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September 6, 2026 • 5 Minute Read
Prayer Update for Small Groups
Life Abundant – Weekly Prayer Update Your weekly prayer post. Updates from last week and new prayers for today. A Word Before We Pray Prayer is not a last resort at Life Abundant – it's a first response. Every week this update goes out as an invitation: to slow down, to intercede, and to remember that we are not a collection of individuals navigating life separately. We are a body. What affects one of us affects all of us. Thank you for praying with us. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." – Philippians 4:6 🙌 Follow-Up From Last Week – Giving Thanks Before we bring new requests, we stop to celebrate what God has done. These are updates from prayer requests our community lifted up last week: David & Lena Reyes – David completed his first round of chemotherapy on Friday. The medical team reported that he tolerated the treatment better than expected. David's own words: "I felt carried. I don't know how else to describe it." We keep praying for full healing, and we give thanks for every person who interceded this week. The Nguyen Family – The family wanted us to share their gratitude for the outpouring of love following Grandma Rose's passing. Meals, cards, and phone calls came from all over the congregation. Son-in-law Thomas wrote to us: "We didn't feel alone for a single moment. That's because of this church." Please continue to hold them as they move through the weeks ahead, when the initial wave of support often fades. College Students / Spring Finals – Several of our college students checked in this week. The prayers were felt. A few specific notes: Jaylen Morris aced his midterm. Sophia Tran submitted her senior thesis. Marcus Webb - who had been considering dropping a class due to anxiety - decided to stay enrolled and finish strong. Keep lifting our students up through finals season. Pico-Union Neighborhood Drive – Last week we prayed over the logistics and the volunteers. God showed up. Over 400 lbs of food collected, 180 hygiene kits assembled, and as many of you have now heard, a man named George is visiting church this Sunday for the first time in 30 years. Pray he feels at home the moment he walks through the door. 🙏 This Week's Prayer Requests For Our Congregation: 🙏 Elena Sousa – Elena was admitted to Cedars-Sinai on Tuesday following a cardiac event. She is stable and in good spirits, but facing a procedure later this week. Pray for a successful outcome, for peace that surpasses understanding, and for her husband Roberto who is by her side. 🙏 The Patterson Family – James and Nicole Patterson are walking through a painful season of marital difficulty. They have courageously asked for prayer and are committed to working through this together. Please hold them with gentleness and without judgment. Pray for healing, honesty, and hope. 🙏 Pastor Andre Williams – Andre lost his father unexpectedly on Monday morning. He is taking bereavement leave through next week. Please pray for his family as they grieve and make arrangements. Cards can be dropped at the Welcome Table and will be passed along. 🙏 Sofia Castillo – Our Women's Ministry Director is navigating an immigration matter affecting a close family member. Pray for a just resolution, for Sofia's peace of mind, and for the countless families in our congregation and city facing similar uncertainties. For Our City: 🙏 Fire Recovery – Families in Altadena and Pacific Palisades are now eight weeks out from the January fires. The news cycle has moved on, but their need has not. Pray for sustained support, for housing solutions, and for the mental health of children who are still displaced and processing trauma. 🙏 Our Unhoused Neighbors – As temperatures drop this week, pray specifically for the safety and dignity of those living on the streets of Skid Row, Pico-Union, and across our city. Pray for our outreach team as they serve on Saturday. 🙏 Local Schools – Several LA Unified schools in our neighborhood are navigating staff shortages and increased student anxiety. Pray for teachers, counselors, and administrators who are stretched thin and showing up anyway. For Our Global Partners: 🙏 Pastor Hernán & Iglesia Viva, Medellín – Rapid church growth is a blessing and a strain. Pray for wise leadership, Spirit-led delegation, and genuine rest for a team that is pouring themselves out. 🙏 Hope Community Kenya – As the new classroom block opens, pray for the 140 children who will walk through those doors. Pray for the teachers, for the families, and for the seeds of faith being planted in Mathare Valley. How to Receive Prayer Every request we receive is treated with care and confidentiality. You can receive prayer in our community both in-person and online. In-Person – after each service, there’s an open invititaion to receive prayer from a prayer leader near the front of the church. The folks that you rub shoulders with in your seats are also more than willing to pray with you right where you are. Online – we can still stay connected when we’re apart. Submit a prayer request here online at anytime. A real pastor is on the other end of the line.Share Your Prayer Request
