Crazy Faith Talk: Recent Episodes
Crazy Faith Talk
An engaging, comedic, serious, and hopefully interesting foray into the world of Christianity. Join the discussion...believer, atheist, or skeptic alike! Hosted by Pastor Erica, a Methodist, Pastor Sarah, a Lutheran, and Pastor Steve, who is also Lutheran, Crazy Faith Talk is an ecumenical experiment of cross conversation (pun intended).
In this November's series, "Questions We Want to Ask God," colleagues in ministry Erica, Sarah, Steve, and Natalie are getting to lob out the BIG questions we still wrestle with. This time, the question is, "What (that human beings do) breaks God's heart the most?" And over the course of this conversation we'll explore what the Scriptures suggest matters most to God, and what it even means to suggest that God's "heart" can break. We'll look at times in the Bible where the writers talk about God grieving or being sorrowful, and what that might mean for how we make choices in our daily lives as well. Join us for another in-depth conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series this November, Crazy Faith Talk is welcoming an additional voice around the table and posing questions we have always wanted to ask God. In addition to our regulars, Erica, Sarah, and Steve, we welcome Natalie, who is a seminary intern learning ministry in the congregational setting where Steve serves, and we're glad to have her around the microphone! In this episode, we'll explore why God gave human beings free will--and what that might or might not mean in different theological traditions. Does God's omnisicences (knowing all things) including our future undercut the idea that we are free to choose, or are our actions predetermined? Why would God give us the ability to kill or harm others if God's commandments forbid those? And, once we open the can of worms about human freedom and God's will, if as Scripture seems to say God "wants all to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus," is God OK with not getting what God wants in the end, or is God determined to accomplish God's purposes? As you can imagine, this conversation takes us in some pretty interesting places, and we invite you to join us for this conversation and a new series here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a sense, Jesus' disciples are meant to be forever learning: there is always deeper to go, and there are always new adventures on which Jesus invites us to accompany him. But at the same time, Jesus' disciples do move from being solely students to becoming teachers and leaders as well. In Matthew's Gospel, for example, there is a well-known scene after the resurrection in which Jesus directs his disciples now to go outward in all directions and "to all nations" not only to baptize people, but to "instruct" them to follow in his way of life--in other words, to become a new generation of apprentices of Jesus. And now, twenty centuries later, that's our calling still. So, what does it look like to be apprentices who become teachers and leaders for new and growing disciples, while we also still continue to grow and learn? That's where this concluding episode of our series, "Discipleship as Apprenticeship," will take us, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the microphone to discuss what it could look like to see ourselves as simultaneously disciples and teachers. Listen in on this week's "Crazy Faith Talk"!
If following Jesus were a short sprint on a clear track, it would be easy. But in reality, discipleship is a lifelong marathon on rough terrain, and it involves the ongoing challenges of dealing with setbacks, obstacles, and course corrections. How does Jesus help his disciples, both in the Gospels and today, to face the obstacles in our path as we follow him? Join us for this latest conversation in our fall series, "Discipleship As Apprenticeship," as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore how we follow Jesus while acknowledging that we sometimes miss the mark, miss the point, and miss our chances to do what Jesus is calling us to do. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
It's not just WHAT Jesus does, but HOW he does it. And it's not just about head-knowledge but training our hands and hearts to live out what we believe. As we continue this fall's series on Discipleship as Apprenticeship to Jesus, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now look at how Jesus models for his disciples practices like prayer, fasting, and giving, and how he teaches us still today how to see our relationship with God from a perspective that lets those be authentic rather than performances or rote rituals. Listen in to this conversation for insights on how we can let our spiritual lives be honed and trained in the same direction as Jesus' example for his disciples in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In this, their 400th episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the central teachings of Jesus as the beginnings of our apprenticeship to him. We'll see how the parables of Jesus and teachings like the Sermon on the Mount are not merely "head knowledge" or trivia to be memorized for a test, but a whole new way of seeing the world and understanding our relationship to God, from which we then act, speak, and follow. Join us for another round of conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series for this fall, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are taking a look at what it means to be disciples of Jesus, and in particular to see ourselves as apprentices who learn Jesus' way of life. In contrast to so much of our wider culture that persuades us to see ourselves as paying customers (who are thus "always right," and can take our business elsewhere if someone says or does something to challenge us...), Jesus calls us to let go of our old assumptions, prejudices, habits, and practices to learn his way of life. What could that look like for us, and what did it look like for the first disciples of Jesus as he called to each of them? Join us for a new round of conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this finale episode of our series on people in the Bible we would (or wouldn't) want to be, we'll look at the less-familiar story of Phoebe, whom Paul commends at the end of his letter to the Romans as a fellow leader in the early church. Phoebe is only mentioned in two verses of the whole Bible, but it is likely that she was the one carrying Paul's letter to the Romans and actually read it in Rome out loud to the gathered community, also probably giving the first explanation, commentary, or preaching on it. And even though later many voices would try to prohibit women's leadership, Paul certainly seems to have no problem with her role here--he doesn't feel any need to defend, explain, or apologize for sending her. He just assumes that the Christians in Rome will welcome her with open arms! How does Phoebe's story give us a glimpse into life in the early church? What might her story say to us about the seemingly ordinary ways God works through us? Listen in to this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk to find out!
In our current series exploring biblical figures we want to be (or know we can learn from), we'll explore what it would have been like to be Esther (from the biblical book of the same name). Esther lived centuries before Jesus and thousands of years before us, and yet so much of her faith-story is like ours. Like Esther, we often struggle (and stumble) through our discernment of what God is calling us to do or how our faith is leading us to act, and also like Esther we each have to wrestle with how to use the platforms and privileges we have for the sake of others who are endangered, as well as knowing how and when to speak up. If you've ever wished for a note on your pillow from God but instead had to learn to recognize God's direction in the counsel of others and the calling in your consicence, then this conversation might be a helpful one for you! Join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the microphone for this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Sarah begin a round of conversations highlighting people in the Bible they would like to be, or would want to have some part of. And to get this started, we'll take a look at Saint Paul, famously known as apostle to the Gentiles and the voice behind a large part of the New Testament. He can be bold and confident, and yet sometimes he struggled to be heard with respect and struggled with finding his place in God's work amid suffering, imprisonment, and adversity. What would have been the benefits of being Paul--and what would have been the challenges? Listen in and find out more here on this week's edition of Crazy Faith Talk!
This week, our series "Who We DON'T Want To Be" takes a look at Simon Peter, the fisherman-turned-apostle who talked a good game and often had half-right answers, only to misunderstand or let Jesus down when it counted. This week, Steve explores why he struggles with the story of Simon Peter, and colleagues in ministry Erica and Sarah offer grace for all of us who struggle and stumble our way through being disciples of Jesus. Join us for another faithful conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In this series we've just recently started here in these late summer days, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are asking the question, "Who do you NOT want to be from the Bible?" And each week, we'll feature a different biblical character, while these friends around the micophone try to persuade one another either to be, or not to be, in that character's shoes (or sandals). This week, we'll take a look at the towering figure of the Torah, Moses, who is remembered both as liberator from slavery and lawgiver for the freed Israelites, but who also had to endure an awful lot of difficulty and drama. What can we learn from Moses' life story, and how can we respond when we are in positions of leadership and times of critical action? Listen in and find out on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series kicking off here in these late days of summer, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are exploring biblical characters we would not want to be, and maybe why they wouldn't be so bad after all. Getting things started, a look at how difficult it must have been to be the mother of Jesus--exactly because he was the Messiah, and she had been told that ahead of time! What challenges would have been there with her unusual pregnancy? What heartaches did she have to endure? How different might it have been to parent Jesus compared with Mary's later children? And what kind of faith do we learn from Mary's story and words in the Scriptures? Join us for this new conversation and new series here on Crazy Faith Talk!
At the end of the last book of the Christian Bible, there is a vision of a wholly renewed creation, a "new heavens and a new earth," in which mnay peoples (plural) from every language, tribe, and nation are gathered into God's presence, and when heaven comes to earth, for God's dwelling to be among us completely. In light of that promised future, Christians are freed to be open-eyed, honest and realistic about the limits, failings, and flaws of every human government and every nation on earth. Because we haven't tethered our faith in Jesus to a political party or a national government, we can be honest when governments mess up, and we don't have to give up hope into despair in the elections when our candidates lose. We are also equipped to live in the tension of doing what is in our power to make positive change in our own lives, neighborhoods, and communities, while not being overwhelmed by the burden of assuming the fate of the universe rests on any one person's efforts. We can't achieve the kingdom of God by lobbying, and we don't have to believe the false notion that any candidate or party has God's endorsement--they don't. All these topics, and more, as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a final look at the separate of church and state here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As we keep thinking through the value of having a separation between church and state in the United States, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve spend some time looking at the biblical picture of the church as a multi-national community. From the time of Paul's letters (the earliest documents of the New Testament!) onward, we see the early church choosing to include people from other nationalities, cultures, and languages without making them "assimilate" into the practices of ancient Judaism first. That is, Gentiles were welcome as Gentiles! And running through the Bible, from prophets like Isaiah through to the end of Revelation is a picture of many nations all gathered as God's beloved community. We'll look at the ways it can be both a challenge and also a blessing that the church is always bigger than one nation, government, or territory, and some of what we have learned by listening intentionally to people whose background, culture, and nationality are different from our own. Join the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As we continue our summer series exploring why the separation of church and state is good for both sides of that arrangement, we explore the way our voice as Christians can be a helpful check and balance on the actions and decisions of government. Most folks who have lived in the United States understand the concept of how we are supposed to have "checks and balances" within government itself, in the separated powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. But what if the role of the church, either collectively or individually, can have a similar check-and-balance for the state, precisely because the church doesn't wield governmental power? What if, like the prophets of ancient Israel, it's exactly because we are on the outside of the halls of government that we can be a voice that holds government accountable? And how would we lose that ability to offer prophetic critique if we were a part of the established government bureaucracy? These are the places our conversation is going today--join us this time here on Crazy Faith Talk!
This summer on Crazy Faith Talk, we're taking a look at the separation of church and state in the American experiment, and why it's a good thing. Around the table as usual are pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve, and this week, we're looking at the possible dangers of a church or religious faith taking control of the wheels of government. While some might think it would only mean getting to have Christmas trees or nativity scenes in town squares, history suggests that there are LOTS of ways state power gets abused and faith groups become corrupt when they overtake the role of government. Historically, that includes the disaster of the Crusades in medieval Europe the "doctrine of discovery" during the age of colonization, as well as the restrictions of opportunties and rights for women or minorities in post-revolution Iran. And even in the present moment in America, there are faith groups who identify as "Christian nationalists" who are advocating for repealing women's right to vote. All of those examples raise the question, "Which church would be in power?" if a church were to overtake the state--and maybe that concern tells us exactly why it was a wise idea not to establish a state church in our founding documents. Should everything that we think of as a "sin" also be a crime punishable by the state? Who gets to decide what count as those sins? And what can Christians learn about the temptation to dominate with secular power from the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness? These kinds of questions and more are all up for discussion on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
This week on Crazy Faith Talk, we continue our series exploring the separation of church and state by looking at what happens when governments overstep their bounds and claim to speak for God (or the gods). Whether it's pagan empires like Pharaoh's Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, or the Roman Empire of the first-century, or even the kings of Israel and Judah claiming God's endorsement for everything they did, there are lots of biblical examples of the dangers of a government claiming to have divine approval for its agenda. And similarly, much of the history of the 20th century, from the state church of Germany in the 1930s to the censored churches of communist countries today, reminds us that there are good reasons not to let the state overtake the role and the voice of faith groups. Join us for this conversation as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at why a separation between church and state is a good thing to have here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Should the government get to dictate what the correct belief in God is? Should the church be able to punish people with jail time for incorrect theology or unorthodox biblical interpretation? Are there good reasons why the Founders of the American experiment chose deliberately NOT to establish an official religion when the United States was formed? These questions kick off a new series for this summer as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the separation of church and state, and why at least these three Christian faith leaders think it's a good idea--precisely as Christians--that we do not have an "official religion" in the United States. In this first episode we'll set the table for the rest of this series, looking at where the language of "separation of church and state" came from, and how the lessons of centuries of religiously-affiliated wars in Europe prior to the drafting of the US Constitution informed those leaders like Jefferson when they insisted on "a wall of separation" between church and state. We'll also look at how important voices from church history in our various traditions lay the ground work for seeing the work of the church separated from the work of the government. This will be an important and, we hope, a valuable series to listen to this summer--check it out here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of our series on the Psalms, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore ways to use the psalms in our own individual and corporate lives. While there are some parts of the Scripture we may struggle to come back to for multiple readings (let's be honest, it's hard to be inspired by genealogies or records of how long different kings reigned for), the psalms continually invite us to pray using their borrowed words, or to let them be a springboard for our own new conversations with God. Whether it's personal spiritual journaling, praying the Hours with others in community, or simply taking the time to pause in your day long enough to break up your to-do list with prayer, the psalms can be a great resource for continuing to walk with God day by day. Listen in for some ideas in your own life here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this week's episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a difficult group of psalms in the Bible--those that wish for revenge or cursing on the enemies of the ones praying. For many of us, we wouldn't have even known this was in the Bible, and for others, we just don't know what to do with such angry--and often violent--words brought to God! So in this conversation, we'll explore some ways to deal with these psalms, how they might give voice to pain that needs to be expressed somehow, and why it's good news that God is free to respond to our prayers in whatever ways God sees fit, even if it's not what we asked for or wanted. Join us for this week's episode here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As they continue exploring the poems and prayers in the biblical book of psalms, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look today at the royal psalms, often used in enthronement or coronations in ancient Israel's life, which asked for God's blessing and help for their kings and for long dynasties of continuity in their rule. To American ears, used to the constant turnover of elections and trained to be skeptical of monarchies, these psalms can sound strange or confusing. And yet, as we look closer, there is something truly beautiful in this sort of prayer for the common good, for the doing of justice, for wisdom for leaders (especially in times when the people didn't have a choice in who led them), and ultimately for a hope in God as the real sovereign regardless of who sat on the throne. Join us for this conversation and what these ancient prayers might mean for us today in our lives, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
There are a few essentials for a good traveling song: it needs to help make the trip go quicker, it needs to be memorable for people to sing along, and it helps make the journey as much of a memory as the destination. Well, ancient Israel had its own set of traveling songs, at least for the times when the people would be going up to Jerusalem for worship at the Temple at festivals and other special occasions. They're called "songs of ascent," and they're a subset of the Book of Psalms. They were used as people made the journey "up" (literally, since Jerusalem is on hill elevated above all the surrounding territory) for worship, and they have a way of drawing people into the act of worship, while marking out the miles along the way like a good traveling song. Learn more about these songs and why they matter in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In their ongoing series this summer on the psalms, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the laments in the Psalms. These prayers, poems, and songs feel like the blues--they name the times when our worlds fall apart, when we feel abandoned (even by God), and when our hearts are heavy. And rather than discouraging us from lobbing those feelings at God, the psalms of lament actually give us permission to bring whatever is on our hearts and minds to God! Join us for a conversation about how we are invited into raw honesty and authenticity with God, rather than needing to sugar-coat our thoughts about God or see life only through rose-colored lenses, and how biblical lament can be a gift for us that actually brings us closer to God, this week on Crazy Faith Talk!
In our new series this summer exploring the psalms, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now take a look at different kinds, or genres, of psalms. And in this episode our conversation takes us to psalms of praise and thanksgiving. In a sense, these kinds of prayers and songs seem obviouus--when you are happy or something is going well, sometimes the joyfulness just bursts out of you, after all. But it is worth exploring how these psalms call attention to WHY God is worthy of praise. That might include the times life is going well, but maybe it's also thanks for the times God has brought us through difficult times, or remembrances of what God has done in the distant past as a reminder of what God can do in our present situations. The psalms of praise also highlight WHO God is--the One who cares for the marginalized, who lifts up the lowly, who deflates the arrogant, who feeds the hungry with good things, and who cares about justice and mercy. We'll also explore how reading and praying the psalms of praise and thanksgiving can open our minds to keep singing new songs of praise and offering up new words of thanks for what God continues to do in our lives and in the world. Check out the conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series for the summer, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve invite you to get to know the psalms better. While many people know phrases or selections from the psalms (like, "The Lord is my shepherd," or "Be still and know that I am God..."), this is a book that is often underused and possibly misunderstood. So as we begin this series, we'll explore why it can be valuable to "borrow words" from someone else's prayer life, or to use pre-written wording in corporate worship. And we'll also look at how the psalms "work" as poetry--and what that means for how we read and understand poetry. This series will offer food for the mind and the spirit--join us on this deeper dive into the Psalm here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of our series for Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at how other Christian traditions think of the sacraments and how differing definitions lead to different counts of how many sacraments there are, and what they mean. We'll look at how many of the ritual moments named "sacraments" in other denominations are still practiced by others--things like marriage, prayers and anointing for the sick, or ordination of pastors--but are understood differently from what happens at baptism or communion. How did we get here, and what difference does any of this make? That's the conversation we invite you to share with us here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
As we continue to explore the meaning and development of the sacraments this Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now turn to how Holy Communion (or the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper) has been understood across different traditions within the church, from the medeival and Roman traditions, through the different branches of the Protestant Reformation, to various kinds of practices in the contemporary church. Having seen how this meal traces back to Jesus in the upper room with his disciples and how later New Testament writers reflected on its meaning, we now explore how different theological traditions have ended up with different understandings of what happens when we gather around the bread and cup. Is Jesus present here at this meal? Are we just remembering or commemorating a past event? Is Jesus somehow being sacrificed again? And how important is it that we all agree or share the same understanding about what is happening here? Join us for a conversation across traditions and time this week on Crazy Faith Talk!
