Forefront Podcast

It's one thing to be a Christian in a public space, but it's quite another thing to bear the mantle of being a "Christian band" when you're in your early 20s and playing music for millions of people around the world. Chris Dudley is a devout Christian and his band, Underoath, started out with the label of being a "Christian band" releasing their two most popular albums under the Tooth & Nail recor...

We welcome our second Forefront Guest Speaker, Emmy Brett. Emmy takes us on a fascinating journey into the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah isn't just about fire and brimstone, but about choosing holy resistance against evil and refusing to be a voyeur to systems of oppression.

Venida Rodman Jenkins joins us again as Guest Preacher and closes our "Sex Positive" series. Many of us have been taught that our "flesh is a mess" which can lead to body shaming. Let's unpack this message and more as we seek to reclaim our bodies.

We're excited to welcome the first Guest Speaker from our "Forefront Preaching Bootcamp". Frank M. Espinal, a long time Forefronter, took to the stage and opened our new series "What in the...??" Frank explores the difference between forgiveness and redemption.

Can you be Pro-Choice and still be a Christian? Jonathan Williams tackles the church and their role in politicizing women's bodies. We're talking about abortion, which has become a Christian rallying point in the past 30 years. Our Pro-Life theology is actually way more political than Godly.

Sex Workers and their prominent role in the Bible There is an active movement going on nationally and in New York to decriminalize sex work, and I think as a church we have to participate in this movement due to how purity culture has contributed towards the criminal punishment of sex workers and how our own Scriptures call us to honor sex workers. During this Sermon Series “Sex Positive”. Sarah N...

Do you want to know what the Bible really says about marriage and sex? There is no biblical definition of sex and marriage unless you count sleeping with your father in law, marrying your brother, having 700 sex slaves, or becoming a eunuch for the sake of the gospel. So what does healthy sex look like? Here's Jonathan Williams preaching about Marriage and Sex in our "Sex Positivity" Series.

As a Colombian woman, Jo has experienced firsthand how quickly privileged identities are to demonize marginalized identities, preferring comfort and power to creating safe spaces for people with experiences outside of their own. After alienating the leadership in her church with her all or nothing approach and working through personal deconstruction and decolonization, Jo boldly and unapologetical...

In our second Sermon in the series "Sex Positive", Sarah Ngu walks us through the Song of Songs, the book medieval Christians commented on more frequently than any other book in the Bible. The Song of Songs uncomfortably dares us to hold all our human experiences, including our sexual ones, as a mirror by which to see God and ourselves. The relationship between the two lovers in the Song of Songs...

Unlearning Purity Culture and Shame. How do we move from Sex Toxicity to Sex Positivity? Many outside of Christianity are moving towards a sex positive way of life. Churches can and need to catch up. Watch Makenzie Gomez speak to this important topic as she starts off our new Series: "Sex Positive." Purity Culture and The Purity Movement is an Industry that came about in the 1990s. It's a predator...

It may seem like the rise in recent anti-Asian hate crime is new, but the choking weeds of anti-Asian bigotry and hypersexualization of AAPI women in America were planted generations ago. The mission of Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry, or PANAAWTM, is to contribute to transnational feminist theological conversations and to constantly challenge the Christian...

Guest speaker, Venida Rodman Jenkins, joins Forefront for the first time and speaks on "The Gospel of Community". The Gospel of Community is about bringing people in rather than excluding them. Here's something to ask yourself: "How can you work with others to be an agent of change?" Venida C. Rodman Jenkins is committed to providing visibility, encouragement, love, and brave spaces to underrepres...

What if heaven isn't an escape chute? Heaven isn't a place we're whisked to after we die; it's God's order of justice and mercy coming towards us. In this, we know that God cares about community, God cares about suffering, and God is actively pursuing our good. In this 5th sermon in our EasterTide series, Guest Speaker Shay O'Reilly discusses the coronavirus pandemic, its uneven impacts, and the p...