August 31, 2026 • 2 Minute Read
Small Groups This Week
Small Groups At Life Abundant 🙏 Church happens on Sunday, but life happens every other day of the week. Small Groups at Life Abundant LA exist for the in-between — the Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings when you need people who actually know your name, remember what you're walking through, and show up anyway. Finding a group is simple. Browse all current groups, meeting times, and locations at lifeabundantla.com/smallgroups. Can't find one that fits? We'll help you find your people — email smallgroups@lifeabundantla.com and Pastor Diane will personally follow up within 48 hours. This Week in Small Groups Spring semester groups are now in full swing and the energy across the network is genuinely exciting. We currently have 23 active groups meeting across the greater LA area — from Silver Lake to Inglewood, from the Valley to Long Beach — with a combined weekly attendance of over 280 people. This week we want to spotlight the Koreatown Tuesday Night Group, led by Danny and Michelle Park, which just celebrated its two-year anniversary. What started as six people around Danny and Michelle's dining room table has grown into a group of nineteen, and has so far launched two additional daughter groups of its own. Danny put it simply at their anniversary gathering last week: "We just kept showing up. That's the whole secret." We think he's right. New this spring: We are launching two brand new groups in response to requests from our congregation. A Spanish-language group meeting in East LA on Wednesday evenings, led by Luis and Carmen Ortega, and a young professionals group meeting in downtown on Monday evenings for those navigating careers, ambition, and faith in the city. Both groups are open and actively welcoming new members. Interested in leading a group? Our next Small Group Leader Training is Saturday, April 12th from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM in Room 201. Lunch is provided. Leading a group does not require you to have all the answers — it requires you to be willing to ask good questions and show up consistently. If that sounds like you, we'd love to talk.Drop us a line 📅 Leader Training — Saturday, April 12, 9:00 AM in Room 201
🌐 lifeabundantla.com/smallgroups
August 31, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
Why Small Groups?
Weekly Devotional – March 19, 2026 "Words For The Valley: A Journey Through Psalm 23" Before You Begin Find a quiet place if you can. Put your phone face down. Take three slow breaths. This devotional is not meant to be rushed – it's meant to be inhabited. Read it the way you'd walk a familiar path you haven't taken in a while: slowly, noticing what's changed in you since the last time you were here. Psalm 23 is probably the most recognized passage in all of Scripture. Most of us have heard it at funerals. Many of us learned it as children. And precisely because it is so familiar, it can slide past us without landing. Our goal this week is to read it slowly enough that it surprises us again. Read the Psalm Aloud The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. A Word to Open David wrote this psalm. The same David who killed a giant, committed adultery, ordered a man's death, and wept so hard over his son that the Bible says the ground was wet. David was not a man who wrote about God from a comfortable distance. He wrote from inside the mess of a full human life. That matters for how we read this. Psalm 23 is not a greeting card. It is a battle-tested testimony from a man who had learned - slowly, painfully, joyfully - that God could be trusted. Every line is earned. Moving Through the Psalm "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Notice that David doesn’t say "The Lord is a shepherd" or "The Lord is the shepherd." He says my shepherd. This is personal. This is a claim. Sheep don't belong to shepherds in the abstract, they belong to a specific one who knows their name, knows