As we continue exploring the sacraments this Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at how the early church's celebration of the Lord's Supper developed, from the memory of Jesus' last meal with his disciples to the emerging practice in Christian gatherings over meals as the gospel spread across the empire. With resurrection stories from the gospels and snapshots from New Testament letters, we'll see how the early church understood what was happening at this meal, and how it folded into their shared (common) life as disciples. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As we continue to explore the sacraments this Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve begin to look at Holy Communion (known also as The Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, and the Sacrament of the Altar). And as we did with our conversation about baptism, we'll trace the through-lines from Jesus and his practice to the witness of the New Testament era church and then to later church history. But starting things off, we turn to the borrowed upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples, hours before his betrayal and arrest, when Jesus took the unleavened bread of the passover and remaining cup of wine and imbued them with new meaning, pointing to himself as a new kind of passover lamb. What did Jesus' disciples think was happening, and how much might they have understood? What do the gospel writers want us to know about that moment, and how does it connect to our ongoing practice in Christian worship? Join the conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to explore the sacrament of Holy Baptism, this time we'll look at how Christian practice has developed, deepened, changed, and grown over the centuries. Along the way, we'll pick up questions from throughout Christian history about the how, when, and why of baptism, things like: does it matter how much water is used when I'm baptized? Do I have to be a certain age, have a certain mental capacity, or be able to remember the event of being baptized? What if the person who baptized me ends up leaving the faith or committing some terrible sin? What about being baptized by proxy for someone who is deceased? Why did people in an earlier time sometimes hold off on being baptized until they were on their deathbed? All of these questions and more are up for discussion on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In our new series exploring the sacraments, baptism and Holy Communion, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are tracing these essential Christian practices from their rootings in the teaching and institution of Jesus through the present day. Today we'll look at the New Testament as a bridge between Jesus' own baptism by John in the river Jordan and the many forms, modes, and practices around baptism today. We'll look at how the early church understood baptism and why whole households were sometimes baptized all at once, and how baptism was also understood as God's gift of a new identity--like being born all over again. Join the conversation and listen in here as we explore more of what it means to be the baptized people of God here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series for Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve will take a deeper dive into the sacraments: what they are, what they do, and why they matter. Our series begins with a look at baptism--in particular, with Jesus' baptism in the river Jordan by John. What is Jesus doing in the water there if he doesn't have any sins to "repent" of? Where did the idea of baptism come from? And what does the voice that speaks at Jesus' baptism have to do with us? These kinds of questions start off our conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of our Lenten series for 2024, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore one final temptation the church faces--the lure of being the saviors ourselves, rather than pointing to Jesus as Savior. Sometimes it's the way we want to conflate "faith in Jesus" with "being a card-carrying member of our congregation." And sometimes it's the impulse for MY church to have to do it all to meet every need: running the food bank, managing a homeless shelter, getting people job training, settling refugees, runing a children's ministry, or whatever else we might imagine. Maybe, too, we need to own up to the times we have let our relief work in the world treat others patronizingly and belittling others because of OUR need to look like we are helping, rather than what OTHERS actually need help with. In this week when the church focuses on God's saving acts for the world at the cross and resurrection, this conversation might just be the reality check and wake-up call we needed to remembe that we are called to witness to the Savior, not to try and take his place! Blessings this Holy Week from us at Crazy Faith Talk!
In their ongoing series for Lent 2024, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to look at temptations the church faces in our modern-day experience. And this time we'll explore the temptation to fall for prosperity theology, or what is sometimes called the "health-and-wealth-gospel." And we'll see what's missing in this approach to the faith, as tempting and popular as it might be (and as much as we might wish that the world could be simplified down to a system where good behavior or strong faith automatically is rewarded with material success or prosperity). We'll explore how a faith that is centered on the cross of Jesus and the calling away from "cheap grace" will also mean we say "No" to the thinking of the prosperity gospel, no matter how many books it may sell or how many megachurches may lean on it. We'll discover, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it, that real grace is costly, because it will cost us our lives, but it is grace because it gives us the only true life there really is.
As we continue our Lenten series exploring the different kinds of temptations the church faces, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the powerful temptation to become judgmental. In the pursuit of holiness, we can end up being "holier-than-thou." In the pursuit of righteousness, we soemtimes fall prey to being self-righteous. And in the name of holding one another accountable, we can end up being judgmental jerks. How do we guide, correct, and encourage one another with grace while avoiding the easy temptation to condemn anyone who thinks or acts differently from our personal convinctions or scruples? And how do we discern the places we need to speak up or speak out against the things that run counter to the way of Jesus? These are the kinds of questions we're raising in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
As we look continue our series for Lent 2024, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve keep looking at modern-day temptations that the church faces in our own mission and work, and how they might echo the temptations Jesus faced in his own forty days in the wilderness. And this time we'll explore the temptation to chase after attention, popularity, and the latest trend, all in the name of being "relevant." What's the difference between being "seeker-friendly" and selling out? What messages are we sending about our purpose and the good news if the things we are excited about are a church coffee bar or theater seating? And how do we deal with the impulse in a social media age to have to have a "hot take" on whatever controversy or outrage is roiling over the internet at any given moment? All these questions and more shape our conversation as we look for ways to be engaged with the world around us without losing the right focus for our mission and ministry. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
This Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are taking a look at ways the worldwide community of Jesus, the church, face temptations today, and how they echo the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness story as well as throughout his whole ministry and public life. Today, we'll look at one of the most obvious connections to Jesus' encounter with Satan in the wilderness--the temptation to take earthly power. Over and over again in Christian history, Christians have given into the temptation that if they just controlled everything or everyone and could back up their rule with force (and the point of a sword) they could make things be perfect. Whether it was Constantine adopting Christianity and its symbols for the empire in the fourth century, the Crusades to conquer the land of Palestine in the name of Christianity, colonization of lands "discovered" by Europeans, or contemporary religion-affiliated nationalism, we seem to keep failing to learn from history that we lose something essential to our identity as the body of Christ when we sell out for political power or the control of government. And with tragic irony, so often Christians have done these things convinced they had God's blessing and the best of intentions--which makes this temptation all the more insidiious. In this episode, we'll explore some of these historical moments as well as questions in our own day about how we should and shouldn't use our voices and what can go wrong when church folks try to take over the reins of power.
In a new series for Lent this year, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are going to be looking at some of the major ways the community of Jesus' followers, the church, may be tempted away from the path and way of Jesus. We'll be exploring things like the temptation for the church to wield governmental or political power, the temptation to sell out to what is trendy, and the temptation to make ourselves the saviors of the world rather than Jesus. But to start the conversation, the three pastors will do a little more in-depth exploration of the stories of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness from the Gospels, particularly in Matthew and Luke. Do these surreal stories about meeting the devil in the wilderness, turning stones into bread, or jumping from the height of the temple mean something for us in our daily, down-to-earth lives? And if so, what do they say? Join us this Lent to look at where we might be lured away from the path of Jesus, and how we respond to those temptations, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of our series, "Books That Shaped Our Ministry," pastors Erica, Steve, and Sarah offer a reading list of a few other titles that we have each found helpful, provocative, or useful in our ministry lives, and we commend them to you for your reading as well. Listen in for an introduction to each of these books and see what might pique your interest:The Epic of Eden--by Sandra RichterKingdom, Grace, Judgment--by Robert Farrar CaponManna and Mercy--by Daniel ErlanderA Celebration of Discipline--by Richard FosterThe Cross and the Lynching Tree--by James ConeThere's No Wrong Way to Pray--Rebecca Ninke
In the third episode of their series on books that have shaped their ministry, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at a book entitled, "Part Time Is Plenty," by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, that offers a vision for how congregations can not only survive, but thrive, in situations where they have part-time pastoral leadership supplemented by empowered members of their congregations. We'll explore the pressures many congregations feel to do ministry a certain way, or to keep with the pictures in their mind of "how we've always done it," and how pastors also often bring assumptions and expectations that have been foisted on them for how pastoral ministry should look. We'll also take a look at how diverse the models of pastoral leadership have looked over the course of the last two thousand years, from Paul the bi-vocational traveling missionary and tentmaker to the circuit riders of the 19th century, to many models of serving in the 21st century. If you've ever wondered, "How do congregations decide what is right for them for their ministry needs at any given time?" this conversation could be for you! Listen in on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In their new series, "Books That Shaped Our Ministry," pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve are taking turns, show-and-tell style, to highlight books that have been important for their ministry in some way. Today, Steve shares a book that is now nearly thirty-five years old, but which still offers a provocative take on being the church as a minority voice, like salt, light, or yeast, rather than as a dominating voice aligned with anybody's political establishment or influence-peddlers. The book, Resident Aliens, co-written by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon in the late 1980s, dared readers a generation ago to question whether Christianity was meant to fit into any political party's cookie cutter, whether the church is just supposed to be a harmless institution propping up the status quo, and whether we had stopped listening to Jesus himself as the primary architect of our way of life. The particular issues of the day in the late 1980s are certainly different from today, several decades later, but the questions keep needing to be asked. So, here's an introduction to these two distinctive voices who make us think--and think again--about how to live as the blessedly weird out-of-step followers of Jesus. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In our latest series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve each get a chance to play "show and tell" to highlight a book that has been important or somehow formative for their ministry, theology, or work as a pastor. Starting off this series, Erica presents a book called, The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy, by J. Russell Hawkins, that takes a look at how the Bible was used, misused, and abused in several American church denominations to reinforce racial segregation in the United States, and what it means for how we approach the Bible today. In the course of the conversation, we'll explore BIG questions like, "How do we tell if we are misusing the Bible to suit our own agendas?" and "How do we know when to speak up, when to be silent, and when to make room for other viewpoints on issues in our time and setting?" With the case of racial segregation in the 19th and 20th centuries, we can explore how people risked their livelihoods to speac against racism, and how others worked within structures and systems to preserve it--and we might get a starting point for examining our own lives and where we are called to speak up, and at what cost. This is also a conversation about how to be more faithful and honest readers of the Scriptures, so it also connects with our every day spiritual life, too. Join the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a part of the Epiphany story that often goes overlooked, unspoken, or deliberately ignored: the role of the puppet king Herod who kills the infants of Bethlehem and tries to deceive the Magi who come, following a star, to find the Christ-child. Where is there good news in a story like this, and how do we deal with the parts of the biblical story that are terrifying and brutal like this? And if we are afraid of engaging with a story like this (or just find convenient excuses for not ever dealing with it together), how will we ever find the courage to speak to a world still haunted by the memories of Auschwitz, the staggering death tolls of other countless genocides, or of wars against innocents unfolding in the world yet today? These are the difficult questions we will have to deal with if we are going to listen to the way Matthew's Gospel tells us of the birth of Christ. Join us for a powerful conversation and a compelling story to look at here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
There are countless ways to observe the birth of Jesus at Christmas, from beloved songs and carols to Christmas pageants to nativity sets. And we aren't lacking for ways to mark the new year, too, from New Year's Eve parties to the making of resolutions for the year ahead. But just on the heels of both of those is the traditional remembering of the visit of the Magi following the star to meet the Christ-child, often called Epiphany, and quite often that story, and its meaning, can get lost in the shuffle. How do we help making this story connect with the tactile faith of young people who learn best by touch, sight, play, and experience? And how can we invite grown-ups to explore how God continues to lead us, throughout our lives, closer to Christ? On today's "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore one relatively new practice, "Star Words," that is meant to do both--to make our faith experience tangible, and to help move beyond a one-day Bible story to a deeper lifelong journey in relationship with God. Join us for conversation about how "star words" might work, and how you might use one this year in your own spiritual practice!
In the second half our Christmas special for this year, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how much of even "traditional" Christmas lore and celebration has been imported from wider culture over time and different places. From the date of December 25 itself, to the evergreen wreaths and trees, to our connection of Christmas with snow, it turns out that a lot of what many people "expect" from Christmas has roots in the Roman Empire or pre-Christian religions of northern Europe. And while it can be helpful to acknoweldge how much of our Christmas tradition doesn't really have anything to do with Jesus, we don't have to cut out everything from our celebration that doesn't have a Bible verse attached to it. But how do we navigate all that, letting traditions from other places be included in our celebrations, without mandating that any Christmas celebration without a pine tree covered in ornaments can't be "authentic"? And how might all of this conversation help us realize that there's never been "one right way" to celebrate Christmas? Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Merry Christmas! For this year's Crazy Faith Talk Christmas special, we're going to take a look at how pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve engage with pop culture Christmas phenomena, from movies to songs to Christmas specials on TV and the like, that are "Christmas-adjacent." Plenty of sermons have been preached about how Christmas is really about Jesus' birth, and there are plenty of Christmas-themed movies and songs that don't make that connection. How do we deal with songs and shows that take us as far as "Christmas isn't about materialism" but don't get beyond "family is nice" or "togetherness is important" as far as what they have to say? And do we treat Christmas songs and movies differently from the way we would treat other romantic comedies or movies about families? If we can watch a "secular" romantic comedy or read a novel that doesn't have anything explicitly Christian about it and still find it entertaining or enjoyable, can we do the same when it's a movie that claims to have something to do with Christmas? And how do we make choices about what kinds of songs or content make it into our public worship services, too? If you've ever felt ambivalent about Christmas pop culture, this might be a conversation for you, too! Listen in here!
In this last episode of our Advent 2023 series on being "a waiting church," pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at how to practice Advent-waiting (that is both active and patient) in times that feel like decline. As congregations change or shrink, as communities and neighborhoods change, and as the needs of each context develop over time, how do we walk through those times with hope? How can even times where congregations close become grounds for new possibilities? Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
This Advent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are looking at what it could mean for us to practice intentional waiting as as the church. How do we reclaim the idea of "waiting" from passively sitting on our hands to something active and on-call--ready for God's next thing, but also using the time that looks fallow to be thoughtful, reflective, and to listen? How can waiting times also be times for seeking vision and direction, so that we know where to go when our feet start moving again? How can waiting times also be active, as we prepare for what will come next when the waiting time is done, like washing the mixing bowls while the bread dough is rising? These kinds of questions help us to see both Advent and the whole Christian life as more than just biding our time counting down to something else, but using our time well in the hear and now also. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As the church year turns to a season of waiting and hopeful watching with the beginning of Advent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are starting a new series on what it means to be a "waiting church." The Christian community has a unique calling as people who both wait for Jesus' coming and God's new creation, on the one hand, and who are active in loving and serving to anticipate God's "new thing," on the other. That's a special kind of waiting--because we don't get to just sit on our hands or fall asleep, but neither do we have the power and control to make God's kingdom come on our timetable. How do we make sense of that unique kind of faithful, hope-filled waiting? Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk for a place to start!
In this short series this November, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have been exploring those times when God showed up to people who weren't looking, in times or places that were unexpected. And in the Bible, those experiences happen pretty often--the voice out of the blue, the burning bush, the divine voice "calling in the night," and so forth. But in our own lives, what could it look like for God to show up when we weren't looking, weren't expecting it, or didn't know at the moment that it was God? And how do we live in the ambiguity of real-life experience where sometimes we're not quite sure what's just a curious coincidence, and what has divine fingerprints on it? These kinds of questions got us thinking and sharing some stories, so join us for some conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Every time people met Jesus, they were brought face to face with God-in-the-flesh in a way they weren't expecting. In sense, Jesus' life and ministry was one big, long, unending example of serendipitous faith: those times we find God's presence in our lives when we weren't looking for it. But beyond the story of the Gospels, the community of Jesus' followers kept having moments where God interrupted their lives, sometimes when they were pointed completely in the wrong direction, often in ways that changed the course of their lives and all of history. In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at some of those moments in the New Testament, and what they might mean for our lives today. Join us for another exploration of unexpected encounters with God in this series we're calling "Serendipitous Faith."
Sure, sometimes the line between our seeking God's help and God's response is clear and obvious, and people hear a voice answering them in direct answer to their clear request for God's assistance. But a lot more often in the Bible (and in our lives), God shows up unexpectedly and surprises people with encounters, blessings, directions, and callings that people weren't looking for. That's what we're calling "serendipitious faith" in this new series here on Crazy Faith Talk. In this opening conversation, join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve as they share stories from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible that invite us to get to know the God who, as the hymn puts it, "comes to us as one unknown."
In this final episode of our series on how we relate to God beyond the spoken word or printed page, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore how we circle back to community in our experience of God. That includes the present-day community of our congregations, small-group gatherings, and things like Bible study groups, but also the community of voices that make up the Scriptures themselves. And as we said at the start of this series, both things can be true at the same time: God is bigger than our experience in the printed or preached word, but that doesn't mean we are looking to get rid of the community-centered-around-the-Word. In fact, the community that reads, prays, and discerns together helps to hold us accountable and deepen our understanding. So join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
At one level, it seems easy to say you find God in nature--we can talk about the beauty of sunsets and butterflies all day long. But are there limits to what kinds of things we can say about God from the world around us? And are there signs of God's presence and goodness even among the things we don't think are lovely or useful, too? In this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore these kinds of questions, from how do I see God in the mud or in creatures I don't particularly "like", to asking how much we are supposed to make of the realities of death and violence in nature. Does the rule of predators dominating prey also mean that God wills for the strong to dominate the weak? And what does our hope in a new creation where lambs and wolves lie down together in peace mean for how much we build our theology around what seems "natural" now? And if God can love and value things in the ecosystem whether or not I appreciate them, can I recognize that God loves the parts of me that I struggle to accept? Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Any time people dare to make claims about God, we should do it with a healthy dose of humility: after all, we're talking about Mystery beyond our comprehension. And it turns out that there's a long-standing approach to theology that can be helpful in keeping us from thinking we can dissect God like some kind of high school biology experiment. It's sometimes called the "via negativa" or "apophatic theology," and basically, it is an approach to theology that explores what God ISN'T like. Like an artist might use the negative space on a canvas (the parts of the paitning that look "empty") or an artisan might make a design in a fabric batik out of the lines and patterns where the dye DOESN'T go, our God talk sometimes needs to have boundaries of what God is NOT like. So, much like the psalmists and prophets who regularly insist that God is NOT susceptible to getting tired, or that God is NOT moody like human beings can be, or that God DOESN'T need to be fed by sacrifices or offerings, we might find good news in thinking through what God is NOT. And then along the way, we'll explore what the presence of Jesus does to all of our theologizing, if we say God doesn't get tired, experience hunger, or die--and then we go and say that in Jesus, God knows tiredness, hunger, and even death. All of that, along with pop culture check points that range from Neil Gaiman to Rick Astley, all on our 350th episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In their ongoing series exploring the ways we connect with God beyond the spoken word or printed page, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now take a look at how Christian tradition has used intentional silence as a practice of faith. Whether it's in the disciplined vows of a monastery or the hermitages of the ancient Desert Fathers and Mothers or the practice of intentional silence in the midst of our ordinary routines, it turns out that Christian spirituality has had many ways to let the intentional practice of quiet and stillness be a part of our faith life. It can remove distractions, make space for noticing what is otherwise overlooked, or restore rhythm and order to hectic seasons in our lives. Whether you love the idea of a quiet time to listen for God, or you find yourself uncomfortale even at the thought of staying still for sixty seconds, this conversation has some possible ideas and footholds for you! Check it out on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In their new series, "The Unspoken God," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are exploring those times when we sense God's presence or action in the world beyond our words to express the experience. This time, the conversation takes us to the experience of "God moments" or "God sightings"--those times when you see or sense God at work in the world, and how recognize God in the midst of ordinary life. In a culture where religious voices (often self-appointed ones, too) point to disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes, and the like as "acts of God" sent as judgment on this or that sin, how do we offer a different perspective that recognizes God's presence in small places, answers to prayer, or acts of kindness? How do we know that the nudges we get to take a certain action or make a certain decision are from God and not just our own baptized self-interest? And how can we get better at recognizing those places where God is at work in the world around us in the everyday? Listen in on this conversation for all this and find out more here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore ways we connect and communicate with God that go beyond words, whether spoken or written. In the Bible, sometimes God appears and speaks to people one-on-one, but then again, the biblical writers can talk about God's glory being revealed in creation, and God's presence being knowable in the stillness of silence. And of course, nobody in the Bible had a copy of the Bible itself (at least like we have personal copies today), and yet they were convinced they could connect with God even without the printed word. So how might we connect with God beyond what we are able to do through the spoken or written word? Knowing that we'll hear sermons, pray spoken prayers, and study the Bible in Sunday worship and through the week, what other "unspoken" ways are there to know and connect with God? Listen in as we start this new series here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of their series on the Mandela Effect in the Bible (when we collectively mis-remember something), pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at figures who are definitely in the Bible, but maybe not the way we recall: the Magi. These are the star-watching travellers who find the Christ-child and present him with gifts before going home "by another way," but beyond that, there's not much the Bible actually says about these figures. We don't actually get a number, much less their names or country or countries of origin, and we don't know how long it actually took them to find the young Jesus. Nevertheless, pop religion has not only assumed they were at the manger at Christmas, but also has given them names, backstories, and turned them into kings! Check out a deeper dive on who these figures are, and what their presence in the story of Jesus might have to tell us, in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
Simon Peter is often considered to be the leader of Jesus' inner circle of disciples, and he's remembered as a pillar (even the "Rock!") of the early church. In some branches of Christianity, he is seen as an archetype of church leadership and a role model for clergy. Oh yeah--and the gospels tell us that he had a mother-in-law... which sure does sound like he's married! How does it change our picture of the disciples leaving their families to follow Jesus if you picture them with spouses, in-laws to care for, and maybe even kids? How has Christian history remembered certain names and characters, but forgotten others--and why? And how might it change our assumptions about what "Christian families" look like if we consider that there's actually a variety of models for households within even just the New Testament itself? In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore this case of the Mandela Effect in the Bible (where most of us have completely forgotten that there's a reference to Peter having a mother-in-law), and what it might mean (or not mean) for our understanding of Christian leadership and family life, all with a handful of pop culture checkpoints along the way. Check it out here!
