The Lake Forest Sermoncast

At Lake Forest Presbyterian Church , we believe the gospel still surprises us. Through scripture, story, and reflection, each sermon invites listeners to think deeply, laugh freely, and discover grace in unexpected places. Join us weekly as we explore the rhythms of worship and wonder — finding hope in the parables, mercy in the margins, and God’s quiet reforming work in our everyday lives. A podcast for anyone seeking a faith that is both thoughtful and alive.

The Lake Forest Sermoncast is a religion podcast hosted by Chad Wright-Pittman, with 44 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Chad Wright-Pittman hosts The Lake Forest Sermoncast, a religion show with 44 episodes published.

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  Episode #44

  Faces of Our Faith: The Ethiopian Eunuch | Acts 8:26-39 | 8.30.26

  Sep 1, 202623 minS1

  In the final week of our "Faces of Our Faith" summer series, Pastor Chad turns to Acts 8 and the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch — a court official who travels to Jerusalem to worship, yet living in a body the law would have turned away at the temple gate. Reading from the prophet Isaiah on a wilderness road, he meets Philip, and together they practice the ancient Jewish art of havrutah — reading scripture as dialogue, as companionship — until the eunuch asks the question that ends in baptism: "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" Drawing on Isaiah 56's promise to the excluded, Jesus' words on eunuchs in Matthew 19, and even a detour through Dolly Parton's gift for writing "stories from below," Pastor Chad asks who we still leave outside the assembly today — and what it might mean to go on our way not just relieved, but rejoicing.

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  Episode #43

  Faces of Our Faith: Onesimus | Philemon 1 | 8.23.26

  Aug 25, 202624 minS1

  What does it mean to be held accountable — not just to a rule, but to a community you trust? In this week’s sermon from our Faces of Our Faith series, Pastor Chad walks through the entire book of Philemon, Paul’s brief, tender, and pointed letter written on behalf of Onesimus, an enslaved man returning to the household he fled. Drawing on the shopping cart theory and the hard history of how American Presbyterians read this same letter to opposite conclusions during the Civil War, this sermon asks what separates works of faith from works of law — and why the church can’t outsource moral courage to “spirituality alone.” With reflections on the doctrine of the spirituality of the church, the 1983 PCUSA reunion, and words from New Testament scholar Eric Barreto and writer Rachel Held Evans, this is a sermon about public accountability, communal trust, and the unfinished ending every one of us is still writing.

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  Episode #42

  Faces of Our Faith: Eutychus | Acts 20:1-12 | 8.16.26

  Aug 18, 202626 minS1

  It’s the first day of the week, the lamps are burning, and Paul is talking past midnight because he’s leaving in the morning. Up in the window, a young man named Eutychus loses his fight against sleep — and falls three stories to his death. Drawing on Paul Tillich’s theology of miracle, this sermon asks us to reconsider what we mean by “miraculous,” and suggests that sometimes it isn’t a spoon-bending spectacle but simply the world working the way it was always supposed to: bread that’s enough, a call that comes, a life that’s caught. A reflection on ordinary grace, Appalachian goodbyes, and staying at the table until dawn.

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  The Lake Forest Sermoncast

  Faces of our Faith | Judas Iscariot | Mark 14:1-2, 10-50

  Aug 3, 202621 min

  Betrayal is one of the deepest wounds we carry — and one of the hardest to understand, whether we’re the ones left asking “how could you?” or the ones who left someone else asking it of us. This week in our Faces of Our Faith series, Pastor Jeff turns to Judas Iscariot, the disciple whose name has become shorthand for treachery. But what if Judas wasn’t a villain who stopped believing in Jesus — what if he believed too much, in the wrong kind of power? Drawing on Walter Wink’s distinction between “power over” and “power with,” this sermon reimagines Judas not as a mole planted from the start, but as a disciple who ran out of patience waiting for Jesus to seize power the way the world expects power to be seized — and who tried to force his hand. Along the way: a detour through The Empire Strikes Back, a hard look at how we all sometimes use Jesus to get what we want, and a word of grace for anyone who’s ever named Jesus “Lord” while quietly bargaining for something else. Because the story doesn’t end with Jesus writing anyone off — not Judas, not Peter, not the twelve who scattered. It ends with a God who pours himself out instead of cashing anyone in. Mark 14:1-2, 10-50

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  Episode #39

  Faces of Our Faith: Anna | Luke 2:21-38 | 7.26.26

  Jul 28, 202619 minS1

  Faces of Our Faith: Anna the Prophet Luke 2:36-38 Three verses. A whole life. In this week's installment of our summer series "Faces of Our Faith," we meet Anna — an eighty-four-year-old widow from a scattered, displaced tribe, who spends decades at the Temple in prayer and fasting. Luke calls her a prophet, but never records a single word she said. And yet, when the moment comes, she speaks to everyone who will listen — about the child, about redemption, about hope. Drawing on the scholarship of Barbara E. Reid and bell hooks' idea of "talking back," this sermon traces how grief and displacement can be transformed — not into bitterness, not into silence, but into testimony. Because sometimes the deepest wisdom, the richest beauty, doesn't come from abundance — it comes from those who had next to nothing and refused to let that be the end of the story. Don't let the world talk you into believing your grief has the final word.

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