their tendencies, knows which ones wander. Pause and ask yourself: Do I relate to God as my shepherd, or as a shepherd in general – present for everyone but perhaps not particularly attentive to me? The promise that follows - I shall not want - is not a promise of abundance in the way we sometimes read it. It is a promise of sufficiency. The sheep under a good shepherd's care lack nothing they truly need. Not nothing they want. Nothing they need. That is a different and deeper promise. "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters." A shepherd has to make sheep lie down. Sheep are anxious animals. They will graze past the point of exhaustion if not guided to rest. The green pastures and still waters are not accidental. They are chosen by someone who knows that rest is not weakness. Rest is part of the plan. How often do we resist the places God leads us to rest? How often do we mistake stillness for inactivity, or quietness for being left behind? Spend a moment in this image. Where are your green pastures right now? Where is God trying to lead you to still water, and are you following, or are you still grazing? "He restores my soul." The Hebrew word here - nephesh - is sometimes translated as soul, but it means something closer to the whole self. Your inner life. Your sense of self. Your aliveness. He restores my aliveness. This is a pastoral word for exhausted people. And if you are here in this prayer group on a Thursday morning, there is a reasonable chance that life has taken something from you recently. Grief, disappointment, overwork, worry, loss. The promise of this line is not that God will prevent the depletion. It is that he is in the business of restoration. He gives back what life takes. Pray this line over yourself today: Lord, restore my soul. Say it slowly. Say it more than once. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." This is the hinge of the psalm. Everything before it is pastoral and gentle. Here, the landscape changes. The valley is real. The shadow is real. David does not pretend it isn't. But notice the grammar: I will fear no evil. Not I do not feel afraid. Not the valley isn't dark. The commitment to not fear is an act of the will, grounded not in circumstances but in presence. For you are with me. That's the whole reason. Not because the valley is safe. Because he is there. This is the verse for whoever in our prayer group is in a hard place right now. You don't have to pretend the valley isn't dark. You only have to remember you are not walking through it alone. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." This image has always struck me as almost defiant. God does not remove the enemies before sitting David down to eat. He sets the table anyway. In the middle of opposition, in the middle of threat, there is a feast. There is provision and dignity that the enemies cannot touch. Whatever is pressing in on you right now - fear, opposition, uncertainty, a relationship that's causing pain - God is not waiting for it to resolve before he feeds you. The table is already set. What would it look like to receive God's provision today, even in the middle of what's hard? "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." The word translated follow here is closer in the Hebrew to pursue – even chase. Goodness and mercy are not timidly trailing behind us. They are in pursuit. All the days of my life. Not just the good ones. Not just the ones where I feel worthy of being followed. This is grace at its most relentless. We do not have to earn God's goodness chasing us down. We only have to stop running from it. Closing Prayer Father, you are our shepherd. We confess that we often act like sheep who think they know better – wandering past the green pastures, resisting the still water, grazing until we are empty. Restore our souls today. Lead us through whatever valley we are walking through and remind us that your presence is the point, not the absence of the valley itself. Set a table for us in the middle of our hard places. And let us feel, even today, the goodness and mercy that is chasing us down. We are yours. Amen. For Further Reflection This Week Read Psalm 23 once each morning this week – slowly, one verse at a time. Journal on this question: Which line of this psalm do I need most right now, and why? Pray the psalm over someone in your life who is in a dark valley, and speak their name into each verse. Our Thursday Morning Prayer Group meets weekly at 7:00 AM in The Prayer Room, Building B. All are welcome.Share Your Prayer Request
August 31, 2026 • 2 Minute Read
New Small Group Alert!