In our latest episode looking at the "Mandela Effect" in the Bible (those times we were sure we remembered a character, event, or story one way, only to discover we had mis-remembered it together with a lot of other people), pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the figure called "antichrist" in the Bible and in Christian history and theology. And while pop religion (like the not-very-biblical Left Behind series) often makes "the AntiChrist" to be a singular world figure, like a president or head of a world government, there are important voices in the New Testament that actually say that "many antichrists have already come" as well as the prospect of more anti-Christ figures in the future. They help us to see that anything or anyone who sets themselves up in the place of Christ, or any way of thinking that runs counter to the way of Jesus, can be "anti-Christ." So rather than letting ourselves be complacent until some predicted government figure arrives on the stage of world history, the Scriptures are calling us now to look at any place within us (yes, in OURSELVES!) where our lives are running counter to the way and love of Jesus. Join us for another deep conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In their ongoing series about characters we all assume we remember one way from the Bible that turn out to be VERY different (or even non-existent), pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at a complex figure in the Old and New Testaments: the adversary figure sometimes called "Satan," "Lucifer," or "the devil." And in the course of the conversation we'll unpack how three different ideas and figures have kind of been melded together in pop religion, while the Scriptural picture is a little more complicated. We'll see how layers of ancient mythology, classic literature (like Milton's "Paradise Lost"), and modern pop culture (like Star Wars) has influenced a lot of our thinking about this figure, and how the Hebrew Scriptures especially conceive of this being as more like God's authorized agent to prosecute and test people, rather than a "dark side of the Force" who is opposite and equal to God. Join us for this deep dive to get a fuller understanding of this mysterious and complex figure here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In their new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore characters we would have SWORN were in the Bible, but turn out to be fictions, mistaken recollections, or all-out mash-ups of other biblical characters into something new. That phenomenon of collectively misremembering and event or person is sometimes called the Mandela Effect, and it turns out we do it quite a bit with the Bible. That's especially true when we get our mental picture of Bible stories from pop culture, movies, and TV shows, rather than wrestling with the actual text. And in this episode we look at a classic example from the story of the Exodus. When Moses sets the enslaved Hebrews free from the clutches of the evil Pharaoh, the last straw that finally pushes the Egyptian king to release them is the death of the firstborn of every Egyptian family. But who or what is responsible for those deaths? In pop culture we have invented a figure called "the angel of death" as the entity who has been given this dirty work to do, but in the storytelling of Exodus itself, it's God who strikes down the firstborn. So what difference does it make, and where do we see ourselves in this story? Join this conversation to explore all these questions, along with some pop culture signposts ranging from The Prince of Egypt and Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments to Game of Thrones and American Gods. Join us for the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a brand-new series for this fall, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are exploring what is sometimes called "the Mandela effect"--those times when people collectively believe they remember things a certain way, only to discover they have all misremembered, forgotten, or embellished how things are. (The name comes from a classic example, where many people around the world believed they remembered South African president Nelson Mandela having already died years before his actual death.) Well, it turns out that people do it with the Bible ALL the time. A classic example happens every year around Christmas time, when people retell versions of the Nativity story with a grouchy and occasionally miserly (almost Scrooge-like) innkeeper character who turns away Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. But it turns out, not only is there not actually any mention of an innkeeper, but the word translated as "inn" actually means something more like "guest room" or "spare room" in a family house. What's really going on in Luke's story of the birth of Jesus, and how did we collectively invent both an "inn" and an "innkeeper"? That's the conversation we're exploring this time here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this concluding episode to their series looking at well-loved hymns and the Scriptures underneath them, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a relatively recent hymn from writer John Bell, entitled, "Will You Come And Follow Me" or sometimes know as "The Summons." They'll look at how the actual life of Jesus becomes a pattern and a model for our lives of faith: offering healing and help to neighbors, reaching across lines to include outcasts, risking being excluded or ridiculed because of Jesus' love, and being led in new directions. We'll also explore how following Jesus is different from merely subscribing to a philosophy or being a member of a political party or other club, because it involves a mutual relationship with God, in whom we abide, and who dwells with us as well. Join us for this conversation that might help you to reconsider what it means to follow Jesus in your own life, too, on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
As they continue looking at where some of our most beloved hymns get their rooting in Scripture, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at a classic of the Wesleyan and Methodist tradition, "And Can It Be." Written by prolific hymn writer Charles Wesley, this text weaves together themes and images from across the Scriptures as a way of expressing Charles' own "conversion" experience that moved him from a rote, going-through-the-motions sort of faith to something more like a living relationship with the God who loved him. In the course of our conversation, we'll explore how the Bible often offers us language for making sense of our own faith-lives, and how we come to see ourselves in its stories and images. We'll also look at how often Christianity needs to wake itself up back from becoming just an intellectual exercise or pageant of playing church to becoming a vibrant, living way of life in light fo God's deep love. Join the conversation this week here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As our series exploring the Scriptural roots of beloved hymns new and old continues, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a newer hymn by contemporary hymn-writer and poet Ray Makeever, called "Death Be Never Last." It's a text born out of the personal experience of grief and loss that also points to the church's collective hope, not only of reunion with those who have gone before us, but of being connected to that communion of saints even now. And as we look at this hymn text, we'll also explore the way the Scripture allow us the room to grieve losses in the present without needing to sugar-coat them or sweep them under the rug, while also speaking of our confident hope in the God who raises the dead. This hymn is new to many, but it is worth getting to know for the times in the future when we need to be assured that death will not get the last word.
Over and over again in the Scriptures, we discover stories of God's enduring faithfulness and love even in the face of faithless people who flake out. It's God's repeated mercy on the wayward ancient Israelites. It's God's unconditional love for Abraham and Sarah, and even scheming Jacob, despite their failures and doubts. It's the generous father running out to meet the lost son while he's a long way off. It's Jesus restoring Simon Peter, even after the disciple had denied knowing Jesus on the night of his arrest. And it's Saint Paul insisting that "nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." So it's no surprise that there are classic hymns that bring this enduring love of God to the fore. And in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve continue exploring well-known hymns and their rooting in the Scriptures, we turn to a beautiful text called "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go." We invite you to listen in to the conversation and explore both this hymn text and the recurring promise of the Scriptures that God's love holds onto us... no matter what.
In their newest series for this summer, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue exploring hymns new and old for the ways that their poetry draws from the Scriptures, and how those hymns and songs of our faith help us to put in words what we sometimes struggle to express on our own. In this episode, we look at the modern classic, "Here I Am, Lord," (also known as "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky") and the way it weaves together the ancient stories of prophets being called by God, from Isaiah and Jeremiah to Hannah, Samuel, and Moses. As we look at how these biblical stories can become ways for expressing our own callings from God, we find new language for thinking about what God's calling in each of our lives might look like in the twenty-first century. And we get a deeper awareness that God doesn't only call "pastors" or "deacons" or "bishops" or "elders," but all the followers of Jesus, in different ways and for different roles. Check out the conversation here on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In this first episode of a new series this summer, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve invite you to take a closer listen at some well-known hymns, new and old, to look at where they come from in the Scriptures. Sometimes we learn the faith by singing it, rather than memorizing Bible verses or listening to sermons. So what happens in that interplay between the listening ear, the thinking brain, the pull of the emotions, and the stirrings of the spirit? Our first hymn to explore is that beloved Christmas spiritual out of the Black church tradition, "Go Tell It On The Mountain," and as we do, we'll consider how hymns let us "play" with biblical imagery, invite us into the stories we know, and stretch our faithful imaginations when we listen and sing. Join us for a summer series that will have you singing along, too, and thinking more deeply about the hymns through which we learn our Story.
In this final episode of our series on Things the Bible DOESN'T Say, we're looking at something many were sure comes straight from the heart of the Bible--the notion of being able to point to a single moment in your life when you definitively "asked Jesus into your heart" or "accepted him as your personal Savior" by praying some form of a "sinner's prayer" to "get saved." And even though those may be popular ways of expressing the Christian faith, it turns out that literally NO ONE in the Bible ever talks about "accepting Christ" or "inviting Jesus into their hearts" or "deciding to make Jesus their personal Lord and Savior." That's because the Biblical witness, while certainly teaching us to have a relationship with Jesus, never sees that relationship as separable from our life together as community. For that matter, the Bible sees salvation as God's corporate action "for us" and "for the world," rather than just "for me." So in this episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve unpack this contemporary Christian-ese jargon, in order to look at how it can be helpful, where it can miss something, and how to hold together a personal relationship with a connection to the whole community of God's people. Check it out here on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In times of stress and hardship, church folk are often heard to recite like a matnra, "God doesn't give us any more than we can handle." And as well-known a religious cliche as that may be, is that actually what the Bible says? In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, we'll explore this idea, the original context of the verse from Corinthians that often gets (mis)remembered, and how we face those times when we really DO feel overwhelmed and in need of help beyond our own strength. Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue this summer series of things that people assume are in the Bible this week, looking at what we often assume about the troubles of life, and whether it's even accurate to say that God "gives" them to us in the first place. With a conversation that ranges from deep theology to the pop culture of American Gods and Ernest Hemingway, we invite you to listen in and think out where our hope is when we feel overwhelemd by life.
Plenty of people have heard (or caught themselves reciting) the little mantra "This too shall pass," and it's easy to think it's a quote from the Bible. The truth is a bit more complicated than that, and while a well-known fable connects that slogan with King Solomon, it's not actually contained as a phrase in the Scriptures. On the other hand, there is a chorus of voices in the Scriptures who would nod in agreement to the sentiment. From the skeptical philosopher's voice in the book of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) reminding us that "all is vapor/breath," to the reminders of Jesus that our treasures and wealth in this life will not last, to the reminders of the New Testament about a hope beyond the passing sufferings of this life which will not win the day, we hear voices in the Scriptures that advise us both to savor the good in the present moment rather than taking it for granted, and to trust with perseverance that the pain of the present will not last forever. Check out a new conversation with pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve here on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
As we're discovering in this series, sometimes a phrase or a line that we have heard a thousand times, attributed to the Bible, doesn't actually come from the Bible, or loses some important background context. That's definitely the case when we hear the line, "Money is the root of all evil," which is really a sort of partially-remembered version of "The love of money is a root of all kinds of all kids of evil," from First Timothy. But beyond splitting hairs about precise wording, in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve will take deeper dive into the whole biblical witness about how we use money, how it can be used for God's purposes, how it easily becomes and idol, and how we face the challenge of not being possessed by our possessions. Join us this week here on Crazy Faith Talk for more good conversation that takes us everywhere from ancient scriptures to poets like Alice Walker to the movie Idiocracy, and other places along the way.
In this second episode of our series on things that many have assumed are in the Bible, but actually aren't, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore a theology of prayer and faith, and what will keep us from thinking God is a genie responding to our wishes or a celestial vending machine obligated to give us what we demand. Especially when faith is sometimes invoked to criticize people who have suffered terrible losses with the premise, "If you would have prayed more or harder, this wouldn't have happened," how do we respond? And on the flip-side, when something good happens, are we supposed to automatically conclude that someone must have prayed fervently enough to make it happen? In this conversation, we'll explore how to avoid treating prayer like it's a way of manipulating God, and how to make sense of those times in the Bible when devout people fervently prayed and the bad thing still happened, as well as what we do in our lives when we are hit with tragedy beyond our control. Join us for conversation this week on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series starting this week, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are going to take closer look at things that AREN'T in the Bible, but which a lot of us may have heard, assumed, or believed were there. Our first conversation starts with a sentiment that actually predates the Bible itself and goes back to ancient Greek philosophers thinking about the "gods" or some generic conception of the divine, but has been popularized in America by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and others: "God helps those who help themselves." In this conversation, we'll look at where this idea actually came from, why people might have assumed it was in the Bible, how the whole of the Scriptures push back on that idea, and how we think about God's work, our work, and where they overlap. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In the Scriptures, the Spirit of God is always in the midst of bringing things to life. From the Spirit brooding over the dark chaos at creation, to the breath of God bringing a lump of clay to life as a human being, to the vision of dry bones being called to life again by the Spirit-led prophet, to the gifts given to the disciples at Pentecost, the Bible often talks about the Spirit wherever people and creation are coming alive. In our lives, that includes things like the gifts, skills, and abiltities that are developed for the sake of others. That includes those unexpected and amazing moments when we sense the presence of God in ways that go beyond our expectations. And it includes ordinary moments we might not even recognize as holy at first, where the Spirit is moving behind the scenes in our routine actions and choices. Join us in this final episode of our series on "What Gives Life" this Eastertide, as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore the work of the Spirit throughout history and in our lives now.
After having to find ways to stay connected without being in the same room together during the initial wave of the COVID pandemic in 2020, many churchgoers rediscovered their appreciation for being together in community. And if we've learned anything from that experience, hopefully it at least includes the call not to take for granted our opportunities to be together as God's people. There's a reason, after all, that the writer of Hebrews advises his readers "not to forsake assembling together"--it brings us to life. But there's more to it than just physical proximity inside the same four walls, isn't there? Life-giving community is about more than just standing still in the same room--it's about shared activity, whether song and prayer, service or conversation, or other reasons that just can't be communicated the same way through screens, radios, video recordings, or the printed word. So... what is it about community that brings us to life? That's the conversation we're exploring in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the microphone today.
To hear the opening story of creation in the Bible tell it, all of God's creation, and all its many forms of life, all fit together supporting one another and giving life to one another. Human beings, too, are placed in a role of being stewards who nurture life, who help foster its growth with beauty, and we find our own sense of purpose at least partially in how we care for the world God made and has entrusted to our stewardship. In a sense, both our ability to care for creation and our ability to appreciate its splendor, complexity, and goodness are part of what it means to be human. In other words, it makes us more fully alive to care for other things that are alive as well. So... what might that mean for us in the twenty-first century? In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, we'll explore how our vocation to care for creation brings us to life as individuals, households, communities, and congregations. We'll look at the spiritual and personal as well as projects we might take on as church or neighborhood, and see how we might be made more fully alive through them. So join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve around the microphone this week in our latest episode for Eastertide of Crazy Faith Talk.
Sometimes it can feel like we have huge burdens of responsibility placed on us and we don't know how to let them go or catch our breath. When the things you usually enjoy or have a sense of accomplishment from seem fruitless, or when your bad days outnumber your good days at work or home, you may be moving beyond just tired to burning out. And that can be a great deal more difficult to recover from. So what can help renew us or bring us back to life--or offer some guardrails to help keep us from going over the edge of a cliff--when we find ourselves headed in the wrong direction like that? That's the conversation we're having on this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as part of our Eastertide series on "what gives life." Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve will explore their own personal tells that warn them they're headed into something like burnout, as well as what can be helpful for life in the church as well as all of our areas of life for being renewed when we're worn down and weary. In a conversation that ranges from Studio Ghibli movies to Brother Lawrence's "Practicing the Presence of God" to Jesus taking naps in boats and Elijah complaining to God, there's an entry point here for you. Check out this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
The storytelling in the book of Acts records the spread of the early Jesus-movement like it was an explosion--it can seem like the first generation of Christians had it all figured out and reached every corner of their world with lighting-fast speed and unmitigated success. But even just a closer, more honest, read of the New Testament reminds us that the early church had both times of rapid progress and also times of slow growth, and neither of those are "wrong." Sometimes we tell ourselves that we have to be doing everything all the time at a non-stop pace in order to be faithful, but Jesus himself offers us a better way, where we take things at a manageable pace and find our work together as church is life-giving again because it's not constantly overwhelming us. As we take another look at what it means to say that the risen Jesus gives us life, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore how it can be life-giving to shift our thinking as church folks from running a sprint to being in a marathon, and how we pace ourselves for the long haul accordingly.
