Long Beach Christian Fellowship

As we discern God's vision we are called to repentance, rest, quietness, and trust. Each of those behaviors builds in us a new-creation mindset and combats the anxiety, pride, and self-reliance that much of our world considers assets.

In order for us to understand the joy of the first people that celebrated Christ’s birth, we have to understand the context in with Jesus came. Jesus came in the fulness of time—a time marked by darkness and evil. A time of great misunderstanding of who God is. Jesus came to show us what the Old Testament could not. He showed us what God is like. Jesus shows us what love looks like in this darkest...

The love we see in the advent story of John 1 is this: God refusing to be distant, drawing near, making us not just neighbors but goes even further to be called the sons and daughters.

In baptism, we exchange our broken and missing/incomplete humanity for the life of Christ, which also empowers us to join in that creative, redemptive work of making peace. Restoring what's missing, healing what's broken.

In this busy season, it's easy to be in a rush that we miss seeing and participating in the divine presence of God. Like the first advent, when God came disguised in a humble state, the sacred is often concealed in the ordinary and mundane. But if we can pause and listen, we can be brought into wonder over God's creation.

This message prepares the way for Advent as we look at Isaiah 40:1-5 and the three key themes of Comfort, Prepare, and Wait.

The Church has to be constantly on watch not to be obsessed with the fantasy or anxiety of the future, nor with the shame or pride of the past, but to use our history and our hope as companions of wisdom to live rightly now.

The Psalms provide a poetic look at how we can look honestly at our own humanity, our own failures, and still have a deep regard for hope and joy.

Psalm 127 reminds us to re-orient ourselves to the love of God. By doing so, we are able to find rest in the midst of all the concerns of life. It is when we find our identity as God’s beloved that we are able to have clarity in his will for our lives.

As children of God, we can hold happiness at the same time as we lament, are sad and grieving… In the midst of every difficulty we get to contend; to battle for our happiness. And a powerful weapon in that battle i s to play! It is a fight of faith. Jesus was a happy man!! He celebrated, he danced and he played! We are learning to live and love, just the way that he did! And we are meant to find h...

Continuing in our series on the Psalms of Ascent, this message explores Psalm 126 and the topic of joy. How do we experience the joy of the Lord as our strength in all seasons of life?

Read as a continuation of Psalms 123 and 124, Psalm 125 invokes poetic imagery that invites us to retreat into the goodness of Christ, abide in the solidity of God’s refuge, and delight in the offered reward of peace that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 123 and 124 call us to hear the prayers of oppressed people who have sought after God’s deliverance. In these Psalms, we are invited to align ourselves with the work of God. We are given the ability to hear how God’s people have prayed and are praying so that we might open our own ears to the cries of those who are in need.

A mature faith is one of participation. Maybe the 'gladness' we are all seeking is hiding just on the other side of participation.

"As we raise our eyes to the hills and see all of the ways people are trying to save themselves, we remember our help comes from the LORD, every other way will be a god found sleeping."

In Psalm 120 the Psalmist takes the high road…he wants revenge and retribution, but in calling out to God, he is leaving that up to God! Can we trust God with our hurts? Eugene Peterson wrote that this is a Psalm of Repentance. Repentance reorients us; turns us away from the lies that the world tells us, and from the lies we tell ourselves. Repentance points us to the love of Christ. Jesus loves m...

This message on the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well explores how wide and how deep the love of Christ is. There's no boundary that Jesus is unwilling to cross in order to draw us into His life. There is no barrier that can keep us from His love.

In this message, we examine what it means to be a disciple of Christ and to lean into the freedom and joy of discipleship as we deny ourselves, and commit to joining together in Jesus' ministry.

Jesus chooses us to practice true compassion in today’s world of callousness and cruelty. By seeing people the way Jesus sees us, we’re moved to display His love in real and tangible ways to those who are hurting and broken around us. Acting in true compassion glorifies God and deepens our relationship with Him and each other in community.

Jesus came so that we can have life and have it abundantly. However, we often forget how wide, deep, and great our access to abundance truly is. This message explores how we as a community of Jesus (The God who is present in every moment) can enjoy the life that God intends for us to live.

We see in Christ and His word a hefty endorsement of both/and: the need to synthesize data and the experience of God in our lives - and the humility to submit both before the Lord and to each other.

For many Christians, God’s justice is mainly related to being justified by God as a means to salvation. But the scriptures show us that biblical justice is more often related to restorative justice—the idea of making things right towards vulnerable people who have been taken advantage of. From the prophets to Jesus, we find that God is calling us to make the world a more just place by seeing that...

This message explores how Christ's forgiveness for us leads us into the freedom to forgive others.

The gospel of peace will and should absolutely feel like an assault on our isolated comforts and excess.