Family Church is located in Astoria, NYC, and our vision is simple: To build a community of faith in Astoria that is wholeheartedly committed to loving God and loving all people. Historically our church has been a place that Portuguese-speaking people have called their church family. However, today…
Pastor Lucas shares how Jacob's experience wrestling with God is shared by all believers. God invites us to wrestle with Him in our day to day knowing that Jesus has already won the greatest wrestling match against sin and death.
The story of Joseph is a beacon of hope for the people of God. Join us as Eric Maciel shares a word on God's faithfulness on display through Joseph's life. Even the most difficult experiences of our lives can be transformed by God through his mercy and grace.
Victor Prado digs deep into what the true purpose of a heavenly promise is, and why we need them.
We continue our "Praying the Psalms" sermon series with Diogo reflecting on Psalm 70. This psalm shows how a desperate prayer does not settle for weak answers, passionately pleas to God for help, and enables us to see ourselves and God more clearly.
Pastor Lucas continues our “Praying the Psalms” sermon series with this sermon on Psalm 17. He reminds us that prayer makes way for justice, holiness, and trust in God.
This week we read Psalm 4 and Diogo Izidoro shows how prayer can bring us to the rest we all desire.
Pastor Lucas Izidoro starts our new sermon series “Praying the Psalms” reflecting on how prayer has the power to soothe despair.
Diogo Izidoro reminds us that if God said something, He will make it come to pass!
Pastor Lucas preached on 1 Kings 18:22-39, continuing our sermon series “You are called for this generation”
Diogo Izidoro the benefits of obedience and how essential it is for a successful Christian life.
Diogo Izidoro reflects on Psalms 100 to speak on the power of gratitude.
Diogo Izidoro expands on Exodus 20 (the Ten commandments) to expand on the essence and spirit of God’s law.
Pr Lucas shares that in our desert experience, God not only wants to shape our character but also wants to sharpen our skills. In the areas where you lead and in areas where you are led there are opportunities to Divide & Conquer. In Exodus 18:13-27, Moses is faced with criticism about his leadership from his father in law Jethro. Instead of being defensive, he listens and applies the feedback. As a result, he is better for it and so are the people. What can we learn from this scripture?
The human soul from birth is thrown directly into battle. From the moment you are born until the moment of your death, there is war. We are three persons in one, spirit, soul, and flesh. So, then it is natural for us to fight on three fronts, spirit, soul, and flesh. We rebuke devils, we are torn between everlasting eternities, and fight the desires of our heart that try to consume our bodies. After fighting for so long, we lose focus on the real battles in our life’s journey and end up fighting pointless proxy wars that bring no victory to the kingdom of heaven. We easily forget that we worship the God of Victory! Deuteronomy 20:4 – “For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.” The God of Victory has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ! So why then if we serve the God of victory can we taste defeat so many times in our passage on Earth? This is because true victory is not seen in the natural but is experienced in the supernatural. We have only one expectation, to stop delaying the defeat of our enemies within ourselves, this is known as the prolonged war.
Diogo Izidoro expands on Jesus’ parables on the Kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13:44-45 to remind us who our greatest treasure is, and what the kingdom of heaven is all about.
The greatest killer of your destiny isn’t fear, its doubt. This is because the potential and talents you are born with, can easily carve out the paths before you; but if you doubt what is within yourself, you can suffocate your future before it even comes to pass. The skill of focus is something we have to train and workout like any other muscle of our body. It must be tested and stretched to gain a better focus for upcoming endeavors but the purpose must be given from an outside source. Our purpose must be from a higher standard to not stagger or limit us once we reach our goals. Since man is made in his Gods image we need the new to inspire us (2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory…” ) Glory to glory is the transforming “new” that Jesus pours into our life bringing us peace for today and hope for tomorrow. Jesus Christ is our perfect model of who we should strive to be and it is him that gives us purpose. Jesus came as one of us and he came with a purpose, but there is a big misconception that his purpose has finished. His purpose now lives in us and together we are known as, The Phoenix Company.