Easter celebrates the good news that Jesus' resurrection somehow gives life and hope for us all, but... what exactly do we mean by that? In a new series for this Eastertide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at what we mean when we talk about Jesus giving us life. And starting with what might seem obvious, we start with the way the early Christian community made the startling claim that Jesus' resurrection means something for everyone, not just Jesus. Unlike Greek and Roman stories of gods, demigods, or heroes who die and come back to life, the Christian story from the beginning claimed that Jesus' resurrection didn't just apply to him, but meant something for all of humanity through Christ. And beyond the thought of life AFTER death, the Gospels show us Jesus bringing people more fully to life in other ways--healing them from illness, restoring them to community when they had been ostracized, offering forgiveness for those who couldn't see a way forward, and more. So in this first episode, we'll explore how Jesus' life, death, and resurrection give us life, and how they point us also toward hope for the universe itself in new creation. Check it out here on Crazy Faith Talk.
Throughout the season of Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have been looking at practices and disciplines that are often taken up in the season of Lent--things like new ways of prayer, fasting [whether from food or other things], and generosity. But once we leave behind the forty days of Lent, what are we supposed to do? How might some practices continue on as part of our long-term Christian life? What things do we leave behind, while carrying on what we have learned from them? And how do we make sure we don't reduce these spiritual practices to a mere "box" to be checked off in our faith-life? This is where our conversation is headed today in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
Throughout the season of Lent, many Christians take on new practices or return to annual disciplines to refocus our faith and discipleship. Over the course of these weeks, pastors Sarah, Steve, and Erica have explored some of those traditional practices, ranging from fasting to prayer to almsgiving and other sorts of variations on them. But as Lent turns to Holy Week, a different kind of ancient practice comes to the center of our attention: we retell, and even rehearse, stories. The observances of Holy Week, from the procession with palms to the washing of feet to the growing darkness of Good Friday, and beyond, all are part of the ancient rhythms of the church's time-keeping. And in a sense, they are also faith practices--or rather they are all part of being "re-storied" each year with the central events and meaning of Jesus' cross and resurrection. And instead of "doing" more--like fasting, praying more, or giving more--this re-storying is something we let happen to us, to be reshaped again in the cruciform love of Jesus. In the coming days, we'll have the chance to gather with others in the Christian community to mark the events of Jesus' last days and the hope of resurrection, and in this episode we'll unpack a little of what happens at each of those moments.
So far this Lent, we've looked at creative ways to fast, either from food or in uses of our time and technology, and we've looked at creative ways of praying. But how can we be "creative" in giving away money? What's the difference between giving to my local church for its regular maintenance and ministry work and charitably giving to others in need? And do I get to put strings or conditions on money or resources I donate to others? In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore these questions as we look at another traditional discipline of Lent: almsgiving. And once again, we're invited to blow off the dust from an old idea and perhaps rediscover how practicing generosity makes us able to live in God's economy of grace daily right now. Check it out here.
When you want to deepe your relationship with another person or reconnect with them after a season of growing apart, you make time to connect with them. What if we saw the church's season of Lent as a chance to do the same with God by deepening our prayer lives? And what if, instead of making that "one more thing to do" that we felt we have to check off our already-busy schedules, we looked for ways to pray that are more than scripted moments or laundry lists of requests and names, but much more open and honest about our needs, our struggles, our hopes, our worries, and even the times we don't know how to put things into words? In this episode of our series on Lenten practices, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at new ways to "experiment" in prayer, which might work well for a season like Lent, or beyond. Join us in this conversation, as we look for ways to deepen our own conversation in prayer.
As we continue our series for Lent 2023, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to look at new ways to consider traditional spiritual practices and disicplines people may take up in these forty days. While many people are familiar with the idea of fasting from food--at least as a concept--the idea of other kinds of fasts can be helpful, too, as we take an inventory of what really matters in our life and our time. One way of reframing the notion of fasting is to consider a fast of our time--to decide to use some of our time differently for this season, in order to reprioritize what matters, or to remove distractions and see how they help us to focus on listening for God's voice in our lives. That could mean a changed relationship with your smart-phone or all the screens in your life, a new time for prayer or devotion when you would have otherwise been binge-watching or doomscrolling, or some other "fast" that goes beyond food. If you're intrigued, join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
In the second episode of our series for Lent 2023, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at an ancient spiritual practice with roots not only in the past two thousand years of Christian history, but also going even further back to the spiritual life of ancient Israel: fasting from food. Whether it was Daniel and friends' fasting from meat as an act of defiance against the Babylonian Empire, the prophets' reminder not to separate fasting from social justice, or Jesus' teaching to fast without calling attention to ourselves, the Scriptures have plenty of suggestions for what this practice could look like in our lives. But knowing, too, that our lives are complicated, our schedules are busy, and everyone in a household may not be able or willing to share in the same kind of dietary restrictions, it can be hard to practically observe any kind of fast for very long. In this week's episode we'll explore some of the spirituality behind fasting, the different ways it can look, and why you might, or might not, choose to let this be a part of your Lenten season this year.
Let's be honest: Lent is a strange critter. Some devoutly observe this seaon of forty days with dedication by giving something up, or adding a spiritual practice to their lives for this season every year. Others are worried that it comes off as too showy or self-righteous to fast or change their habits for a season. And for some, this season just looks like a second chance to start New Year's Resolutions, dressed up in religious garb. What are we to make of this season and the practices that are often associated with it? And can we see something good for our souls in the small gestures or changes we might make in our lives? Here in this first episode of a new series for Lent, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at what Lent is, how we might frame the practices that often go with this season, and where we might put up some guardrails, too. Join us as this Lenten season and series of conversations begins here on Crazy Faith Talk.
In this final episode of our series on finding honesty and hope in situations of death and dying, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve spend time looking at two extremes: situations where medical choices may hasten death in the name of relieving suffering, and situations where life ends in infancy or during a pregnancy. These situations are especially difficult but for almost opposite reasons. In situations of palliative care, we can be uncomfortable at the idea of having too much control over ending a person's life--especially if treatment meant to ease pain also carries a collateral cost of hastening death. And in situations of infant mortality, stillbirth, and miscarriage, the trauma is from having no control at all and feeling so powerless. How do we think about these circumstances as people of faith? If listening in on a conversation on these subjects would be helpful for you, we invite you to join us for this episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
In this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve talk through some of what makes the subject of suicide and self-harm so especially difficult to deal with. Because of the content of this episode, you might want to choose the right time and place to listen. And if you or someone you love is dealing with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please reach out to the new national hotline for suicide prevention, 988. In addition to al of that, this conversation tries to unpack some of the contradictory emotions that are often opened up when someone dies from suicide or attempts suicide, and we also explore more in depth some of the ways that previous centuries of institutional Christianity has made it harder, not easier, to deal with this subject, and how we need to recover the promises of the Scriptures that nothing--not even death--can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Or as the late Robert Farrar Capon would put it, when any of us dies, we may lose our own ability to hold onto our own lives, but we do not lose Jesus' ability to hold onto our lives. With that kind of hope, we invite you into this conversation.
At some point, experience teaches us and readies us to say to goodbye to the generations that have come before us; as painful as it is to lose grandparents, parents, or even older mentors, in some way life teaches us to prepare for those losses, as hard as they are. But something feels more jarring--and often unfair or unjust--when people die in unexpected ways and times. When lives seem "cut short" or people die "before their time" we feel greater anger and look for someone or something to blame, and we find ourselves grieving not only the past, but an unrealized future of what might have been. In this episode of our series looking at death and dying with honesty and hope, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore some of the dynamics of what happens when we go through this kind of loss, and how it feels different, as well as how we can deal with the feelings of outrage, anger, injustice, and lament as people who also belive in the goodness and strength of God. Join us for another important and poignant conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
When it comes to making important--and often difficult--choices about care needs at the end of life, sometimes we aren't in a position to speak our wishes out loud or make decisions in real-time. We do, however, live in a time and a place where it is possible to write down wishes in advance, or to designate other people to make medical decisions for us in times when we are not able to communicate or are not conscious. Collectively, those kinds of documents are called "advanced directives," and they allow people to instruct doctors about what kinds of treatments they do or do not want administered in the event they are not able to make those decisions for themselves. And while it can be helpful to have these papers completed and on file, even more important is the conversation with our loved ones about what we want done or not done in difficult future situations. How do we have these conversations? That's where this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk will take us--so join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve in our current series looking at death and dying with honesty and hope.
We are more than the set of molecules that make up our bodies at any given moment, right? After all, our bodies are constantly trading out old dead cells and creating new ones, and yet we believe that there is a continuity to the "you-ness" of you and the "me-ness" of me. Christians also classically believe that God created the universe out of chaotic nothingness in the beginning, and so resurrecting us from whatever corners of creation our bodies have been are scattered to should be no problem for God. That would be true whether a person's body is lost at sea, fed to the lions in a Roman coliseum, burned in a tragic fire, cremated after death, or even partially donated in organs that others could use to live. In this episode of our new series on Honesty and Hope About Death And Dying, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how we think faithfully about questions of cremation, burial, and organ donation--and how we communicate our wishes with those closest to us right now. As people who believe in God's promise to make us into new creations, we can both honor the worth and value of our bodies and also be open to using them in ways that could extend or help others' lives. Listen in on this important conversation here.
Nobody likes to talk about death, but it's one of only a handful experiences that touch everyone [you know the old saying about death and taxes]. The trouble is, there are so many ways to avoid really dealing with matters of our own mortality. We can ignore and deny it. We can delay and procrastinate. We can fill the uncomfortable silences with bad theology about God "needing another angel." Or... we can be brave and talk about things that may seem scary, only to find our courage rising the more we are able to talk about them. In this first episode of a brand-new series, pastors Erica and Steve [to be joined again by Pastor Sarah in our next conversation] set the table for how we talk about death and dying, and all the ways it affects our lives now, and we invite you to join us and listen in. Like the old adage of Mister Rogers reminds us, things that are mentionable become manageable, so if we can talk together about facing our our finitude then we can deal with it in a way that gives hope and grants us peace.
In one light, it makes total sense that Jesus was baptized--after all, Christians today usually mark their own baptism as the formal beginning of their lives of faith, much like Jesus' baptism marks the beginning of his public ministry. And the New Testament connects our baptism with Jesus' death and resurrection, so there seems to be a close connection between Christ and the followers of Christ through baptism. But on the other hand, when Jesus was baptized, it was at the hands of John [the Baptizer] who used this water ritual as a mark of repentance from sin and turning toward a new way of life. So why does Jesus need to be baptized, if he's the one person who has no sins for which to repent? What's going on when Jesus goes into the water, and the voice from heaven speaks, and the Spirit descends like a bird? Join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve for a closer look at this moment recorded in the gospels and connected to our own lives of faith, too, here on Crazy Faith Talk.
In 21st century American culture, almost everyone has heard the name "Jesus." And most probably have some clue about the person being referenced by that name--even though it would more likely have been pronounced something more like "Yeshua" and been more closely associated with the biblical figure we remember as "Joshua" from the Hebrew Scriptures. But what does the name of Jesus mean, and why is it important enough that apparently angels directed Mary and Joseph to give it to their baby? What does the name say about Jesus--and what does it say about God? And what are we supposed to do with the other figures in the New Testament named "Jesus" as well [because there are several]. As the church marks the naming of Jesus eight days after Christmas on January 1 every year, this is a good moment to explore the significance of Jesus' name and what it means for our lives today. So join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve here for a new episode in a new year, here at Crazy Faith Talk.
All this Advent, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve have been tracing the themes associated with each of the candles on the traditional Advent wreath--things like "hope," "peace," "joy," and "love." But the celebration of Christmas isn't merely a listing of abstract concepts or spiritual virtues--it's centered on Christ. And appropriately, many Advent candles have a fifth candle, waiting to be lit on Christmas Eve or Day, representing the light of Christ for whom we have been waiting. But what does it mean to talk about Christ as "Light from Light," as the ancient creed does? In this Christmas-tide episode of Crazy Faith Talk, join us in a conversation that ranges from the ancient poetry of John's Gospel to contemporary particle physics, as we turn our focus to the Light of Christ this Christmas.
One of the most well-known Bible verses asserts that "God so loved the world" that God gave us Jesus and sent him into the world. Love is at the heart of what the Christmas story is about, and yet so often we settle for a shallow, limited, or conditional understanding of what love looks like, especially when it comes to God's love. As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at this theme for the fourth candle of the Advent wreath, they'll explore the difference between a "love" that depends on good behavior as a return on the investment of loving and God's almost recklessly unconditional and incarnational love that accepts us as we are and goes with us, where we are. God's kind of love doesn't need to "fix" us before we become acceptable, but shows up in all our own human frailty and fragility and meets us where we are. That's a story worth telling, and a love worth sharing.
Halfway through Advent, after weeks of being reminded, "We're not there yet--keep hoping, keep waiting, be ready, and repent," the church's surprising way of keeping time calls us to rejoice. Joy is a tricky concept, as it turns out, because it's more than mere happiness, and yet it feels very much like an emotion. At the same time, joy seems like something we can practice as a virtue or a discipline, which means it has to be something more than [or at least different from] a mere feeling that flutters with the fluctuations of our brain chemistry. So how do we practice joy without that practice becoming something artificial, like faking a smile or pretending to be happy? How can we learn from the ancient biblical texts as well as wise voices of later eras how to grow in authentic joy that can also admit to the realities of sadness, loss, and grief in life without ignorning them? In a conversation than ranges fro George Whitefield to J.R.R. Tolkein to Pixar's Inside Out, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the depth of real joy in our series on an unsentimental Advent, here on Crazy Faith Talk.
Anyone born this century has only ever really known a world with one major power or another at war, and our communities and country often feel uncivil and conflicted. We have more technology than ever to keep track of our many responsibilities, but it doesn't give us relief from the anxiety of it all. We are aching for peace, but as something deeper than just a quiet, comfortable feeling. There has to be a difference, in other words, between being at peace... and being numb. In this year's Advent series, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve are seeking to "unsentimentalize" the major themes of this season that leads up to Christmas, which means explore what peace really is, and how it might move us to greater action in the world rather than less. In a conversation that ranges from ancient prophets to contemporary poets, and which mixes Star Trek references with Wendell Berry's environmental philosophy, we invite you to a deeper consideration of being people of restless peace.
It is terribly easy for the themes that recur in Advent--things like "hope," "peace," "joy," and "love"--to become empty slogans or buzzwords, or the vague wishes of a greeting card. But there is rich and deep substance in the Christian practice of hope, and all the others, if we are willing to recover it. This Advent, join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve as we explore more closely the themes often tied to the candles of the Advent wreath: where they come from, what they mean, and how we practice them in a world that is often more interested in being distracted with the sentimental. In an episode that ranges from Star Wars spin-offs to Sam Cooke protest songs to nuances of Spanish verbs, this is a conversation to check out.
It's easy to miss in between helpings of turkey and mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, or with the neighbors already setting up their Christmas lights and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" playing on a loop on the radio, but at the very end of the church's year is a powerful and surprising celebration called "Christ the King" Sunday, or "The Reign of Christ" Sunday. And even though it has only been officially observed for less than a century [a short time in the sweep of two thousand years of Christian history], Christ the King Sunday taps into a theme that runs throughout the Scriptures and goes back to our ancient roots. Jesus is Lord... but his way of reigning is completely different from what the world expects of lords, kings, potentates, and emperors. Jesus is the Messiah, but the One whose kingdom comes through a cross. Jesus reigns, by serving with the washbasin and towel. It is a subversive idea, but maybe that's exactly what we need. In this episode, pastors Erica, Sarah,and Steve talk about the meaning, history, and scriptural roots of this day, and what it might mean for us in a culture that so often thinks power means being a bully.
As familiar as it is to many, Thanksgiving really is a strange sort of a holiday, if you think about it. As an American celebration, it points backward in theory to Puritan colonists being grateful for surviving in a harsh new setting, but it wasn't until Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War still raging, that we had a declaration of a national holiday observing Thanksgiving. On the other hand, societies have been giving thanks in celebration of harvests throughout human history, across cultures, centuries, and religious traditions. And even though the notion of giving thanks--presumably to the divine--for the good in our lives isn't unique to Christianity, Christians certainly are called to gratitude as a whole way of life. Even our celebration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion, is sometimes referred to as "the Eucharist," which simply means, "Thanksgiving." So how do we own our unique vantage point as Christ-followers, who address our thanks to the God we know in Jesus, while also recognizing that there is something universally human about the practice of gratitude? And how do we make sure we don't confine that gratitude to a day of overeating in November? That's the conversation we're having this week here on Crazy Faith talk, with pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the microphone as usual.
It's the 300th episode of Crazy Faith Talk--can you believe it? On this special occasion, we've got a brand-new conversation of classic Crazy Faith Talk church-nerdery--a deep dive into the history and meaning of All Saints Day, as well as a look at the related holidays of All Souls' Day, Halloween, Reformation Day, and Dia De Los Muertos. Join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve as they explore traditions and celebrations, as well as how we ended up with such a cluster of related days on the church calendar, along with the wider secular culture's calendar, in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
Is the "end" of our stories something to be afraid of, or hopeful about? Whether we are talking about what happens to us individually when we die or what happens at the end of the world's story, we naturally wonder about where our stories are headed and what we do with our lives in the mean time in light of it. And to be sure, both the Scriptures and centuries of Christian thinking and theology have things to say about those questions--although sometimes we've spoken with too much certainty about things we can't know, or arrogantly assumed it's up to us to do take certain actions to set Jesus' coming again into motion. In this final episode of our "Christianity 202" series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore some of the questions about "last things"--or in theological jargon, "eschatology"--and how we stake out a place at the intersection of hope and humility as we trust in the God who raises the dead and promises to make all things new, even if we don't know details about the how or the when. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
One of the more complicated tensions in Christian theology is how we make sense of human responsibility and God's will. Is everything that happens part of God's plan and design? Are we responsible for our own actions, or just puppets playing out a predetermined script? Is God guaranteed to "win" in the end, or could human beings keep on refusing God's goodness forever? And is my hope of salvation dependent on me taking the first step to accept Jesus, or is it something that God accomplishes whether or not I cooperate? These are the kinds of questions Christians have been wrestling with for centuries, and we've got a whole host of Bible verses that point in different directions on that issue. So in today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, it's time for pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve to do some of that wrestling--we'll explore how different branches of the Christian faith-family have answered the question over time, and how each of us deals with the question personally and pastorally. Along the way we'll look at the difference between "monkey-hold" theology and "cat-hold" theology, and how an awful lot of Christian theology on this subject is trying to have its cake and eat it, too. Join us for this week's deep conversation on Crazy Faith Talk.
