This season we're sharing stories of life change at Forefront. We're calling it “Make A Joyful Noise”! Each story of life change is indeed joyful. These stories mark long journeys of leaving faith, dealing with pain, and living with doubt but finding beauty, community, and joy on the other side!

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Stories from our Congregation: Jeff and Annabell Ho

We grew up fearing God, which increasingly made us feel more anxious, but have found the freedom to understand God’s kindness and wisdom through Forefront. 

The churches we grew up in were heavily focused on guilt and shame. We were taught that God was harsh, vindictive, and waiting for us to “do the wrong thing” so he could punish us. We held onto faith despite this upbringing, but found our anxiety growing as we tried to constantly make our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors “right” (without knowing what that meant or how to get there) because we figured we were always somehow wrong and in need of conviction. We came to Forefront looking for a place to understand and grapple with the harsh picture of God we had grown up with.

“Teaching that finally showed us that God’s thoughts towards us may be so much kinder, more sophisticated, and wiser than we ever could have imagined.”

At Forefront, we found teaching that finally showed us that God’s thoughts towards us may be so much kinder, more sophisticated, and wiser than we ever could have imagined. We also found a living example of what a just and generous expression of Christianity looks like, as well as a community working through their faith in the same way as us.

Sometimes when faith would seem hard for us to figure out on our own, and we started getting discouraged, we would hear a word from Jonathan or Sarah that gave us the encouragement we needed to keep going, just at the time we needed it. 

We were encouraged by how Jonathan spoke to our hearts full of anxiety, assuring us that mental health struggles are due to past hurts, not a lack of faith. That it would take time to work on and heal, and that is okay. We felt something deep awaken in us, the light finally shining through, when Sarah talked about how we sometimes assume that everything we want is bad or sinful just because we want it, and how that may not be the heart of God for us. 

“We were also finally able to make sense of clobber verses in the bible and come to a biblically rooted defense of LGBTQ affirmation in the church.”

We were also finally able to make sense of clobber verses in the bible and come to a biblically rooted defense of LGBTQ affirmation in the church. Though we had supported inclusivity in church based on the experiences with LGBTQ brothers and sisters before, this was the first time we were able to reconcile our allyship with scripture and scholarship.

Our past experiences with other churches haven’t made our faith journeys easy, but Forefront has given us the freedom to live in the uncertainty of faith. We’ve been able to admit our anxieties and fears, to be okay with asking good questions rather than having all the answers, and to be welcomed into a community where wrestling with faith is not only accepted but encouraged. 

“Forefront has given us the freedom to live in the uncertainty of faith. “

Thank you, Forefront, for allowing us to finally be able to exhale in peace as we walk in faith, feeling the love and kindness of God with us more and more each day.

Would you like to invest in more stories like this?

You can! You could set up a recurring monthly gift during this “Make a Joyful Noise” Campaign. We’re raising $40,000 so that we can continue to be a church both online and in person. We anticipate that day coming and are planning ahead for a new and bright future. Your gift not only allows Forefront to continue to pay the bills, you gift allows us to create a care team fund that continues to support members of our church. It gives stipends to your ministries and groups. It buys the equipment that allows some of you, our virtual community, to experience Forefront’s community and worship from anywhere in the world. It helps furnish the homes of refugees through our partnership with Ruth's Refuge.

In short, it allows us to expand our just and generous vision