Do you believe in 'tithing' or giving a percentage of your income to church? Do you believe it's even worth giving to the church? In this 4th sermon in our EasterTide series, Sarah Ngu explains how technically, tithing -- giving a percentage of your income to the church -- is an outdated concept rooted in a time when Israel was a sovereign nation where people had to give taxes, or tithes, to their...

The Gospel of Heaven: Is Jesus the only way? At some point in your life you were told that Jesus was the only way to heaven or told someone else that Jesus was the only way to heaven. We justify this by using John:6. It says, "Jesus answered, I'm the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to God but through me." This is a terrible interpretation of scripture! In this 3rd sermon in our EasterTid...

Candice's story of love and discovery sounds a lot like the story many of us have either heard or lived before: a teenage crush, a nervous first kiss, and a new sense of a world of possibilities opening up before her. Unfortunately, her story of love and discovery also contains a few other elements that sound a lot like those that many of us have either heard or lived before: confusion about her l...

Candice's story of love and discovery sounds a lot like the story many of us have either heard or lived before: a teenage crush, a nervous first kiss, and a new sense of a world of possibilities opening up before her. Unfortunately, her story of love and discovery also contains a few other elements that sound a lot like those that many of us have either heard or lived before: confusion about her l...

We Christians never believe that we're holy enough. We have to believe a certain way. Read scripture a certain way. Attend Church often. Believe that some people are holy and others are not. Believe an atonement theory that says God is holy and separate from us because we are not holy. With Jesus it seems like we have a really clear picture of what God sees as holy. God sees refugees as holy. Jesu...

Mira Sawlani-Joyner, guest preacher and former Community Director at Forefront Brooklyn, shares her personal experiences as an Asian woman. Inspired by the story of Rahab, Mira shows us how Asian women have divine purpose in this world, partnering with and co-laboring with God to bring God's kin-dom to fruition. Unfortunately, Asian women are hyper sexualized by the media and popular culture, and...

The resurrection story is not a neat and tidy formula to get us into heaven. It is a wild and imaginative story that asks us to take big risks for others and to work with God to bring about new creation. Jonathan Williams shares that If what we see in Jesus is God's own self, revealed, then we are dealing with a God who is ridiculously indiscriminate about choosing friends, who would rather die th...

Most often, our hope is naïve and optimistic, and we’re wishing for a successful outcome. On this Palm Sunday, Jonathan Williams shares that’s not really what hope is -- it’s what comes when all else fails. The hope that comes when all else feels hopeless -- apocalyptic hope -- shows that the apocalypse isn't an ending, it's a revelation. What can feel like failure or pain can actually be the begi...

The opposite of fear is saying yes to living fully. The future is unknown. That scares the crap out of us. What do we do in the face of the unknown? Jonathan Williams shares that the way forward is not fear, it’s faith. Faith is a choice to take action and move forward even when there is nothing guaranteed. To make the conscious choice to believe just for today that the great I AM is at work in ou...

Lonely in the wilderness. The pandemic of loneliness existed long before COVID-19, and being lonely can make us feel like we’re lost in the wilderness. In this Sunday’s message, guest preacher and former Forefront Brooklyn associate pastor Jennifer Fisher of Launchpad Partners tells us that the wilderness can be the place where we come to know God the strongest, and can actually be a place of hope...

Erasing the stigma of mental illness Covid has highlighted an unspoken struggle for millions of us. We're not doing well and don't know how to find healing. We suffer silently and are afraid to talk about mental illness in the church. We believe that we're not holy enough, godly enough. That's a lie! In this sermon, Jonathan Williams explains how our struggles with mental challenges can actually s...

"Make no mistake about it: evangelicalism is white supremacy disguised as religion." That quote comes from Renita J. Weems, just one of the three Black women biblical scholars whose work Char Adams digs into for her thesis, "If It Wasn’t for the Women: An Exploration of Works by Renita Weems, Wil Gafney, & Kelly Brown Douglas." These three women are disparate but prominent Womanist voices whose wo...