West Lakewood Baptist church is located in the city of Lakewood, CA, a pleasant community that neighbors Long Beach, Cerritos and Bellflower. WLBC was started in July of 1955, and we've been in our current location, on the corner of Hardwick and Hayter, since 1957. We are a part of TRANSFORMATION MINISTRIES, A Movement of Baptist Churches Committed to Change Their Worlds for Christ. This affiliation has given us the core values and key principles that we feel are needed for our church. Our beliefs are baptistic, trinitarian and scriptural. WLBC is both intercultural and intergenerational, we have both a diversity of people and a unity of spirit.

We adhere to the doctrinal beliefs of Transformation Ministries which can be found here

Meet Our Pastors

Senior Pastor

Rev. Sam Wilder

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I've been at West Lakewood Baptist Church since January 1995 coming from a successful ministry at First Baptist Church, Lompoc, CA. I am a graduate of American Baptist Seminary of the West. The interesting thing is I started seminary with my bachelor's degree in studio arts. I love serving in the church, it allows me to use the talents and abilities God has blessed me with in ways I can only imagine. I also have made lifelong friends in the church as we've worked side by side. One of my great joys is being able to mentor and train young adults for the ministry and I hope to continue this spiritual work. God is taking our church into a very exciting future and I look forward to being a part of what West Lakewood is becoming.

I have been married to my lovely wife Sandi for over 36 years. We have two grown children - Robyn and Jonathan.


Associate Pastor

Rev. Andrew Faris

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Andrew was born and raised in southern California. By the time he was 8 years old, he had memorized the highlights tape of the Dodgers 1988 World Series victory verbatim. The combination of that and his being raised by godly parents (his Dad is a pastor) have resulted in him not being able to remember a time where he didn't love Jesus, the Church, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. After doing his undergrad and grad work at Biola/Talbot, he came straight into pastoring at WLBC where he remains passionate about all three.

Andrew got married to the beautiful Britt Thorwall on April 4, 2009. He still can't figure out why she went through with the "I Do's" (neither can his friends), but he's really glad she did.