Forefront Podcast

Coming Home | Finding Home After Death

Continuing our "Coming Home" series, Jonathan Williams joins Angela Lockett-Colas and Rev. Venida Rodman Jenkins to bring a unique worship experience brings together sermon and song to convey a message of God's constant presence, comfort and grace during times of loss and grief.

Coming Home | Finding God For Yourself in Every Season

Rev. Venida Rodman Jenkins continues our Coming Home Series by talking about the importance of adjusting one's life to the rhythms of the seasons in your life, and finding God for yourself in the midst of it all.

Coming Home | Finding Messy Progressive Religion

Rev. Josh Lee starts our Coming Home Series by highlighting the ways in which The Church has always been a messy progressive religion. He outlines how our views have progressed or differed throughout Scripture while also highlighting a disagreement had in the early church around the full inclusion of non-Jews. The Church of Jesus Christ has always been progressing, changing, adapting, and super freaking messy! But even amidst the mess some really beautiful things have been born when we allow ourselves to progress and embrace the mess!

The Path | Reconciling and Redefining

In our third and final sermon of "The Path" series, Rev. Josh Lee borrows from Father Richard Rohr on how he describes our spiritual path as one of order, disorder, and reorder. This cycle is the historical Christian journey. Rev. Josh then shares 5 Things he does to reorder (reconstruct) his life and faith when it becomes disordered (deconstructed). This very practical sermon is full of helpful tools and wisdom in your journey through your spiritual path!

The Path | Navigating Questions and Disbelief

In our second sermon of "The Path" series, Rev. Venida Rodman Jenkins reminds us how we are confronted with a host of experiences on the path causing us to question and have doubts about how we will overcome. This sermon will be a reminder that we can come to God with our fears and concerns, and the presence and power of God can be comfort and healing, and work in miraculous ways as we journey on.

The Path | Losing My Religion

Have you at one time believed something so strongly you could hear no other perspective? But then over time you could hear what you wouldn’t before and see what you couldn’t see before? In this message Rev. Josh Lee starts our new series “The Path” by challenging us to consider where on the path do we find ourselves? Perhaps like Saul, just having recently lost our formerly held religious convictions or perhaps like Ananias being called to give sight and compassion to folks who have previously persecuted us because we remember what it was like to once be in their shoes.

What Forms Us | Chew On This

Ben Dubow, co-lead pastor of Riverfront Family Church in Hartford CT, asks "does scripture really matter today? Is it still relevant?" We explore how scripture can have practical impact on our lives. By exploring what scripture is not (and what it is) we can better embrace God's Word as being relevant and powerful in our day, without becoming dogmatic in our approach to scripture.

What Forms Us | Tradition

Rev. Josh Lee continues our "What Forms Us" series with this sermon on tradition. In this series we are gleaning from the founder of the United Methodist Church, John Wesley. John believed that as Christians we should allow our thinking, beliefs, ethics, and practices to be formed by four things (experience, reason, scripture, and tradition) In this message we focus on how Miriam brought her tambourine with her as she fled enslavement in Egypt during the exodus. Miriam choosing to bring her tambourine is a reminder to us that even as we leave faith traditions that have caused us trauma and pain there are still things worth bringing with you!

What Forms Us | Reason

Keli Young continues our "What Forms Us" series with this sermon on reason. Jesus strains our ability to reason. He was disruptive, not just to systems of oppression but to how people understood the world. but the good news is that we’re not expected to make sense of the world or our faith on our own. The disciples were always curious, constantly trying to figure out Jesus, and by extension their faith. Jesus welcomed their questions, doubts, and fears and he welcomes ours just the same!

What Forms Us | Experiencing Jesus

Rev. Venida Rodman Jenkins kicks off our "What Forms Us" series with the topic "The Authenticity of Experiencing Jesus." In this sermon, Rev. Venida talks about how each and every experience has formed us -- the good, bad, and the ugly ones, and how those experiences have authenticated our spiritual journey. We can bear witness to these experiences to enlightened the lives of others.