You'd hope it's obvious that we should do good in the world rather than evil. Christians should pretty much be on board with that premise--we are supposed to do good in the world. And yet--we find all sorts of ways to complicate that pretty simple directive. Sometimes we slide into thinking that we need to impress other people with our good deeds, or even worse, that we need to impress God with them. Sometimes we are so worried about looking like we are trying to get gold-stars or special recognition that we downplay doing good at all in the name of avoiding self-righteousness. Sometimes we assume we know what other people need rather than asking them, and we end up doing more harm than good with well-intentioned but misguided attempts at "good." And sometimes we end up reducing other people to being passive props for our moral self-improvement rather than doing good out of genuine love for others to respond to their needs. So how did we end up making the clear idea of "doing good in the world" so complicated? And how do we avoid those pitfalls? That's today's conversation in our latest episode of "Christianity 202" here on Crazy Faith Talk--join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the microphone for today's conversation.
Not too many years ago, it was all the rage for businesses, organizations, non-profits, and even churches to write "mission statements" to define what they understood to be their purpose. But asking about the church's "mission" conjures up all sorts of different pictures. Is it primarily about getting non-Christians to convert to Christianity--or even getting people from "other" sects to join your particular brand of Christian faith? Is it about social service and humanitarian relief? Is it about standing out as an alternative kind of community? Exporting your culture to faraway lands? All of those things have been different understandings of the church's "mission," in different times and places. Sometimes we have done more good than harm, but sometimes we've let our faith be co-opted as a tool for colonizing and empire-building, too. Sometimes we've thought only about going to far away "mission fields" and forgotten to be missional people right in our own backyards, and sometimes we've just stayed inside our sanctuary walls without ever peering out through the stained-glass windows to even see the world outside. So in this episode of our "Christianity 202" series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at how we might answer the question, "What's our mission?" as the church, and we invite you to join us for the conversation. Check it out here on this week's "Crazy Faith Talk"!
One of the challenges with reading the Bible honestly is that it doesn't work like a reference manual or a cookbook, but rather like a library of many voices from different times and places. And that means it can be tempting for us to come to the Bible when we have questions about ethics, practice or contemporary issues, and only to read as far as the first answer that confirms our assumptions and reinforces our own agendas, rather than looking more deeply at what God is saying to us in our present context. Especially for Christians, who strive to read all of the Bible through the lens of Jesus, the question isn't simply, "Does X or Y happen in the Bible?" but rather, "What is Christ-like?" And all too often over the past twenty centuries of Christian history, people have deliberately [and sometimes unwittingly] read the Bible in ways that allowed them to maintain power or position at the expense of others, with a set of Bible verses used to prop up their position, rather than asking what the way of Jesus calls them to do. Today on Crazy Faith Talk we'll look at a couple of case studies for how to avoid misusing the Bible that way, highlighting the stories of the immigrant widow Ruth and the Ethiopian eunuch to see how we can avoid abusing the Scriptures and how to get better at reading through the lens of Christ.
Okay, so maybe you know the basics of the Christian faith: we believe in God, who is both the Creator of all things, and who has come to be revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and dwells among us by the Spirit. We have a book of Scripture. And so on. But maybe we can go a little further. This fall, we invite you to a closer look and a deeper dive beyond those basics in a series we're calling, "Christianity 202," to do just that. In this first episode, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve offer some guard-rails and rules of thumb for how to read the Scriptures wisely and faithfully. In the course of this conversation we'll look at questions like, "Why does my Bible have a different set of books from some others Christians' Bibles?" "How do I know what to take literally... and what is not intended to be literal?" and "How can I be aware of the assumptions, agendas, and baggage that I bring to the text when I read--and what should I do about them?" We hope you'll find this series valuable for your own engagement both with the Scriptures and with your faith as a whole--check out "Christianity 202" here on Crazy Faith Talk.
In this final conversation in their series, "Why Denominations?" pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve share their own reflections on "Why am I still here?" In other words, for all the troubles we can have in denomational hierarchies, all the fighting we do between congregations and traditions, and all the ways that big denominatal structures can be frustratingly slow and bureaucratic, why do we still stay a part of them? How do we see the brokenness of the church and the rough edges in our church bodies perhaps not only as flaws to be fixed, but as tools for shaping us--as cracks where the light gets in? Join us for this final conversation in our series before new adventures in our next series in another week, here on Crazy Faith Talk.
As many pastors and families know already, sometimes in a broken marriage, divorce is the least-worst option. It may always be heartbreaking and painful, but sometimes separation is less harmful all around than continuing in a toxic, dysfunctional, or irreconcilable relationship. And sometimes it's that separation that allows each former spouse to move on, to grow, and to become healthy again. And to be honest, sometimes church life can be the same: sometimes further division is the least-worst option. As pastors serving in denominations that are heirs of the Protestant Reformation, as well as more recent mergers of denominations and even more recent divisions within those same church bodies, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve can all attest to the complexity and often painful realities of those "divorces" in church life. In this episode of our series looking at denominations in Christianity, we'll take a look at some of the ways we end up with denominations splitting, congregations dividing, and church bodies forming, reforming, and parting ways. Join us for some honest and very real conversation here in this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
It's certainly true that belonging in larger church bodies can help individual Christians or congregations to do more than they could alone--those denominational partnerships can be ways of making us more effective in our mission. And yet at the very same time, those denominational affiliations--Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Orthodox, and so on--can end up becoming barriers to our work with each other in our own communities, too. As they continue to look at how we've ended up with a divided church and what we do about it since we're here, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve talk about some of the heartaches that come from how denominational lines can keep us from working together, and even from worshiping together. For all the good that can come from these larger church bodies, they can also sometimes be an albatross around our necks, too. We'll explore that in this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
A hurricane sweeps across the country, and churches hundreds of miles away want to offer support. A war halfway around the world is creating huge numbers of refugees, and we want to be of meaningful help but don't know where to begin. Countless people near and far don't have enough food, medicine, or access to clean drinking water, but you don't personally have the contacts, the know-how, the equipment, or the language and cultural skills to bring relief. But... someone else who is in connection with your local congregation probably does have those skills, abilities, or resources. And by working together, our will to help from our own neighborhoods can actually help people across the street or across an ocean. In other words, one of the positives of congregations belonging to denominational bodies are the ways we partner with them to do ministry that we cannot do alone. In this episode of our series exploring the joys and heartaches of a church that exists in parallel "denominations" around the world, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how our denominations and church bodies offer the infrastructure to do ministry and live out our mission more fully and effectively than we could do alone. Join us for this week's conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
They say that "tradition is the living faith of the dead," while "traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." That tension is important as we think about the different expressions of Christianity that we experience across different denominations. Denominations--and the traditions they represent--can be stifling, starchy, and dead when all they do is require successive generations to rigidly copy what an earlier generation told them to do. But they can be vibrant and helpful whey they create structures for teaching traditions so that new leaders can have the skills to work with congregations, and so that Christian communities can thrive. That includes passing on the essentials of a given tradition's take on theology, worship, and practice, but it also includes skills and abilities that transcend congregations or denomiations--things like pastoral care, administration, leadership development. As they look at the positives and negatives of having different [and divergent] Christian denominaions, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore how our denominations can help in teaching traditions for each generation to wrestle with and carry. Check it out here.
Jesus himself prayed for his followers to be "one"--and yet, to walk down the streets of any town in your area, you'll find different church buildings and denominational groups, sometimes right next door to one another, all insisting they worship the same God and follow the same Lord Jesus, but divided along lines of tradition, confession, and denominational groupings. How did we get here? In this new series of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore how Jesus' followers have been pulled into different [often competing] groups from the first generation, and how the last twenty centuries have been a part of that ongoing fragmentation. We'll be looking over the course of these coming weeks at both the negatives to having distinct "denominations" of Christianity, what the positives might be for keeping those structures and traditions, and how we navigate in a culture full of competing Christian expressions.
In our last episode of our "Summer Self-Care Playlist" series, we take a look at those places and times that recharge our souls when we weren't necessarily expecting it. Like the old John Lennon lyric says, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," after all. And while there's certainly a place for scheduled times of renewal or stress release in our lives, it's worth being honest that sometimes the personal retreat time doesn't turn out to be as refreshing as you'd hoped, or the vacation isn't as relaxing as the brochure, or the scheduled devotional practices don't seem always to help... and yet sometimes we are renewed at moments we didn't have on our calendars. Join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve for this conversation, here on Crazy Faith Talk.
In a culture where being "busy" for the sake of being busy is often lauded as a virtue, sometimes people can feel guilty about taking time for themselves, or we think that "self-care" is about going away on a retreat to a distant location, or getting an expensive massage, or splurging on something decadent for yourself. But sometimes caring for ourselves happens right in the thick of everyday life, and it is clear that caring for ourselves is a way of being fully available to then care for others without being burned out. Whether it's unpacking from a move, establishing a weekly routine, attending to the paying of bills and maintaining of our houses, there are all sorts of ways that each of us brings order out of chaos and beauty out of messiness around us. And that's self-care, too. In this episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at ways they find in the course of ordinary life to bring order to the chaos in everyday life to preserve our sanity and recharge our batteries. Join us for this week's conversation.
There's a time in early childhood when we seem to make friends with nearly anybody who happenes to be around. But in adulthood, we have the busyness of jobs and families, and we have a harder time finding connections with other people outside of those parts of our lives. And yet, adult friendships, social circles, and affinity groups are as important in adulthood as they are when we're kids--so how do we do it? In this next round of conversations in their "Summer Self-Care Playlist" series, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the challenge and the importance of finding ways to make adult friendships or social circles, and how we might find places to start in each of our life settings. Join the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk.
Everybody finds different ways to recharge in life. Sometimes it's the old familiar tropes of a movie you've seen a hundred times, or a plotline you know you won't have to pay attention to for fear of missing something important. And sometimes it's just the opposite--it's entering a whole new world in a story that lets you imagine things you have never thought of, or that works a different part of your brain than your usual routines use. That's what Steve has to offer in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," alongside fellow pastors and colleagues Sarah and Erica. For his turn to share something on his "summer self-care playlist," he introduces us to some of the short stories of Ted Chiang's collection, "Stories of Your Life," which range from the ancient and fantastical to the inspiration for a recent sci-fi movie hit, "Arrival." And once again, we'll find that even stories that don't look like they are about God have the potential to connect with our faith or renew our spirits. Join us for the conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk
If you're looking for a little bit of escapism, join us for conversation around the microphone again today as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue their "Summer Self-Care Playlist" series, each taking a turn in sharing some of the movies, books, and TV shows we are finding some comfort in when we need unwind or relax. This week, Erica shares some of her favorite go-to movies and series that she can watch over and over again, and we look at how there might be connections there for us as people of faith who keep retelling a set of ancient stories, sometimes in a very predictable cycle, even though we know the ending. If you find yourself needing just a little bit of brain candy to depressurize these days, join us for conversation at the intersection of pop culture and living in faith here on Crazy Faith Talk!
On the days when life feels messy, chaotic, and unresolved, sometimes it can feel really good to watch or read story you know will have a happy ending. If you're in a season of needing to de-pressurize or relax, this new series from pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve is for you. Each week, we'll feature a different piece of pop-culture that's helping us recharge our batteries this summer, from movies to TV shows to books, and we invite you along for the conversation. In this first episode of our "Summer Self-Care Playlist" series, Sarah talks about why she keeps coming back to romantic comdies, even when there are often problematic cliches that come along with the territory. And along the way, we explore how there might be connections to our faith's promise that at the last, the story of the universe has a happy ending with God's coming to dwell with us in new creation. Join the conversation here this summer on Crazy Faith Talk!
Over the course of the last several episodes, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve have looked at ways things go wrong when Christianity gets wedded to the power structures of empire or culture of a particular nationality or ethnicity. And that track record is pretty bad—history is full of warnings about what happens when particular governments are equated with the kingdom of God. But does that mean there is no way to live out our faith in public ways, for the common good? In this concluding episode, we look at positive examples of letting our commitments as Christians speak to our public life, in whatever country, time, or place we find ourselves. Join us for this concluding episode in our series looking at “Christian” nationalism here on Crazy Faith Talk.
Like an addiction (to power) that we just can't break ourselves from, institutional Christianity has a habit of calling back into the dangers of getting entangled with nationalism, tribalism, and warfare. So far in this series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have explored the warnings of both the biblical witness and the last two millennia of Christian history where things can go terribly wrong when Christianity is equated with a particular nation, ethnic group, or government. But now the bigger challenge is to have the courage and honesty to look at the contemporary scene of our culture in the 21st century to see where this is a live problem, and how we can respond to it. So in this week's episode, we'll explore some contemporary "red flags" that are worth being aware of, and talk about how to be vigilant both to the overt kinds of nationalism that explicitly hijack the language of Christianity, and those that are more subtly draping themselves in Christian-sounding garb. Another challenging, but important conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
When the movement of Jesus and his followers first started, it quickly was seen as an enemy of the state, subverted the empire's claims of eternal dominance, and drew people from all nationalities, languages, social locations, and walks of life. But after several centuries, the Empire co-opted Christianity as its official state religion, turning the cross into a symbol for conquest, and forging a strange alliance between the Gospel of a crucified Savior of the world and the tools of state power. And ever since, Christianity has wrestled with the dangers of being hijacked by national governments, ethnic and racial groups, political players, and the lure of military conquest--whether it was the Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics in the "Holy Roman Empire" during the 17th century, the "Doctrine of Discovery" that endorsed "Christian" colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, the notion of "manifest destiny" in the United States, or even the state-church that gave its endorsement to Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany. In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore some warnings from the last two thousand years of history of what can happen when Christianity is wedded to nationalism, and what that might say to us for how we live out our faith in the 21st century. Another deep dive and important conversation here--check it ou!
Jesus is not a "Christian nationalist." Seriously--not even close. If that sounds surprising to you, then this conversation is one worth listening to. Despite what some people assume, the biblical writers--in both the Old and New Testaments--don't expect Christians to "take back" any country to make their governments enforce their faith. In fact, the overwhelming majority of voices in the Scriptures assume that God's people will NOT be in positions of political power, and Jesus himself doesn't advocate for his followers to equate the Reign of God with any nation-state, past or present. As they move beyond introductions and definitions in their latest series on "Christian" nationalism, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a deeper dive into voices from throughout the Bible at why it can be dangerous for religion to be co-opted by the state, and where Jesus directs his followers to live out their faith instead. In a time when some well-known public figures and talking heads argue that "Christian nationalism" is a good thing or could "save" their country, this conversation is an important one to show just how far that perspective is with the actual voices of the Bible, and how much that mindset is at odds with the teaching of Jesus. This is another deep, but important, conversation, so join in here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Coming right on the heels of the celebration of Memorial Day, plenty of Americans feel especially patriotic. And if patriotism is a love for one's country and a commitment to see it do well, care for its people, and grow beyond its shortcomings, that can just be another form of the broad commandment to "love your neighbor." But in this new series, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at what happens when patriotism is exchanged for nationalism--the idea that one's own country can do no wrong, or that your country's success must come at the expense of others. Even more potentially disastrous is the phenomenon of so-called "Christian" nationalism, that tries to equate God's kingdom with one country, or which tries to marry Christianity to a country's civil government--often to the harm of both Christian witness and the functioning of society at large. As we begin this series, we start with defining terms, so that we can sift through the differences between a healthy appreciation for one's own country and an unhealthy idolatry of nation. This is an important conversation to have, and it's worth exploring together--so join us for this series here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of their series on the way our callings grow and change over time, pastors Erica and Sarah ask colleague Steve about what it is like to have served in ministry in the same place and setting for nearly sixteen years--the joys, the sadnesses, the challenges, and the comforts. And as we look at one pastor's experience in ministry, it opens up an opportunity to see each of our own life stories and how God calls us, not necessarily to different geographic places over time, but to different kinds of work or roles in life as the needs around us change, Join us for this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
Sometimes the next step God leads you to take is do what you are already good at, but in a new location. And sometimes, you are led to do something new altogether, not just more of the same in a different location. And, to be sure, sometimes, it's a little of both. As they continue sharing their own call stories and reflections on how our callings from God change over time, pastors Erica and Steve listen in on their colleague Sarah sharing her own reflections on how her call, and her vocation to her family as well, has led her in different directions over time, both geographically and in terms of what kind of work she does. And as each of us look at how we are led from past chapters of our lives into new present and future chapters, it's worth looking at how to see the past, not as "wrong" or "bad," but as right-for-the-tme, and then how God leads us into something new that is the "right place" for right now. Join the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Hearing the stories of how people in ministry first listened or discerned for God's call can sound like the end of a journey--but really it's just the beginning. As our series on our calling stories continues, each of our pastoral colleagues around the table will take turns exploring how their own sense of calling has grown, changed, and transformed over time--whether that's moving to a new place, changing the kinds of work we do in the same place, or the ways life helps us grow as individuals and brings new needs, passions, or skills to the forefront. In this episode, pastor Erica shares some of the transitions, past and present, in her calling, as we also explore how changes in church life can feel a lot like grief and loss as much as they also feel like new adventures. Join us for good conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As they continue to share the stories of their own calling to ministry, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at how other people in our lives have the power either to encourage us and open doors for us, or to detour and discourage us. In this episode, Sarah shares her own discernment of calling to ministry, as well as the influences of family members, mentors, and the welcome of a congregation that didn't expect a young stranger at their door one day. They'll also explore how it makes a difference to include people intentionally in leadership, and how, once you've been included, you have a responsibility to hold the door for others as well. Check it out on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
It's not that God calls SOME people, but NOT others to use their lives in ways that channel God's work in the world. Rather, it's a question of WHAT God is calling EACH of us to do with our lives. God's call sometimes looks like work in the institutional church, whether in pastoral ministry or other kinds of church vocations, but sometimes God's call leads people to classrooms, office buildings, farms, workshops, and almost anywhere else you can imagine. As we take a look this Eastertide at the stories of the three voices behind our microphones here at Crazy Faith Talk, this week pastor Erica shares her own story of calling, and pastors Sarah and Steve join in the conversation about how we discern, not IF God is calling us, but WHERE and for WHAT God is calling each of us. Maybe that will help reframe the way you see your own life's work, paid or unpaid, as a calling from God, too. Join us here for this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
Each week, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve share conversation talking about OTHER things--theology, Bible, church life, pop culture, and their own takes on the Big Questions of life. But what about their own stories? This Eastertide, our co-hosts on Crazy Faith Talk will take turns sharing their own experiences of calling into ministry, how they have come to where they are now, and how their calls to ministry have changed over time and experience. Check out this new series here!