Small Groups At Life Abundant 🙏 Church happens on Sunday, but life happens every other day of the week. Small Groups at Life Abundant LA exist for the in-between — the Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings when you need people who actually know your name, remember what you're walking through, and show up anyway. Finding a group is simple. Browse all current groups, meeting times, and locations at lifeabundantla.com/smallgroups. Can't find one that fits? We'll help you find your people — email smallgroups@lifeabundantla.com and Pastor Diane will personally follow up within 48 hours. This Week in Small Groups Spring semester groups are now in full swing and the energy across the network is genuinely exciting. We currently have 23 active groups meeting across the greater LA area — from Silver Lake to Inglewood, from the Valley to Long Beach — with a combined weekly attendance of over 280 people. This week we want to spotlight the Koreatown Tuesday Night Group, led by Danny and Michelle Park, which just celebrated its two-year anniversary. What started as six people around Danny and Michelle's dining room table has grown into a group of nineteen, and has so far launched two additional daughter groups of its own. Danny put it simply at their anniversary gathering last week: "We just kept showing up. That's the whole secret." We think he's right. New this spring: We are launching two brand new groups in response to requests from our congregation. A Spanish-language group meeting in East LA on Wednesday evenings, led by Luis and Carmen Ortega, and a young professionals group meeting in downtown on Monday evenings for those navigating careers, ambition, and faith in the city. Both groups are open and actively welcoming new members. Interested in leading a group? Our next Small Group Leader Training is Saturday, April 12th from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM in Room 201. Lunch is provided. Leading a group does not require you to have all the answers — it requires you to be willing to ask good questions and show up consistently. If that sounds like you, we'd love to talk.Drop us a line 📅 Leader Training — Saturday, April 12, 9:00 AM in Room 201
🌐 lifeabundantla.com/smallgroups
May 6, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
Updates From The Field
Life Abundant LA – Missionary Update 🌍 Our third update from the Miller family who are currently serving in Nairobi, Kenya. A Note From the Millers
From Brad, Jess, and the kids – Caleb (14), Audrey (11), and Noah (7) Hi Life Abundant family, We're writing this from the kitchen table of the small guesthouse we've been calling home for the past three weeks, with the sound of the neighborhood coming through the open window – a rooster that has absolutely no concept of appropriate timing, kids playing in the road outside, and somewhere in the distance, what we're pretty sure is someone's worship music drifting over the rooftops. It already feels normal in a way that still surprises us. Nairobi has a way of getting into you fast. We want to start by saying thank you. The messages, the voice notes, the emails from the kids' classmates back home – we read every single one. On the hard days, and there have been a few, they have meant more than we can say. You are with us on this trip in ways you might not fully realize. What We've Been Doing The first two weeks were a lot of orientation, relationship-building, and honestly, adjustment. Anyone who tells you there's no culture shock is either lying or has been here so many times they've forgotten what the first week feels like. We were tired in a way that went beyond jet lag. The food, the traffic, the pace, the weight of what we'd come to do all landed at once. But week three has felt like a turning point. We are spending the majority of our time partnering with Hope Community Kenya in the Mathare Valley neighborhood, the same community many of you helped support through last year's Global Missions offering. Walking into that newly completed classroom block for the first time and knowing that Life Abundant LA's generosity built those walls – we didn't have words. Jess cried. Brad pretended not to. Caleb took about forty photos. The classrooms are bright and clean and full of children who show up every morning with a seriousness about learning that has put our own kids to shame in the best possible way. We've been helping lead an after-school literacy program three afternoons a week, working alongside local teachers and community volunteers. The curriculum is simple but the impact is not. Many of these kids are the first in their families to read fluently in English. Watching that click into place for a child is one of those things you don't forget.Support Our Trip Stories From the Week A boy named Samuel. He