GLB Monthly - December

She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” – Matthew 1:21-23

As we enter the end of 2025 and the holiday season, this passage of Scripture in Matthew is a great reminder of what we celebrate and acknowledge through this time of year— God with us. God decides to enter our chaos, our confusion, our uncertainties, our loneliness, our anxieties, in the human form of Jesus and invites us into God’s rest, God’s redemptive plan, God’s new community of prayerful love. The message of Christmas is that God is with us. That is a promise and a reality. The question for us will always be, ‘Are we WITH God?’

We started 2025 with the hopes of becoming a church community that is attentive and attuned with the movement of the Holy Spirit. Our desire is to become a church that can experience moments like Acts 15 where the early church says, ‘it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’. We learned that the church got to Acts 15 discernment by being a community of believers devoted to four pillars of practice found in Acts 2:42- devoted to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. As we come to a close in 2025, it is helpful to reflect on what we have learned and seen through our attempts at being devoted to these areas.

Apostles’ Teaching – this year we made an intentional effort at staying within one gospel in the Bible during our Sunday teaching times. A methodical, expository study through the book of Matthew is giving us a framework through which to navigate the world we’re living in and the many different messages coming our way. The good news of God’s kingdom being taught and lived out by God’s people, God’s will being done ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, is the goal of our times in Matthew’s gospel. Our season of ‘Equipping the Saints’ was another intentional effort in 2025 to provide biblical teaching in different areas of our discipleship for many in the church. Our youth ministry summer camps, campus ministry retreats, marriage retreat, and the LA Jubilee, all provided great resources for us to continually be grounded in God’s Word.

Fellowship – this year we have witnessed a growth in our one-another relationships in the church. More are involved in intentional discipling relationships, physical needs have been met by the generosity of groups ministry, and we are continuing to grow in our cultural competency by celebrating the diversity of the GLB Church. The Teen Ministry has been a bright light of change as the consistency of high schoolers meeting together during our Sunday gatherings has created a culture of students wanting to spend time together, growing in faith, and now we are seeing more than 30 teenagers attending our Sunday gathering teen ministry class. The YoPro Singles Ministry has been a bright light in the church as the consistency of meeting in a same location (the Gee’s home in Cerritos) has created a sense of healthy fellowship and mutual encouragement that has seen a consistent growth to where more than 30 are consistently engaging in the fellowship activities in the YoPro Ministry. Our annual Harvest Fest and GLB Camping Trip also watered seeds of fellowship and building up our one-another relationships. God is doing some good work.

Breaking of Bread – Food changes everything! Through the gospels we find Jesus eating meals in so many different settings. Sharing a meal together builds community, provides opportunities for dispensing grace, and makes us aware of our need for one another. As we break bread, if we slow down, we can see the work of Jesus at our tables. This year, we saw this at our picnics on ‘Open Hands Sundays’ where we had a communal meal together, everyone sharing food and enjoying each other’s presence. At our ‘Open Hands Sundays’ even when we didn’t have picnics, we were able to listen to different stories and reflections of God working through events or challenges in different brothers’ and sisters’ lives. Storytelling around a table (or from a stage at McBride) help us to cultivate a discernment posture as a church and surface themes of what the Spirit is doing amongst us as God’s people and, over time, form us into a people aware of the Spirit’s presence with a willingness to participate in the work of God in the world around us. A highlight was seeing our campus ministry have monthly ‘Shabbat dinners’, gathering on a Friday night once a month to have a meal, with no phones, and present to one another as we welcome in a 24 hour time of Sabbath rest. Looking forward to more meals in 2026!

Prayer – This year was our first time having a monthly, intentional, time of prayer for our church community. We have prayed a lot over the years, but this is the first year we have had all church prayer times on our calendar on a consistent basis. The last Wednesday of every month, all who were available came together at Christ Lutheran Church building for a time of prayer and singing. Thank you to the Wright’s and Ford’s who led us through those times together. We invested in more times of prayer during our Sunday worship gatherings and also a monthly Saturday morning prayer time hosted by the Fords at Signal Hill. Over the year, God has brought us closer together through prayer because of other difficulties or tragedies or losses, and through the grieving we have been reminded of the power of prayer and being still before God in silence.

I always love this time of the year… all the meals, all the times of prayer and celebration. Let’s enjoy our times together. Let’s remember to “Be with God” knowing full well that “God is with us.” Let’s look forward to 2026 and continue to cultivate our devotion to the four areas of Acts 2:42. And as we practice prayer and fellowship and breaking of bread and devotion to the apostles’ teaching, let us find ourselves becoming a people who live out God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”