Long Beach Christian Fellowship

In scripture, gentleness is always talked about as a positive thing. We are called to face our own fears of weakness by releasing judgment and vengeance to God as we live in mercy with each other.

Christian joy is knowing the truest things about you are untouchable. Christian joy is honesty, intimacy, and freedom.

Even though Jesus was always focused on his mission, he lived a life that was unhurried which enabled him to not be swayed by the urgent. This message explores what that means in the way we learn to live like Jesus.

As we look to Christ we see that humility is not just a periodic action, but is essential in the very nature of the incarnation. We see Christ setting down His divine place to be eye to eye with us and how that calls us to set down whatever we might hold as a reason to look down on anyone else.

In our first week of the "Living like Jesus" series, we look at one of the overlooked realities about what it means to live like Jesus - which is to be human. The divine makes his home with the stuff of life, the material, the embodied, the soil becomes holy ground. When we look at how to live like Jesus we pause to push back against the temptations to be purely theoretical or philosophical and re...

On Vision Sunday each year the LBCF leadership reveals what they sense is the movement of God's spirit and the direction for the upcoming year. Our pastoral team shared a vision of returning to foundational language in our community and seeing how those will be lived out in the community now. Words like adoption, ambassador, and abundance as well as our slogan "learning to live and love like Jesus...

We see in scripture that the life of Christ is not one into more ease, more worldly success, or greater power but instead a descent into service, sacrifice, and self-giving love.

Angels served a specific purpose in delivering a message that Christ was coming. Angels were everywhere in the birth narratives of Christ but afterward, they largely disappeared. We find that God now chooses to use people to point others to Christ. We have become God’s messengers.

In this Advent message, we see that God's love is amazing because it always involves a covenant. From the very beginning, he marries us, and calls us his bride. It's not silly, and it's not easy, but it is true and good. It involves suffering, which always has joy in the midst of it. Let's none of us settle for less.

God demonstrates how much He loves us by choosing to be with us, regardless of what we go through. This Advent season, how does leaning into the reality of Immanuel shape the way we love and are with others in the areas we live, work, & play?

As we focus on Christ this Advent season we see in Ephesians it is Christ who is called our peace and we look at how the incarnation is not a self-help guide to quell our troubles, but an immediate and intimate presence amidst chaos in the person of Jesus.

Jesus's way of interpreting the Bible isn't as easy as we think it is. His ways of using scripture are deeply challenging. It is easier, after all, to read scripture for what we want to see than for what he wants us to see. How did he read and view scripture? Jesus brought to them an awareness as to how God was acting in their present time...he brought them to the God of the now, not the God of th...

As we continue the series on discernment, we consider how we walk discernment out in areas of ambiguity by holding a posture of curiosity that asks God "What are You up to in this moment?", waiting to hear His answer, and responding to guidance in trust and obedience.

As we continue in our journey to learn rhythms of discernment this week we explore discernment through silence and discernment through speaking. Then we get to put that into practice with Lectio Divina on Romans 12:1-2.

As we learn rhythms of discernment we are reminded to look back and forward at the story of God and our place in it, calling upon God's faithfulness and our hope in the coming kingdom.

It’s not enough to say “the Bible says…”. What’s important is how Jesus read and applied Scripture. Jesus often challenged the traditional reading and application of scripture in favor of a compassionate and life-giving posture. This is the hermeneutic that the first disciples employed as they navigated difficult subject matters. This is also how we are invited into our own discernment processes.

As we seek after the good gift of discernment we have to start and be constantly tethered to a fear of the Lord, obedience to Him, and a reverence for His image in others.

In this message, we explore learning to trust in the mystery of God’s love, which is so expansive that it is incomprehensible and yet lives inside of each of us and in all of our stories.

In this message, we look at how we can celebrate in times of doubt and unrest because of God's faithfulness to complete the work in us that He started.

If we are willing to be face to face with God, we might find that we also come face to face with ourselves, willing and able to be honest with ourselves with others, and with God. Jacob's wrestling was an honest one and God wants that from us. We are challenged to come and wrestle for the blessing. And then to walk with a new name and limp forever after, transformed.

This message on the book of Philemon explores the apostle Paul's view of a way of unity that's rooted in Christ.

I want to share stories about my personal journey towards loving others as I have also learned to love and accept myself. I've discovered that these things aren't mutually exclusive, but rather, they are intertwined. This has been difficult because it has forced me to uncover my own prejudices. Genesis tells us that God created the world as good and beautiful, and our own spiritual formation is ab...

In Romans 14-15:13 we enter into a 1st-century debate plaguing Roman house churches regarding dietary restrictions. Paul instead of advocating for one side or the other invites both to the table where the shared costly fellowship will reflect God's glory to a world full of tribal divisiveness.

In this last message on our series Jesus and Women, we look at the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery.

In a context surrounded by storms, fear, and chaos, a remarkable woman who has been ill for twelve years shows us what faith in Jesus should look like.