There exists a world in which we reap only what we sow. We sow 12 years of schooling to reap a High School Degree. We sow 4 to 6 years in college to reap a Bachelors's or Masters. We sow our time in exchange for information and skills that will benefit and generate income for us and our families. We sow training in any area of our lives to one day reap the reward we desire. We spend a lifetime of training our mind and our physical bodies but forget to often train our 3rd person, our spirit. Life presents us with many challenges that automatically train our physical and our mind, but we must be intentional in training our spirit. 1 Corinthians 9:25 says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” If we were to combine our experiences in life to be trained alongside our spirit, we would be, Mr. & Mrs. Olympia.
Join us as we discuss the importance of discovering your potential with a word from Eric Maciel on Matthew 25. In this sermon, we take a closer look at the parable of the talents and how God has equipped each and everyone of us with precious gifts and talents we need to steward well.
This is the second sermon of our Service That Inspires sermon series. God expects that you Desire your Gifts, Discover your Gifts, and Develop them!
Diogo kicks off the sermon series titled “Service that Inspires” by reminding us that (1) we are known by God, (2) we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and (3) we are formed with a purpose. If we don’t have a firm sense of who we are, we will never be able to inspire others to become who they are.This is the 1st message in our sermon series “Service that Inspires.”
Christmas is a special season that reminds us of many truths of faith. Listen to this sermon with an open heart and mind and allow God to speak to you!
Join us as we reflect on the importance of gratitude with a word from Eric Maciel on Luke 17. In this sermon, we explore the power of gratitude in the chaos, in the process, and in the blessing. Our desire is that God would fill your hearts with gratitude for all that he has already done and for all that he will continue to do.
Are you like the sinful woman, or like Simon the pharisee? The call to follow Jesus requires a transformation of our mind, which is what repentance is. Diogo preaches on Luke 7:36-50 to remind us that Jesus always responds to a repentant heart, and that the depth of our repentance will determine the depth of our commitment to Him.
Elisha was just a young man plowing the field when Elijah called him to leave everything behind and follow him. Join us as we take a look at the call of Elisha in 1 Kings 19 with Eric Maciel and see how the call of God to follow him comes in the working and demands the surrender of everything that we have.
Cain and Abel is an iconic and tragic biblical story that can be very confusing to modern readers. Join us as Eric Maciel wraps up the Cultivating Community in Church sermon series with a word of caution on the obstacles to community. In this sermon we dig deeper into the ambiguity that we often struggle with when reading scripture while also learning valuable lessons from Genesis 4 about community.
This week, we take a break from our Cultivating Community in Church sermon series and Eric Maciel brings us a word on the power of perspective from 2 Kings 6.
In this word on Romans 14, Eric Maciel continues our Community series encouraging us to look past our differences and find common ground as followers of Jesus.
Diogo Izidoro continues our Community series, expanding on Paul's "church as a body" analogy and highlighting that each one of us has a distinct and essential role in cultivating community, and that role is only fulfilled when we are connected to the body.
In this sermon, Pastor Lucas highlights the relationship between Jesus and his disciples as an example of the kind of depth in relationships we should seek to develop. We are indeed better when we are together!
In this final sermon of the discipleship series, Eric Maciel brings us a word from Matthew 20 on discipleship and greatness. Following Jesus means being willing to drink from his cup, and being willing to lay down our power and authority to serve others.
From the beginning, there was always just one. One Father, one Holy Spirit, one Jesus Christ. The original family was present before life existed in the Heavens and Earth, yet we see an obedient unity between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. John 5:19 says “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Three in one, this is what is built into us as we are made in the image of God, one body, one mind, one spirit. A burning desire for community is infused within our souls, that is always yearning for more as our love grows stronger for God. This ambition for community propagates Jesus to command us to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) to baptize them in the original family name, the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To go and make disciples is so much more than a teacher and student relationship, it is the very nature of God to live in community and commands us to unite his lost children into ONE body. This is, “The Secret of One.”
