San Francisco Bay Area, Arizona, and Hawai’i before his arrival at Senshin. 

Rev. JP deGuzman is BCSB’s minister’s assistant and leads monthly services and study classes/discussions.  

Minister emeritus Rev. Fumiaki Usuki, Rev. Blake Honda (resident minister of the Oxnard Buddhist Temple), and Rev. Stacy Reardon have also assisted the temple in recent years. 

We are also grateful to our lay leaders who stepped in to conduct rituals, offer Dharma reflections, and hold services in the absence of a minister.

This image of Shinran Shonin (1173-1263), the father of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, was drawn by our former minister, the late Rev. Masanori Watanabe who served our temple from 2013 to 2021, 

REsident and SUPERVISING MINISTERS, 1924 – present

Pre-WAR Resident Ministers

Rev. Zenki Toyota

Rev. Tairyo Sawada

Rev. Keiya Yamaguchi

Rev. Reichi Mori

Rev. Hideo Shimakawa

Rev. Taiken Masunaga (supervised from Oxnard Buddhist Temple)

Post-War Resident Ministers

Rev. Keisho Motoyama

Rev. Gimyo Takemura

Rev. Jotetsu Ono

Rev. Ryotetsu Kazumata

Rev. Seiko Okahashi

Rev. Shawshew Sakow

Rev. Nobuo Miyaji

Rev. Tomonori Ouchi

Supervising Ministers

Rev. Masami Fujitani

Rev. Jim Yanagihara

Rev. Kakei Nakagawa

Rev. Katsumi Ueda

Rev. Henry Adams

Rev. Masanori Watanabe

Rev. Fumiaki Usuki

Rev. Ryuta Furumoto