If your problem is a debt, then rescue looks like having your debt paid. If your problem is a sickness, though, what you need is healing. If your problem is a broken relationship, no amount of money or punishment will bring reconcilation. And if your problem is being pointed in the wrong direction, what you need most is to be turned around and pointed in the right way. In other words, our different pictures of what "sin" means will point to different understandings of what "salvation" is all about. In this concluding episode of their series this Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how the different facets of "sin" they've explored over the past several episodes give us different windows on what Jesus does for us as the "savior." And as we retrace the stories of Holy Week and move from suffering and death to the hope of resurrection, maybe we'll have a deeper sense this year of what makes it good news to say that Jesus has saved us in the cross and empty tomb. Check out this special Holy Week edition of "Crazy Faith Talk."
In an era when the phrase, "thoughts and prayers" can feel like an empty gesture when not accompanied by action in line with those prayers, or when it's easy (and cheap) to use social media for mere virtue signalling rather than doing something, maybe it's obvious that "sin" includes the things we don't do that we should do. Classic theology has talked about "sins of omission"--what we leave undone--as well as the sins we "commit" in actions, words, and thoughts, too. But how do we navigate a world where there are so many needs and we have limited resources or awareness? How do we know the right way to respond in an era of global awareness when tragedies happen across oceans and continents, especially if we're not experts at peacemaking or emergency medicine or disaster relief? Join us for a deep dive into the "negative" side of sin--the things we don't do, don't say, or don't commit to--in a conversation with pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve that ranges from current events to wisdom from Dr, King and Frederick Douglass, and from big lofty questions to the nitty gritty of why it can be good to pay taxes, all on this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
It's really easy (and tempting) for "religious" voices to equate sickness with sin--as in, "If you're sick, you must have done something wrong." And what's difficult is that there are at least some Biblical passages that give that suggestion, not to mention a long strand of Christian theology that suggests all sickness, maladies, and death are the consequence of human sin, whether now or in our ancestral past. That presents its own set of problems, to be sure, but then again, in some ways sin really is like a sickness or impurity, in that it is a power we can be captivated by beyond our choosing, and which needs healing. So... how do we make sense of why and how the Scriptures sometimes talk about sin like it is a terminal condition we are all born with, and how do we avoid the pitfalls and dangers of misusing that metaphor? That's where our conversation takes us today as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at what we mean when we talk about sin, as part of our Lenten series this year, "Diagnosing the Problem." Check it out here!
In their series for Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah and Steve continue to explore what we really mean when we talk about "sin." We've looked at some standard images the Bible uses, like sin as breaking God's law, or incurring debt with the divine, or missing the mark, but now we'll turn to another way of thinking of sin--in terms of relationship. In other words, sin isn't just the breaking of tedious rules, but is what happens when we break relationship with one another, or with God. Or maybe, we'll discover, any time we break relationship with another person (or with creation, or with our own selves), we are also breaking relationship with God. After all, love for neighbor and love for God are inseparable in the Scriptures. In a conversation that ranges from ancient Biblical stories and modern philosophers like Cornel West to pop culture check-ins with Harry Potter's horcruxes and Chidi from TV's "The Good Place," we'll explore this dimension of sin as we keep diagnosing the problem here on Crazy Faith Talk!
If all we've ever heard is that our mistakes demand punishment, we'll be constantly afraid of a God who stands over us as judge. But as we're discovering this Lent in this new series from pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve, the Scriptures actually have a number of ways of talking about the problem we call "sin." And while sometimes that includes the language of breaking laws or incurring debts, the Bible also talks about sin as going astray, missing the mark, or going off course. And those kinds of problems don't need punishment--they need someone to help us get back on course or to straighten out our aim. The metaphors we use for the problem of sin give us a different picture of what we hope for in a Savior, and so it's worth this deeper look into sin as "missing the mark." In a conversation that ranges from the endless plague of dirty laundry to one-off jokes from The Big Bang Theory to theologians of centuries past, we hope you'll find some new insight in this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
In a new series for Lent 2022, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve unpack a BIG IDEA of Christian theology that we rarely think about deeply--what do we actually mean when we talk about "sin"? We probably have some shallow assumptions about what the idea of "sin" is all about, but chances are, we haven't looked more deeply at the surprising variety of understandings the Bible itself employs to talk about the "problem" of sin. Sometimes even realizing that there ARE different ways of understanding sin can be a wake-up call, as well as the realization that each picture the Scriptures give us has strengths and limits to it--so we need all of them to have an honest diagnosis of our human condition. In this first episode, we explore the probably-familiar idea that sin is when people break God's rules and incur divinely appointed penalties. We'll look at where this idea comes from, how it can be helpful, and also how it can run off the rails if we misunderstand it. Join us for some faithful conversation about some things we might need to think more deeply about together here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
Increasingly in church communities, people are familiar with Ash Wednesday as the beginning of the season of Lent for Christians, with its somber call to repentance and fasting, and the characteristic ashes marked on people's foreheads. And even more well-known are the festivities around the world on the day before known as Mardi Gras, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, or--slightly less well-known--Shrove Tuesday. People have a hunch that these two days are connected somehow, but that backstory isn't always easy to tease out. So in this episode, on the day before Lent begins, pastor Sarah, Steve, and Erica will be taking a look at this day on the calendar, its history, and where we might find glimpses of grace between pancakes and bacon, beads in New Orleans, and the ashes to come. Check out this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
Here's a palate-cleanser for your soul. Sure, there are some well-known and long-established traditional practices within Christian spirituality--serious and somber things like contemplative prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, daily devotions, or the daily office of praying the hours. But spirituality doesn't happen only in medieval monasteries or fixed rituals--sometimes we stumble into it by discovering habits that renew us even when we didn't realize God was getting through to us in the midst of them. In today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve share some of the things they have discovered in their own lives that have become good for their souls as practices to come back to time and again. So while there's always value to the ancient traditions, we invite you to look around your own life and see how seemingly non-religious things can be rhythms and habits that nourish your soul. From naps and walks to arts to some other surprising places, God has some clever ways of helping us to recharge and rest, and meeting us where we are. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a culture where you audition, interview, or apply for positions to try and prove your worth, and where you can be dismissed or voted off the show at a moment's notice if you don't make the cut, Jesus has a surprising way of gathering disciples to share in his work. He seeks them out, not from among the brightest and the best, but from among ordinary people who just had a bad day at work. In this final episode of our Epiphany series getting to know Jesus better, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at what we can learn about Jesus from the way he calls people to follow him... and who he calls. In a conversation that ranges from the movie Good Will Hunting to Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov to all sorts of detours in between, we'll look at what happens when God calls us beyond the things we think we are "good" at and into transformation into something new. Join us here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Like newly elected presidents give an inaugural address to lay out their priorities, vision, and the kind of administration they want to lead, the early chapters of each of the four Gospels in the New Testament give us public words from Jesus that lay out his vision and values. The thing is, Jesus' inaugural address reveals a "platform" that takes society's usual expectations and turns them upside-down. Jesus' message subverts the idea of kingdoms and empires, announces God's blessing on the marginalized, and speaks of God's reach to include those that Respectable Religious people had regarded as outcasts. In this week's episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue exploring how the season of Epiphany gives us chances to be re-introduced to Jesus all over again, and today they'll look at how we meet Jesus on his own terms by listening to his first public words in each Gospel. Get ready to meet Jesus in a new way in this conversation, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Immediately after being baptized, having heard a voice from heaven claim him as God's own beloved Son, Jesus heads out into the middle of nowhere to face down the Tempter. And leading the way to drive him toward that confrontation with the devil is the very same Holy Spirit who had descended on him at his baptism. What a strange turn of events--but what does it mean, and how does it introduce us to Jesus? In our continuing series for Epiphanytide, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how the stories of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness re-introduce us to Jesus, who he is, what he thinks his mission is, and what he is--and is not--willing to do in order to fulfill that mission. As we take the time in this season to let Jesus remind us again who he is and what he's all about, we invite you to join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Every year, the church's pattern for keeping time sets aside a season--called Epiphanytide--for getting to know Jesus all over again. As we get new angles on introductions to Jesus, today we turn to a story told in some form by each of the Gospel writers, about Jesus' being baptized. Clearly, this is a story that helps introduce who Jesus is--after all, there is a literal booming voice from heaven claming Jesus as "my Son, the Beloved." But what does that mean for each of us today, and why does it matter that Jesus was baptized? Here in this ongoing series, "The Case for Epiphany," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore why we need a story like this, how it re-introduces us to Jesus, and what differnce it can make in our lives of faith as well. Plus, find out what Steve refers to as a "reverse Spartacus" move, and what on earth that has to do with Jesus and you. Join us for this conversation and all its curious turns, here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
Although they are less well-known or widely-practiced than the Advent wreaths, nativity scenes, and pageants around Christmas, or the disciplines and ashes of Lent, there are some really beautiful practices to explore in the season of Epiphany for individuals, families, and churches. In today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve introduce us to some of them and how they can deepen our faith in this time of the year. From a blessing on our homes done in chalk to a spectular bonfire with the old Christmas tree and wreath from the previous December, to a newer tradition with specially chosen words to guide us like the star of the Magi, to new songs to sing for the season, here are some resources to deepen your faith journey in these days, and to remember the way God walks with us all our lives. Check it out here!
In the earliest centuries of the Christian church, the first celebrations of Jesus' coming were less focused on the manger scene and more on Christ being revealed to all the world, from the visit of the Magi to all the nations of the world. Maybe our ancestors in the faith were onto something: maybe we need to recover a sense of wonder and appreciation that God not only comes to us in Jesus, but that God also chooses to be revealed in Jesus--to show us something of God's own heart, God's character, and God's "personality" so to speak. That's what the day and season we call "Epiphany" is all about, actually--getting to know who God is, and who Jesus is, in the ways they choose to be revealed. That includes the visiting wise men and the star, but also Jesus' baptism, first public words, and important first actions. They all are ways of showing us something of the character of Jesus--and at the same time, they reveal the heart of God. If that seems like something worth exploring, then join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve in this new series for 2022, making the Case for Epiphany!
If it's OK for Jesus to grow into being himself--maturing, learning, asking questions and figuring out his identity--then it's OK to grow into our own skin, too. Sometimes church folk forget that, and we assume that a fully-grown, all-wise adult Jesus beamed down from heaven, a la Star Trek, without having come through the learning and growth of childhood and adolescence. But as Luke the Gospel writer tells us, Jesus' own full humanity meant growing up--not just in size or stature, but in his understanding of who he was. And for us, too, then, Jesus' humanity becomes permission for us to remember that we are learning, growing, deepening, and maturing humans, too. Jesus not only shows us what God is like, but embodies how to be human as well. In this conversation, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the stories Luke gives us from Jesus' childhood and what they mean for our own lives. Check it out here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Lots of people know the Christmas story, which finds Jesus as a newborn infant laid in a borrowed manger. Plenty of people know stories about the adult Jesus healing, teaching, turning over tables, or headed toward the cross. Not as well-known, though, are the handful of stories we have in the Gospels about child Jesus, so that's where we're headed in this new Christmastide series of Crazy Faith Talk. Join Sarah, Erica, and Steve around the table this week for a look at the visitation of the Magi and Jesus' experience as a child refugee, from Matthew's Gospel!
After all the talk in this series about how Advent has its own feel that is separate from Christmas--with Advent having its own unique tension, longing for the future, deliberately slow pace, and often somber songs--it's time at last for pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve to talk about how we prepare for Christmas, too. As individuals, in families, as pastors in congregations, and within a wider culture, each of our conversation partners holds the tension of Advent and Christmas differently, and we each bring different traditions to the table. But through it all, we keep looking for ways to let all of the preparation for Christmas be something nourishing for our souls and strengthening for our faith, rather than just more busy-ness piled on top of already busy lives. From the traditional gifts we make and give to the stories around our nativity scenes to the ways we find peace in the bustle, this is one final conversation in our Advent series we'll hope you'll join us for. And a merry Christmas to you all!
There are radio stations and internet streamig services exclusively dedicated to "Christmas music," both sacred and secular, offering non-stop holly, jolly melodies... and then there is the curious phenomenon of the church's catalog of Advent songs. Spanning centuries and styles, the songs of Advent are often tinged with lament, with waiting, with expectation, and with a vulnerability as we hope for a future we cannot yet see. In today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve make the case for singing these peculiar kinds of songs, even against the louder songs of sleigh rides, red-nosed-reindeer, and winter wonderlands that our wider culture has been singing since Thanksgiving. Listen in to the conversation this week here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a sense, all of Christian life is lived in the tension of the "already" and the "not yet"--between the coming of Christ two millennia ago, and the promise of Christ's coming in glory and the hope of new creation. Advent is just one of those seasons that names this tension out loud, and steers into it, rather than pretending it isn't there. So in this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the way Advent leads us to think differently about time, and how we look forward into a future we have been promised. Along the way, they'll explore the more familiar four-week approach to Advent (as well as all those fun little calendars with doors to open and chocolate inside), as well as a lesser-known tradition called "Long Advent" or "Seven Week" Advent and how an extended season like that might help us in other ways to live in that tension of now and not yet. Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new season and a new series, pastors Sarah, Erica and Steve explore the season many churches have begun observing this past Sunday, the season of Advent that prepares us for Christmas. But in a culture that is already rushing head-long into Christmas sales, music, and decoration, having a season focused on waiting and taking the time to prepare can seem strange. And in a culture that already looks at church folks like we're crazy in other ways, why would we add another layer of mystery and unusual traditions, like special colors, candles, and talk that sounds like the end of the world? Wouldn't it be easier just to jump right to Christmas and tell our story about the baby in the manger? In this episode, our three friends around the microphone make the case for Advent--what it is, and why it is worth looking out of step with the wider world to take the time for it. Join us as we start this new series, and a new church year here on Crazy Faith Talk!
On this 250th episode of Crazy Faith talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve close their series on essentials of Christianity by looking at the beauty--and messiness--of actually living the Christian faith in community with others. We aren't all like-minded or from the same background, and others have rough edges that grate on us, just as we have rough edges that grate on others. And yet, we need one another, especially in a culture that so easily treats everything as a consumer product to be bought, to hold one another accountable, to help us think in new ways, to weep and rejoice together, and to learn how to love and be loved together. For all the ways we mess it up, Christian community is absolutely an essential part of our faith and life. With tangents that take us from Julian of Norwich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to "When Harry Met Sally" and "Annie Hall," this is a great conversation to check out. Join us for this special episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
Being a Christian can never quite be reduced to only head-knowledge or facts to be memorized. It always carries with it some sense of the Mystery of who God is, and how the infinite, intangible God who is beyond physical form or limitations chooses to communicate with us through physical means. That is to say, Christians don't merely memorize or think their way into knowing God, or even feel their way into a relationship with God--there are these physical, touchable momets where the divine shows up in the ordinary. That's really what Christians are talking about when they talk about "sacraments." The waters of baptism, the bread and cup of Jesus' meal, and the physicality of events like these are really an elemetal part of Christianity. But what do they "do," and who is "doing" whatever that is? How do we think and talk about these "visible words" that are "outward signs of iward graces," and what makes them essential to the Christian faith? That's where the conversation is headed this week with pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk." Check it out!
The message "Jesus saves" is all over the place, from bumper stickers to billoards, to neon sign at store-front churches. It's even there in Jesus' name, which means "God saves." Countless people have been told by televangelists and celebrity preachers to "accept Jesus as your Savior," too--but what do we think that means? What does it mean to say someone is "saved"--and is it a past tense event, a present moment in our lives now, or a future reality? Or somehow all three? Do I have to be able to point to a moment in my lifetime when I chose something or asked for something from Jesus, or is my salvation accomplished already by Jesus at the cross? And what am I supposed to do with this salvation once I think I have it? All of a sudden it becomes obvious that church folk throw words like "salvation" around without necessarily being clear on what we mean by them. So in our ongoing series, "Christianity 101," pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at this question, and you're invited to join the conversation. Check it out, here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
From its earliest roots, Christians have claimed that in Jesus we are given the fullness of God and genuine humanity all at once. And while that certainly says something important about the nature of Jesus, it also says something pretty powerful about the nature of God: that God is capable of being expressed through the fragility, vulnerability, and earthiness of humanity. And it says something, too, about God that God chooses to identify with the nobodies of the imperial backwater in the experience of a homeless rabbi who had been a child refugee, rather than to be born in the house of the royal family or in a position of utter privilege. In this latest episode of our series, "Christianity 101," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at who Jesus is, how theologians have talked about Jesus throughout history, and what different this Jesus makes for each of us. Join the conversation!
We're used to thinking of "the Bible" as a single book, written all at once, since we carry personal copies within a single cover. But it's really more of an anthology, spanning cultures, times, authors, and genres, which means that carrying a Bible is rather like walking around with a library that took a long time to put together. In their ongoing series, "Christianity 101," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the story behind how we got the Bible, as well as how the Bible is different than, say, a cook book, or a home-repair guidebook or instruction manual. Join the conversation here as we keep exploring some of the BIG ideas of the Christian faith here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Is God important? Absolutely! Is faith important in relating to this God? Again, probably just about every professing Christian would agree there, too. But then the moment we start saying anything about who this God is, or what God is like, we're into the territory of faith-statements or creeds. And there, curiously enough, different Christians head in different directions. Some recite ancient creeds of the church every week in worship. Others keep them printed in a book or the back of a hymnal somewhere but leave them unused like a liturgical albatross. Others proudly insist they have NO creed statements at all (whether because they only want to affirm the exact words of the Bible, or they don't want to add later traditions, or to have as big a tent as possible). And others still say they have no creed but still have an unspoken list of religious talking points they require people believe in order to belong. So... what's going on here? That's the conversation we'll look at in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue their conversations in this Christianity 101 series. Pull up a chair, and join the conversation!