is eight years old and has the most focused pair of eyes we have ever seen on a child. For the first week, he sat at the back of the literacy group and barely spoke. Our team leader, a remarkable woman named Faith Wanjiku, quietly told us: "Give him time. He is watching to see if you will stay." This week Samuel moved to the front row. On Thursday he read an entire short story aloud to the group without stopping. When he finished, he looked up and his expression was almost confused – like he hadn't been sure until that moment that he could do it. The room erupted. Faith caught our eye from across the room and smiled like she'd known all along. We think about Samuel a lot when we pray at night. Noah's adjustment. Our youngest has had the biggest journey of the three kids. The first week he was homesick in a way that broke our hearts a little, asking every night when we were going home, missing his friends, missing his bed. We prayed with him and held him and were honest that it was okay to feel all of it. By the end of week two, something shifted. He started kicking a soccer ball around with some of the neighborhood kids after the literacy program each afternoon. Language was not really the barrier we thought it would be. Seven-year-olds, it turns out, have their own universal dialect. This week he asked us if we could stay longer. We didn't see that coming. A conversation with Pastor Joseph. Our primary partner at Hope Community is Pastor Joseph Kamau – a man who has been serving Mathare Valley for twenty-three years with a quiet, unshakeable faithfulness that makes us feel like we have a lot of growing up to do. We sat with him for two hours on Tuesday evening over chai and he told us the history of the neighborhood. The hard years, the slow years, the years when it felt like nothing was moving. "I never stopped," he said simply. "I don't know how to explain it except that God made it impossible for me to stop." We came to Kenya thinking we had something to offer. We are finding, more and more, that we are the ones being given to. What's Ahead Weeks four and five will take us into a new phase of the partnership. We'll be helping facilitate a two-day leadership training for youth group leaders from five different churches in the Mathare area. Jess will be leading two sessions on trauma-informed care in ministry, drawing on her background as a school counselor. Brad will be co-leading a session on sustainable community development with Pastor Joseph. Caleb has asked if he can give a short talk to the youth group leaders about what it's like to grow up in church as a teenager. We said yes before he could change his mind. We'd love your specific prayer over these days. We want to show up as learners as much as teachers. How to Pray For Us This Week 🙏 Samuel and the other children in the literacy program – for continued breakthrough, for confidence, for every door that learning to read will open for them. 🙏 The upcoming leadership training – for the right words, the right spirit, and genuine connection with the leaders who attend. 🙏 Jess's health – she's been fighting a stubborn head cold all week. Nothing serious, but she's running on less than full capacity and could use some prayer and vitamin C. 🙏 Pastor Joseph and Faith Wanjiku – that they would feel honored and not overwhelmed by our presence, and that this partnership would leave something lasting behind when we go. 🙏 Our kids – that whatever they are seeing and experiencing here would shape them for the rest of their lives in ways we can't yet predict. 🙏 Our hearts – honestly, pray that we don't come home unchanged. We already feel it happening and we want to lean into it, not manage it back to normal. A Note From Caleb (14) My parents said I could write something so here goes. Kenya is not what I expected. I thought it would feel like a mission trip the way people describe mission trips. Like you're doing something for people who need help. It doesn't feel like that at all. It feels more like... being somewhere that's teaching you something you didn't know you needed to learn. I don't know how to say it better than that yet. Ask me when I get home. – Caleb A Note From Audrey (11) My favorite thing so far is a girl named Amara who is also 11 and taught me how to braid hair the Kenyan way and said my attempt was "very good actually" which I think was her being nice but I'll take it. Also the mangoes here are insane. That's all. – Audrey We love you, church. Keep the prayers coming, we feel every single one. Grace and peace.
Brad, Jess, Caleb, Audrey & Noah Miller Want to send the Millers an encouraging note? Email missions@lifeabundantla.com and we'll make sure it reaches them. To learn more about our global partnerships or support the Millers' trip, visit lifeabundantla.com/missions.