In this sermon, Pastor Lucas answers the question “How does Jesus challenge his followers to move from private to public confession?”
Pastor Lucas preaches on suffering as an important aspect of discipleship using 1 Peter 4:12-13. How should we face suffering as believers?
Diogo Izidoro (“Dizzy”) kicks off our Discipleship sermon series by expanding on Mark 8:34-37 which shows that discipleship starts with a decision, and requires denying yourself, taking up your cross, and ultimately following Jesus.
Eric Maciel brings us a Father's Day sermon on manhood out of Matthew 12.We all have our own ideas of what manhood is, but those ideas are often shaped by the culture we are raised in. Join us as we take a closer look at Biblical manhood and how ultimately only Jesus can help us become the men that God called us to be!
Pastor Lucas preaches on the importance of completing the ministry (or place of service) that God has called us to.
Description : In this world, there are questions that beget other questions. For example, what is my self-worth? Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life on this Earth? Why do I feel empty? Why do I feel hopeless? Why, why, why. We are all born into existence to complete a specific mission that like our fingerprints, is unique and can never be replicated or copied. As we are made in God’s image, we are truly one of a kind. There will NEVER be another you in existence, no one has been born before you or after you that can do what only you can do. God has poured out a measure of faith to ALL men (Romans 12:3) which represent the gold God has placed in our life. Yet, we spend our entire life replicating the gold of others and mimicking the success of those before us. Discovering our gold and mining it out, should be our highest priority in life as it demands great cost and burden (Matthew 16:24-26), but once complete we can fulfill the purpose of our birth and change this world for generations to come. This is the real cost to be the real you.
Diogo Izidoro expands on a well known story in the New Testament recorded in three of the four gospels about the woman who touched Jesus’ robe and was immediately healed. Even though she was physically healed and could have continued in anonymity, Jesus exposed her so that she could be fully healed and step into her true identity, and Jesus does the same with us.
We are all on a journey! Join us as we continue our Evangelism sermon series with a message from Eric Maciel.
This message was preached by Jacklyn, why is obeying your parents such an important part of your walk with Christ?
In this third sermon in our Evangelism series, Diogo Izidoro discusses the issues with categorizing evangelism and placing it into a box, and reminds us that at the heart of the gospel we are are called to simply plant seeds.
Pastor Lucas continues our Evangelism sermon series with this sermon entitled "Inconvenient Faith."
In this episode, Lucy Coelho talks about the world’s pressure to focus on the outward beauty. God calls us to focus on our inward beauty, our true identity in Christ. God formed you! God created human beings, His self-image! God created you for something special. He chose you! Be what you were made to be! We are God’s masterpiece! Know who you are in Christ!
Diogo Izidoro continues the prior week's sermon on the essence of true worship, outlining five biblical truths about worship. We were created as worshippers, and our life is fulfilled when we direct our worship to the only one who deserves it.
What is worship? Diogo Izidoro analyzes the essence of true worship, which is a continuous act that never stops. What differentiates true worship from its opposite, idolatry, is who it is directed towards.
In this sermon, Pastor Lucas concludes the sermon series on hearing God's voice using Pastor Rick Warren's teaching on testing an impression from God.
In this third sermon of the Hearing God's Voice sermon series, Eric Maciel takes a close look at the book of Habakkuk and gives us 5 ways Habakkuk positions himself to hear God's voice.
In this sermon, Diogo Izidoro continues the series on hearing God's voice by discussing the four most common ways that God speaks to us. God is always speaking, the questions is, are we listening?
In this sermon, Pastor Lucas starts a new sermon series on hearing God's voice. Our relationship with God cannot be a one-way channel of communication, where we do all the talking. God also wants to speak to us.
In this last sermon of 2018, Pastor Lucas reflects on marks of a healthy church that we need to embody.
In this sermon, Eric Maciel continues the Advent series by looking at the story of Barabbas from multiple perspectives.