In this new series about the Big Ideas and Central Questions of Christian faith, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the conversation table to look at what we mean by "faith." Everybody seems to agree that "faith" is a good thing, and that it is important, but what exactly are we talking about? Are "faith" and "fear" opposites, as sometimes gets said by some in the COVID era, making it sound like taking precautions for your neighbors is somehow opposed to believing in God? Are "faith" and "doubt" opposites? What about "faith" and "reason" or "science"? And are we supposed to focus more on OUR work in believing and trusting, or on God's faithfulness and trustworthiness that grasps us in love before we've done a thing? These are the kinds of questions we'll explore in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk--so pull up a chair, and join us for the conversation!
Whether you have been a part of congregational life since you were in diapers or have been wrestling from the margins of community about whether you even believe in God any god, or many gods, much less the specific faith called Christianity, we invite you to a new series meant to explore some of the Big Questions and Central Ideas of faith. For folks who would call themselves life-long Christians, people who would identity as "spiritual but not religious," and for people who are just not sure what to make of any religious faith claims, this series is a way to explore Big Ideas where questions are not only OK, they are encouraged, and where we can talk about how we wrestle with those questions and come up with responses to make sense of our lives with. In our opening conversation, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are starting with a doozy: who--or what--do we mean by "God" in the first place, and how do our answers affect the whole rest of our understanding of faith? Join us for this first episode in our Christianity 101 series, as a great jumping on point for Crazy Faith Talk!
Conventional wisdom is easy: it's good to be strong, it's bad to be weak, and if you are being a good and faithful religious person, God will give you the things you pray for. Right? That sure is popular theology--and it sells books and draws listeners. The only trouble is, it's just not the way things work for the God we know in Jesus. As a case in point, we'll look at the curious case of Saint Paul's "thorn in the flesh," some unpleasant situation in the apostle's life that he attributes both to Satan and to God, and which God didn't take away from him, despite repeated persistent prayer. And instead, Paul discovered, God's choice is to work through what looks like weakness, and that grace really is sufficient for all we need. Join us in this concluding episode of our series exploring Weird Bible Stories, as pastors Erica and Steve mull over a strange story told by Paul the apostle, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In their latest conversation exploring some of the Bible's stranger tales, pastors Erica and Steve take a look a curious episode from the end of the book of Acts. While their fellow conversation partner Sarah can't be here for this episode, they look at a tale from Acts 28 when the apostle Paul survives a prison shipwreck, only to be bitten by a snake--and then how this moment slides into an extended opportunity to help other people where life takes them. In a time when pop religion often teaches that when good things happen, God is blessing you, and that when bad things happen, it must be God's punishment, this story shows us something messier, but more honest. God carries Paul through one difficult set of circumstances after another, but the difficult things are a part of being faithful. Join us for a closer look at this story and where it might lead us in our own lives, here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
Preachers often worry or joke about their sermons putting people to sleep, but it actually happened once, and to no less than the apostle Paul! In a strange little episode from the book of Acts, we hear about a man named Eutychus, who falls asleep during a long sermon and falls out of a third-story window to his death--only to be raised to life again! What are we to make of a story like this, and what does it say about the urgency and priority the early church had on gathering and teaching one another? In a day and age like ours when it is easy to skip church for soccer games, brunch plans, or a chance to sleep in, we may need the surprising perspective of this story to wake us out of our complacency! So join pastors Erica and Steve (while colleague Sarah is dealing with residual effects from a hurricane) as they explore another weird Bible story here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
We often assume that being a Christian means always following the rules and living a quiet, respectable life, out of trouble and without drawing bad attention to ourselves. And... sometimes that's true. But sometimes the followers of Jesus knowingly go into situations they know will be provocative or will end with jail, punishments, or even the specter of death. And yet, in several different stories from the book of Acts, early Christian witnesses like Peter, Paul, and Silas, found themselves in trouble and behind bars, only to have divine intervention open up new possibilities. What do all of these strange stories mean--and what guidance do they give us for our own faith and witness in the face of questions and issues of our own day? How do we balance our bold witness with our real--and, we believe, God-given--responsibilities to those we love, like spouses, and children? These are the kinds of questions we're going to look at as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn to another set of weird Bible stories in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
If you spend much time at all reading the stories of Jesus, you come to expect that he's always helping, always healing, and always doing something creative rather than destructive. That's why it is so jarring to see a story in the Gospels where Jesus comes across a fig tree without any fruit on it and curses it so that it withers overnight--and it's even more unsettling when you find out that it wasn't even the season for figs! What are we to make of a story like this, and how does it fit alongside the other stories and teachings around it in the Gospels? What are we supposed to take from this story for our own lives and faith, and what from this story is unique to Jesus? If you've ever wondered what to make of this strange tale, this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk is worth a listen, as we continue wrestling blessings out of the stories we never quite understood. Join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the table for conversation today!
Do Christians believe in angels? Sure. Demons and other unclean spirits? They show up in the New Testament for sure. But what about the spirits of the dead--especially good and faithful people like the prophet Samuel? We don't really know what to think about a strange story like the one where King Saul consults a medium (sometimes called a "witch" in some renderings) who conjures up the spirit of the deceased prophet who had been a thorn in Saul's side for all of his reign. What are we supposed to do with a story that takes ghosts and spirits seriously, and why would a story like this have been remembered and preserved in our scriptures? That's where the conversation turns in today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the story known commonly as "The Witch of Endor." So in between ocassional Star Wars and Harry Potter references, find some insights on this story, and maybe why it's worth listening to the voices God sends in to our lives who challenge us, precisely because they challenge us. Join the conversation on this week's episode!
In a new series, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve gather around the imaginary table to explore some strange stories from the Bible--what they mean, where they come from, why they might have been remembered, and what they say to us today. Kicking off the series is a look at the story of Jacob wrestling with...someone... during the night at a key moment in his life, before being punched in the hip and given a new name. It's a story that tells us about how we wrestle with our own questions, doubts, and the divine, in our own lives, too, and it's a story that gives us permission to engage with God as we are. So join us in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" and be a part of the conversation!
In this final episode of their series highlighting children's resources, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at two children's books that speak beautifully to God's love for the world and our ways of thinking and speaking about God, too. And while we may often think about picture books as either only for preschoolers at bedtime or children's moment times in church services, we'll discover again how much a simple story with clear words can convey profound ideas more directly and invite connection to God more deeply than the messages and sermons we think are geared for "grown-ups"! We'll also explore here how a book can speak to our faith in a variety of ways--sometimes deliberately patterned after a particular story or passage from the Bible, or sometimes using faithful imagination to tell original stories that still resonate with the character of God. We hope you find the conversation valuable and listen in here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In their ongoing series looking at media for children and young people, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at two offerings shared by Pastor Sarah: first, a book called Tear Soup, meant to explore grief and loss for young people, and then the Buck Denver series, created by Phil Vischer (also of Veggie Tales fame), which explores questions of faith and the Bible in an engaging and open way. We invite you to our virtual table here for conversation and some great resources to share with the young people in your life! Join the discussion here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In the first episode of a brand-new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve start to explore and highlight different media they find useful for exploring faith with children and youth, whether resources for Christian education in churches, children's books for at home, or videos and authors that they find helpful for deepening their own faith. As we start the series, we're introduced to the child-friendly but also surprisingly deep writings (and drawings) of Daniel Erlander, whose insights might at first seem as simple as his pen-and-ink, hand-lettered drawing style, but who is able to express powerful insights and recurring themes in the Scriptures through easy to understand illustrations. He has resources specific to church like, like for teaching about baptism, Holy Communion, or the basics of the Christian faith, and also longer works, like his retelling of the whole Bible's story, as "God's unfolding promise to mend the entire universe." If you've never seen or heard any of Erlander's writings, this is a good introduction--join the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of their series highlighting voices of faith from outside their individual particular faith traditions, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at the contemporary voice of the late Rachel Held Evans, who made a profound impact on many millennial and Gen-Z Christians even though she only had the chance to write a few books before a reaction to medication took her life. As a former journalist who grew up in the town famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial, Rachel Held Evans brought a sharp and insightful mind that helped other Christians to look at why they believe what they believe, what things the Bible actually says, and what things people have just been told or assumed the Bible says. Her approach to faith has made it safe for people to ask questions, to seek to become more loving, to live in the tension of the paradoxes and mystery of faith, and to rediscover what it means to be a "woman of valor" who lifts up others and amplifies the voices of others. Hers is definitely a voice worth listening to, and if you're not familiar with her, we'd invite you to get an introduction here in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
The trouble with a word as big and broad as "love" is that we can all say we're in favor of it and still mean very different--even contradictory--things when we say it. The church is no different. We know we're supposed to be a community grounded in "love" for God and neighbor, but all too often, the church has gotten swept up in the wider culture's assumptions that "love" is primarily about romantic pairings in fairy-tale stories, or a purely emotional reality, or about enforcing a certain set of gender roles (women are emotional and domestic, and men are supposed to be violent conquerors, or other such ridiculous oversimplifications). And when we peddle those understandings of love, we miss out on a much richer, wider, and more authentic kind of love that includes communities, families, friends, and a love for all humanity that doesn't force people to fit certain categories. It can be uncomfortable to have to face the way sometimes the church has missed the mark this way, but we need those voices of critique to help us to love better--more authentically. So in our newest round of conversations looking at voices outside our own traditions, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore some of the ideas in the writers of bell hooks (the pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins), in particular in her writings about the nature of love, and where they could help us to be more genuine and expansive in our understanding--and practice--of love.
As they continue their current series listening to voices outside each of their own faith traditions, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn to a much-loved spiritual teacher in the Roman Catholic tradition from the twentieth century, Henri Nouwen. Well known for titles such as The Wounded Healer, The Return of The Prodigal Son, Life of the Beloved, and numerous other works, Nouwen wrote extensively about life in community, spirituality and contemplation, and knowing God first as foremost as One who seeply loves. His approach to faith helps to break us of stereotypes we sometimes foist on one religious tradition or another, and his writing offers each of us a companion in our own journeys to know God and to live out our identity as God's beloved people. We invite you along on the journey here for this conversation of Crazy Faith Talk!
Sometimes religious folks assume it's a new idea to say that Christians should advocate for sharing their resources and pursuing policies to help those most in need. Sometimes you'll hear critics saying that's a recent invention called "the social gospel" but that "true" Christianity encourages people to get rich (or is at least silent about the goodness or badness of wealth, and indifferent about whether you have to share). Sometimes you'll hear folks laud ancient church leaders for their doctrinal rigor and purity of belief but fall silent about their equally rigorous teaching on our life in community and use of wealth. Maybe the issue isn't that ancient voices didn't talk about how Christians should use their resources, but that we stopped listening to them. And maybe it's not really a new idea that God's kind of justice involves redistributing resources rather than hoarding them--maybe we just didn't have ears to hear what those older and wiser voices had been saying for centuries. In this latest episode of our series looking at voices from outside our individual traditions, pastors Steve, Sarah, and Erica take a look at a 4th century church father named Basil the Great, who is not only remembered for his theological teaching about the Trinity and the Holy Spirit or leadership as a bishop, but also has a great deal to say about what 21st century minds would call "social justice." Join in conversation with this refreshing, provocative, and yet ancient voice from an older brother in faith here on Crazy Faith Talk
Even in a high-tech, non-stop age like ours--or maybe especially in such times--we need wise voices who can point us to spiritual truth from the flies and the honeybees, and who can call us to simplicity of lifestyle and of faith. That's a least part of what led one of our Crazy Faith Talk conversation partners to highlight the perspective and wisdom of Paisios of Mount Athos, remembered as a saint in the Orthodox tradition, who lived in the 20th century. As we continue to lift up helpful voices from traditions outside of our own, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve keep exploring how we sift through the wisdom of other voices, how we leave ourselves open to insights that we might not have arrived at on our own, and how we also decide what parts of those other traditions or lives we don't carry into our own faith and practice. How do we let ourselve hear voices that challenge and stretch us while also having the discernment to know when to take those voices with a grain of salt? That' the conversation today here on Crazy Faith Talk--hope you can join us!
In this new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve each highlight voices from the Christian family from traditions other than their own. Since Christianity spans two millennia, numerous spiritual traditions, theological perspectives, and denominational histories from around the world, there are a lot of people we can learn from, even while we own and claim our own traditions and heritages. In this first episode, Erica shares with us the work and witness of Richard Foster, who comes from the Quaker tradition, and who is well-known, among other things, for his book, Celebration of Discipline, which explores Christian faith practices, approaches to prayer, and other spiritual disciplines. Along the way, we'll explore how to bring our needs to Jesus, and how to listen for Jesus' call to each of us for what he would call us to do in any given moment. Join us for a new series highlighting some faithful voices spanning Christian history and tradition, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
The ability to bring out the best in someone else--that's a gift of God! The capacity to manage and organize without making yourself the center of attention--that's a gift as well! Same with the ability to help someone make sense of their situation in light of the stories and images of Scripture, or the ability to be generous in just the right ways someone else needs--these are all gifts from God! And maybe, like the familiar notion of "love languages" that each of us communicate with, spiritual gifts can be ways of meeting people where they are to offer what they need in the moment. So in this concluding episode of their series on spiritual gifts, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look outside the listing from 1 Corinthians 12 to see what other kinds of things might be gifts of God to each of us, even here and now. Check out this episode of Crazy Faith Talk to explore what gifts you might have to offer others!
Something amazing happened on the day of Pentecost, mere weeks after Jesus' resurrection--a band of former fishermen and tax collectors started speaking about Jesus, and they could be heard and understood in languages they did not know, as the Holy Spirit gave them the ability. Since then, the community of Jesus' followers has experience the Spirit's presence in ways that have to do with language--often in powerful, astounding ways that make it clear that something unusual was happening. But what exactly is this gift known as "speaking in tongues"? Is it the ability to speak in known human langauges? Private prayer utterances? Public displays of ecstatic speech that require someone else to interpret or translate? All of the above? In today's "Crazy Faith Talk" conversation, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at this gift and the various understandings of what it means, as well as guardrails for how we think about it and avoid either belittling something that is valuable to others or abusing it as a way of puffing ourselves up. Check it out here!
Say the word "prophet," and a lot of folks assume you're talking about Nostrodamus-type soothsayers or the oracles of ancient Greek mythology who would utter esoteric predictions about the future. But honestly, the people we call "prophets" in the biblical witness were more often people called by God to speak to their present times and situations, to speak truth to power, to call whole societies to be reoriented around the justice and mercy of God, to warn people about the consequences of the trajectories their actions and choices were putting them on, and then to speak a word of hope as well. We need the gift of those voices who can both afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, and that's why the Spirit continues to raise up voices we call "prophetic"--people who have the courage and clarity to speak to their times and situations, even when it is an uncomfortable word to speak. We also need peopel with the gift of discerment, who can sift through competing messages and find what is good and true. In a time where social media is rife with disinformation, misleading claims, and outright falsehoods, the gift of discernment is vitally important. In our conversation today, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore these gifts of the Spirit, and what they mean for our this moment and our situations.
Some folks are certain they have witnessed a supernatural healing in their presence, and some folks are skeptical about anything that can't be explained by current science. And somewhere in between is the tension between healthy questioning and an openness to a God who is beyond our comprehension. In their series exploring spiritual gifts, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve find themselves looking at how to make sense of the New Testament's talk about people performing miraculous healings, how we think of modern medicine as a gift from God, how we keep from getting fooled by pious-sounding peddlers of snake-oil, and also how we allow God to be big enough to do things with or without our understanding or permission. In an episode that ranges from the tv series Derry Girls to seeing a face in a piece of toast, to the real-life experience of those who have been cured of sickness without any physical or medical explanation, we invite you to join the conversation in this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
While our wider culture may think of knowledge primarily in terms of facts to be memorized or diplomas on your wall, the followers of Jesus dare to believe that there is another kind of insight that is brought forth by the Spirit and isn't reducible to collections of data or even years of life experience. It's the spiritual wisdom that comes from centering your life around the character and priorities of God, and letting that shape everything else in your life--our choices, our words, our thought-patterns, and our own priorities. And along with those gifts of wisdom and knowledge the same Spirit also give us the capacity to trust God, even when things don't go the way we wanted or expected. In today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at these three gifts of the Spirit, and we invite you to share in the conversation, too!
When people talk about their "spiritual gifts," it can sometimes sound like astrology signs or personality types, or just a religious-sounding way of talking about talents. But when the biblical writers like Paul talk about spiritual gifts, they see something given by God to one person for the sake of the whole community. There is a beautiful diversity of gifts, but they also exist for the benefit of all. And even if I can't see how your gift contributes yet, or how it meshes with mine, from God's vantage point, there is beauty and goodness in all of them. Today in our series on spiritual gifts, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at one of the biblical passages most frequently explored on the subject--Paul's writing on gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12. And as the conversation weaves its way through trombone solos and Bette Midler songs, we'll discover that our gifts are meant to be used for the sake of all... and that makes all the difference. Join us for this week's Crazy Faith Talk conversation!
If you've ever been moved to tears by a hymn or song of faith, or been stirred up to live your faith out by a powerful sermon, or encouraged through a difficult time by someone who gave you strength with their presence, you know what it's like to be touched by someone else's spiritual gifts. And if you've ever had someone come up to you and say, "You're really great at building up a group to work as a team," or "You have a way of giving your time and resources that inspires me, too!" then maybe you've been the one who has touched someone else's life with your spiritual gifts. As they start a new series exploring these special gifts from God, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve invite you into a conversation to explore our own spiritual gifts, how we discover and develop them, and how they might be distinct from and similar to other kinds of skills like cooking, knitting, or dancing. In a conversation that ranges from Mozart to the Marvel movies, there's a place for you at the table.
In this final episode of their short series on the meaning and power of Easter hymns, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore a more recent hymn, entitled, "The Risen Christ," which casts Jesus less as a conquering king but as the wounded, living One who comes behind our locked doors, meets us in our fears, and still walks through the darkened places of the world bringing healing, life, and restoration. Once the jelly beans are all gone and the Easter lilies have started to droop, what good news is there to share with the world? This hymn text helps us to see Jesus meeting us where we are--in the wounded places of our lives, and with his own wounds that are both scars of what he has endured and signs of his victory through the cross. Join us for this conversation at the intersection of faith and doubt, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and the meeting place of the Bible's stories and our lives, here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
In their new series for the weeks following Easter, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are looking at songs that help us celebrate and share the news of Jesus' resurrection. And one of the most well-known in a lot of American churches of all sorts of stripes is a famous hymn of Charles Wesley's known as "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today." In today's conversation, we'll look at how our songs of faith help us understand our place in God's great story of redemption, and how resurrection helps offer a new light on what happens at the cross, and why Christians see the empty tomb as a victory for all creation. Join us in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
Easter is usually the time for the loudest and brightest-sounding songs in the hymnal, right? We break out the trumpets and choirs, and we sing in boisterous, barn-burning major-key melodies, usually. But sometimes we need a song that speaks the good news of resurrection and also names the reality of the cross at the same time, so we might just need to dare to sing an Easter song in a minor key. So as we begin a new series on some of our favorite Easter hymns and songs, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve share a lesser-known but beautiful hymn called "Now the Green Blade Rises," which holds together the tension of a seed that is buried in the ground with the joy of new life sprouting up from the earth, as an image of the death and resurrection of Christ. Join us in these weeks of celebrating resurrection as we take a closer look at some favorites and new songs to know!