May 6, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
The 23rd Psalm – Words For The Valley
Weekly Devotional – March 19, 2026 "Words For The Valley: A Journey Through Psalm 23" Before You Begin Find a quiet place if you can. Put your phone face down. Take three slow breaths. This devotional is not meant to be rushed – it's meant to be inhabited. Read it the way you'd walk a familiar path you haven't taken in a while: slowly, noticing what's changed in you since the last time you were here. Psalm 23 is probably the most recognized passage in all of Scripture. Most of us have heard it at funerals. Many of us learned it as children. And precisely because it is so familiar, it can slide past us without landing. Our goal this week is to read it slowly enough that it surprises us again. Read the Psalm Aloud The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. A Word to Open David wrote this psalm. The same David who killed a giant, committed adultery, ordered a man's death, and wept so hard over his son that the Bible says the ground was wet. David was not a man who wrote about God from a comfortable distance. He wrote from inside the mess of a full human life. That matters for how we read this. Psalm 23 is not a greeting card. It is a battle-tested testimony from a man who had learned - slowly, painfully, joyfully - that God could be trusted. Every line is earned. Moving Through the Psalm "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Notice that David doesn’t say "The Lord is a shepherd" or "The Lord is the shepherd." He says my shepherd. This is personal. This is a claim. Sheep don't belong to shepherds in the abstract, they belong to a specific one who knows their name, knows their tendencies, knows which ones wander. Pause and ask yourself: Do I relate to God as my shepherd, or as a shepherd in general – present for everyone but perhaps not particularly attentive to me? The promise that follows - I shall not want - is not a promise of abundance in the way we sometimes read it. It is a promise of sufficiency. The sheep under a good shepherd's care lack nothing they truly need. Not nothing they want. Nothing they need. That is a different and deeper promise. "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters." A shepherd has to make sheep lie down. Sheep are anxious animals. They will graze past the point of exhaustion if not guided to rest. The green pastures and still waters are not accidental. They are chosen by someone who knows that rest is not weakness. Rest is part of the plan. How often do we resist the places God leads us to rest? How often do we mistake stillness for inactivity, or quietness for being left behind? Spend a moment in this image. Where are your green pastures right now? Where is God trying to lead you to still water, and are you following, or are you still grazing? "He restores my soul." The Hebrew word here - nephesh - is sometimes translated as soul, but it means something closer to the whole self. Your inner life. Your sense of self. Your aliveness. He restores my aliveness. This is a pastoral word for exhausted people. And if you are here in this prayer group on a Thursday morning, there is a reasonable chance that life has taken something from you recently. Grief, disappointment, overwork, worry, loss. The promise of this line is not that God will prevent the depletion. It is that he is in the business of restoration. He gives back what life takes. Pray this line over yourself today: Lord, restore my soul. Say it slowly. Say it more than once. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." This is the hinge of the psalm. Everything before it is pastoral and gentle. Here, the landscape changes. The valley is real. The shadow is real. David does not pretend it isn't. But notice the grammar: I will fear no evil. Not I do not feel afraid. Not the valley isn't dark. The commitment to not fear is an act of the will, grounded not in circumstances but in presence. For you are with me. That's the whole reason. Not because the valley is safe. Because he is there. This is the verse for whoever in our prayer group is in a hard place right now. You don't have to pretend the valley isn't dark. You only have to remember you are not walking through it alone. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." This image has always struck me as almost defiant. God does not remove the enemies before sitting David down to eat. He sets the table anyway. In the middle of opposition, in the middle of threat, there is a feast. There is provision and dignity that the enemies cannot touch. Whatever is pressing in on you right now - fear, opposition, uncertainty, a relationship that's causing pain - God is not waiting for it to resolve before he feeds you. The table is already set. What would it look like to receive God's provision today, even in the middle of what's hard? "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." The word translated follow here is closer in the Hebrew to pursue – even chase. Goodness and mercy are not timidly trailing behind us. They are in pursuit. All the days of my life. Not just the good ones. Not just the ones where I feel worthy of being followed. This is grace at its most relentless. We do not have to earn God's goodness chasing us down. We only have to stop running from it. Closing Prayer Father, you are our shepherd. We confess that we often act like sheep who think they know better – wandering past the green pastures, resisting the still water, grazing until we are empty. Restore our souls today. Lead us through whatever valley we are walking through and remind us that your presence is the point, not the absence of the valley itself. Set a table for us in the middle of our hard places. And let us feel, even today, the goodness and mercy that is chasing us down. We are yours. Amen. For Further Reflection This Week Read Psalm 23 once each morning this week – slowly, one verse at a time. Journal on this question: Which line of this psalm do I need most right now, and why? Pray the psalm over someone in your life who is in a dark valley, and speak their name into each verse. Our Thursday Morning Prayer Group meets weekly at 7:00 AM in The Prayer Room, Building B. All are welcome.Share Your Prayer Request
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