If you think about it, the central story in the Christian faith is about a transition--from death to resurrection--that rearranges everything else around it. And as much as we know the story of Easter is a joyful one, it also brings with it bittersweetness, and the anxiety of learning a "new normal." So as we conclude this series on transition in life and in ministry, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at how Jesus' own transition--from being with the disciples in person all the time to the absence felt at the cross to the new way of Christ's presence in the Spirit--gives us hope and perspective for our own lives and the changes that come in our lives. As we prepare to retell the events of the cross an empty tomb in this week, join the conversation on this special episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
The important work of leaving well is an art, not a science. There's no formula for getting it all right, and no one-size-fits-all approach. But there are some ideas, practices, and mindsets that can be helpful, both in a congregational setting and in the other goodbye moments of our lives, that can help us to say our "Farewell and Godspeed" in ways that are healthy. As they near the end of this Lenten series on transition in ministry and life, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at their own experiences, successes, and failures, in ways of managing the goodbye moments of their lives, in a hope that with honest conversation we can all manage the parting of ways knowing we are all still held in the hands of God. With the help of some pop culture references to Ben Folds Five, Neil Simon, Chadwick Boseman, and more, we'll embark on an important conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Whehter talking about pastors serving in congregational ministry, changes in jobs, moves across country, or transitions in our relationships (coming together or parting ways), how do you know "it's time"? How do we do the difficult work of discerning where we need to be, how we need to use our gifts, and what we need to do with our time? How do we hold our sense of "where God is leading me" together with immediately practical matters like, "how I will make a living and feed my family"--and how might those both be sides of the same coin? Join in the conversation as pastors and colleagues Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue their ongoing series about transitions in ministry and in life, as they do some personal sharing, reflections about life in ministry and in different church traditions, and look at how we know where we need to be in life, at different steps along the way and different seasons of our lifetimes.
Children of the 1990s know the lyric from the band Semisonic's song, "Closing Time," which goes, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." And Fleetwood Mac sang honestly to an earlier generation, "I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you." That's the challenge about being human--everything in in constant flux, and we are often afraid of change when it comes. In today's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have an open an honest conversation about all kinds of transitions in our lives, and how we face them with maturity, wisdom, love, and courage. From birth and raising children, to moving across country or dealing with death, and all the other changes in our lives, from sudden and unexpected goodbyes to the difficult long goodbyes in our lives, there are ways to face life's transitions with grace and peace, even when there are no pain-free ways to get through them. Join us for a powerful and important episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
What do congregations wish their new pastors would do or say as they begin serving together? What do pastors wish their congregations knew about welcoming a new pastor into their midst? As they continue their series on transitions in ministry, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at their own experiences at the beginnings of pastoral calls and appointments, as well as the stories and wisdom of others for how to make the transition of a new ministry partnership work well. From first impressions to sharing long-standing traditions, there are ways both pastor and congregation can set the tone in good and healthy ways, and to set the precedent for a fruitful and faithful journey together. Join the conversation today here on Crazy Faith Talk!
How do pastors come to be in the congregations where they serve? How do they end up in new church settings? And how do human processes, denominational structures and traditions, and the Holy Spirit all come together in the process? As they start a new series this Lent, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look together at transitions in ministry, and how each of our stories and church traditions have led us to where we are... and where we are going. As we prepare for Pastor Sarah to start a new call in a new location in the near future (but still to continue as a part of Crazy Faith Talk!), we start a conversation about how we came to where we are... and how we go to where we are led next. Join us for today's conversation!
Today we're getting personal--well, a little bit. Over the course of this series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have offered an overview of basics of different kinds of spiritual practices and disciplines, almost like an appetizer sampler platter at a restaurant. But what are each of our hosts' favorite main courses for their own spiritual lives? Hear from all three today with some personal thoughts and learnings, in a conversation that includes foreign language tattoos, spiritual writing, and how the biblical writers get to be like old drinking buddies (metaphorically speaking...). Check out this concluding episode to our series on spiritual practices for a new year!
Why feed a hungry neighbor, or give clothing to someone without? Why welcome a homeless family in your church building or bring soup over to someone recovering from surgery? Obviously (we hope) just because these neighbors have the need, and we are called to love our neighbors. But something else happens to us when we deliberately look for ways to serve neighbors--we are shaped, so that we become more generous people, like daily jogging will improve your body's physical endurance. And we also discover Christ is in the encounter with the neighbor as well--we get to be the face of Christ for others, and Christ turns out to be the one we serve as well. In a world and in a time that often only ask, "What's in it for me?" it can be a radical spiritual practice to seek to serve a neighbor without strings or conditions--and without needing to turn it into a public photo op, either. Join us for conversation today around the table as we look at ways we serve our neighbors, and how to get better at looking for opportunities to do it, in this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
We need each other--that's part of what it means to be human! We are made for relationships with one another, and that's certainly true in our spiritua lives as well. So as we continue our series looking at spiritual practices for a new(ish) year, we invite you to look at how it can be helpful to have some kind of trusted accountabilty group, spiritual director, or other soul-friendships who can encourage, challenge, stretch, and support us. In this episode, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve offer an introductory look at what these kinds of groups or relationships can be, how they each might be different and valuable in their own ways, and where to begin if you are interested in delving into this dimension of spirtual practice. Check out this week's Crazy Faith Talk, and join the conversation!
The practice of fasting is an odd duck--on the one hand, it might not seem like much fun to go without eating (or some other thing in our lives), no matter how long or short the fast might endure. But on the other hand, fasting is an ancient practice used and known across religious traditions, and is one part of personal piety that Jesus assumes his followers will be doing in some form. The Old and New Testament actually offer a wide variety of perspectives on fasting, from how it can be helpful for clarity and simplicty, to the ways we can misuse or misunderstand it if we make it into a matter of impressing God with our performed suffering. So what's the idea behind fasting, why might anybody choose it as a practice for their faith-life, and what could it look like? Join pastors and colleagues in ministry Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the table today for conversation in our series on spiritual practices for a new year, and explore with us how this could be a way of helping to get clarity, simplicity, and appreciation in our lives in the midst of a culture that is often drowning in noise, excess, and ingratitude.
In this new series for the new year, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at practices for deepening your own faith life in a sort of sampler-platter approach, introducing us to different practices and traditions and inviting us to try them on our own. Today, we'll look at different ways we can make prayer a part of our daily and weekly lives, in all kinds of circumstances--with others and alone, when we have words on our hearts and when we have no words, and when we need to be recentered once again. We'll share an overview of things like Taize-style sung prayer refrains and centrering prayer, prayer labyrinths, artistic forms like "praying in color," corporate call-and-response prayer, and scheduled hours and times of the day for praying. Check it out!
Like any relationships in our lives, our connection with God can be strenghtened by intentional, habitual choices to spend time connecting and recentering on the God with whom we are in relationship. Just like you might choose to set aside time to talk with someone who is important to you, or to re-read their letters or old emails to you, or to make the time to listen to their concerns, there are practices we can take on, not with the thought of "impressing" God (or anybody else), but in the hopes that they create the time, attention, and focus to bring us closer in relationship with God. Maybe the craziness of this current year is making you feel a need for something to anchor you, and maybe the introduction you'll get to several spiritual practices over this series could be a help for you! Join Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve as they take a look in this episode at how you might choose a Scripture passage or verse as a guide or focus verse for the year, or for a season of life!
For nearly seventeen centuries, the "official" position of Christianity has been to say that Jesus Christ is both fully divine and fully human--but how did that get decided, and why does it matter? In today's conversation, Pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore some of the story behind what is now usually called the Nicene Creed (or, to be a bit fancier, the Nicene-Constantinapolitan Creed, if it includes the article about the Holy Spirit), how it came to be, what the different positions were going in, and why any of it makes a difference for our lives now. In a time when we can be so easily divided over all kinds of issues, it can be helpful to remember that in the early centuries of Christian history, there were fierce fights over very precise matters of wording, thinking, teaching, and beleiving--sometimes down to just one letter's difference! So in this episode, alongside stories of the original Santa punching out a heretic to the classic Meat Loaf song, "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)," join us for some thought-provoking conversation, a bit of history and theology, and questions about how we face the challenges of our lives every day, too. Check it out!
It's funny--in our Bibles, Luke's Gospel starts the "origin story" of Jesus with the start of his mother Mary's pregnancy, and Matthew traces his story back to the beginning of the people of Israel. But John's Gospel goes all the way back to "in the beginning"--to the very creation of the universe! In this very special Christmas episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the opening of John's Gospel--often called the Prologue--to see how this poetic passage works, and what it tells us about Jesus that can be lost in the shuffle when we only focus on mangers, shepherds, and the rest of the Christmas pageant crew. Along the way, we'll borrow some pop culture references from Star Wars, Van Gogh, the composer Aaron Copland, a movie about purple cartoon aliens, and Shrek the animated ogre, to explore the poetry of John's prologue about the Word who became Flesh. Check it out for a fresh exploration of why it's good news that Jesus was born!
In this last episode of their Advent exploration of pop culture that connects to the season, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the 2007 movie, "The Nativity Story," and the challenges movie-makers have in bringing a Bible story to life. What details do you need to hold onto, and what other details can be shared with images that simply aren't there in a written text? How do we bring together Matthew's version and Luke's version of the story? Where do we use our "faithful imaginations" for guessing what a given moment or scene might have felt like? And where do we rely on later traditions, even if we don't know how they "actually" happened? It turns out there's a lot to think about when you're bringing a Bible story to new eyes and ears. So, even though you've likely heard the story of Jesus' birth plenty of times before, join the conversation today as we ask the less-frequently-asked question of how we find new ways to retell ancient stories in each new generation. Join us for this Christmas-week episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
Okay, so there's not really a talking donkey with comically long ears in the Bible, but maybe the fictional story of Nestor (a sort of biblical cousin to the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) has something truly important to tell us about the table-turning ways of God. So this week in our Advent series looking at bits of pop culture that come to mind in the Christmas season, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore this 1977 stop-action animated story and look at how very much the story, not only of Jesus' birth, but of all the Scriptures, is of a God who deliberately chooses to lift up the lowly, stand with the marginalized, and announce blessing on the poor, the broken-hearted, and the left-behind ones. Maybe even though Nestor is a fictional donkey, he can tell us a great deal about the God who comes to us in Jesus, the same God about whom Mary sings as the One who lifts up the lowly, feeds the hungry with good things, and scatters the proud. Join us for this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk for the next nugget of Advent pop culture!
Good news for people who like big round numbers--it's the 200th episode of "Crazy Faith Talk"! And today around the microphone, our trio of conversation partners looks at the various versions of the story we know as Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", both for its lessons about what we do (and don't) need for Christmas to happen, and as a way of thinking about how the gospels in our Bibles give us different versions of the story of Jesus, too, and how each version has something to tell us. In a pandemic-affected year, maybe the Grinch's lesson that Christmas comes even without the packages, gatherings, and usual festivities is one we especially need this year. So join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve around the table today as our Pop Culture Advent Calendar continues!
Like the little doors you open to count down the days until Christmas on your home Advent calendar, this season we've got a countdown of seasonal pop culture tidbits that help us to think about our faith in new ways. So instead of little bits of chocolate or tiny toys to get each day, we're inviting you to join us this Advent for a series that will introduce you (or re-introduce you) to some pop culture of the season that has been important to each of the friends around the microphone. And today as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the microphone, we are introduced to Charlie N. Holmberg's fantasy/fairy-tale of a novel, "Followed by Frost," and we'll explore the importance of small acts of kindness in changing our hearts, how love gets through to us in ways that threats cannot, and maybe how the Gospel itself works like a fairy-tale in some ways. So grab a warm mug of something, put your feet up for a bit, and open the first door on our Advent Calendar of Pop Culture delectables this season!
After a wide survey of scenes and stories from the Bible, from the damp days after the Flood in Genesis to the tail-end of the last book of the New Testament, we've looked at a lot of the ways violence shows up in the pages of sacred scripture. But what does it mean for any of us and how we live our lives? How do we make the difficult decisions about what to do when we feel like violence as the least-worst option in front of us, or when we need to think of alternatives beyond fight-or-flight? How do we think about the sometimes-not-very-helpful hypothetical situations like a surprie night-time intruder in your home, or what we would do if we lived in a time and place like Hitler's Third Reich? And how do we consider the consequences and ripple effects of our actions far beyond what we can see, predict or imagine? What obligation do I have to the kids of the would-be burglar who comes into my house, and how does the shape of Jesus' life affect my choices? It seems we've got a lot more questions than we started with, but maybe that's a good place to leave things for now. Join us for this last episode in our series as we make the move from Bible stories to our lived choices.
In the early life of the church, followers of Jesus needed a word of hope to assure them that the destructive and arrogant ways of the Empire wouldn't last forever. They needed to know that God's victory over evil was assured, and that there was reason to keep on in their faith, showing love and humility in the face of Rome's cruelty and pride. Against that backdrop, the book of Revelation makes a certain kind of sense--it is resistance literature written in coded language to encourage people to continuing following the way of Jesus no matter how strong or invincible the powers of the day seemed. Part of what is difficult for modern-day American readers, then, is the disconnect between our situation (living pretty comfortably in the superpower of our day) and the setting of the book of Revelation. So in today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the imagery of violence in the book of Revelation, and explore some of the ways modern-day readers read (or mis-read) this book, and what difference it makes to ask whether God's victory in the end comes through fighting a battle with Christians as soldiers, or whether God's victory is already accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus, whose robe is soaked, not in his enemies' blood, but in his own. Join us for an important and thought-provoking conversation on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!
The wise and faithful Fred Rogers said, "Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable." It was both a touchstone of his approach to children's television in his Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and also a key to his approach to ministry and life. Rogers also taught generations of children to ask the difficult but vital question, "What do you do with the MAD that you feel?" with the understanding that we all feel anger sometimes and need to decide how to use, channel, and process it. With that in mind, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore a set of prayers in the Bible, found in the Book of Psalms, that vent anger to God sometimes in very explicit ways, even calling for God to do violence to enemies. What do we make of verses calling on God to bash the heads of the babies of a foreign enemy on rocks, for example? And what does it mean that these words are in our Scriptures? For that matter, what difference does it make to know that God isn't obligated to give us the things we pray for, but is able to let us vent what we need to vent as the first step toward metabolizing our anger from bitter vengeance into something useful to change what is wrong in the world? In a conversation that spans everything from particle physics to Maya Angelou to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, this is an important conversation to have, and you're invited to share in it. Becuase everything that is mentionable... can become manageable.
Something has gone wrong when we lose our ability to be shocked by terrible things. And sometimes we need to come face to face with the terrible things to which the Bible bears witness--even if they aren't stories we teach our children in Sunday School or don't hear much about in sermons. That can be especially true when the culture or historical setting of a story makes it easier to hide or shrug off the horror. And in cultures throughout human history in which women were treated as the property of men or as second-class, stories in which women are the victims of physical or sexual violence (or both) can sometimes be treated casually, as though such violence is unavoidable, or as if the "real" victims were the men to whom they were attached--husbands, fathers, etc. So in this episode--which, fair warning, does get into some uncomfortable stories from the Bible about violence done to women--pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at four biblical stories of violence done to women to explore why these stories were remembered, how we understand them today, and why it is important to be able to tell the stories that make us squirm, so that we can protect the lives of those who are vulnerable today. This one is a challenging subject, but it's an important conversation to have.
Lots of people know the story of when "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho... and the walls came a-tumblin' down." And from one perspective, the story of the Israelites taking the land of Canaan sounds like a triumphant victory and a happy ending. The freed Israelites at last have a homeland, as God had promised their ancestor Abraham. But what about the people who lived there already, and what do we do with the ways the conquest stories in the book of Joshua have been co-opted later in history to justify the conquering of "newly discovered" lands, the enslavement, resettling, or killing of indigenous peoples (like the Trail of Tears), or the notion of manifest destiny in our own national past? Where is God in the midst of this story in the Bible, and how does faith in Jesus affect the way we read it? This week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk opens all these cans of worms and more, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the microphone for more conversation.
Lots of people know the story of the Exodus--from the miraculous parting of the sea to the dramatic rise of deliverer Moses to the powerful signs of judgment against Pharaoh's Egypt known as the ten plagues. It's a saga many know, not only from Sunday School lessons in childhood, but also multiple movies that have colored our imaginations. But the story of the plagues sent on Egypt is more complicated that the singing-cartoon or Cecil B. DeMille versions many grew up with. While the plagues are seen as a way of finally forcing Pharaoh's hand to let the enslaved Hebrews go, they also bring a lot of collateral damage on the people of Egypt, who are only indirectly a part of the enslavement of the Hebrews. They suffer along with Pharaoh--what do we do about that, especially in light of our learning last week that God values each and every human life by virtue of being made in the image of God? What what do we do with the biblical refrain that God hardened Pharaoh's heart to push the conflict toward increasingly dramatic stakes? And what do we do when modern-day religious voices declare themselves to be self-appointed prophets who declare that present-day natural disasters are God's judgment or punishment on people? How do we read the story of the Exodus without giving ourselves permission to see every fire, earthquake or hurricane as a plague sent against someone we don't like? These are the kinds of questions that we'll explore in this episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the table. Join us for the conversation!
Human history is inescapably bloody--and so is the Bible. We aren't great at facing up to those violent episodes in our history, or owning up to the costs of our actions and choices in human lives. And if that weren't hard enough, the biblical writers themselves often seem to permit, allow, encourage, or even endorse violence against other people. And yet, those same biblical voices also insist that all human beings are made in the image of God, and that we are all of infinte worth and sacredness. How do we hold these two together? How do we understand the violence in the Bible, whether it's perpetrated by humans against other humans, or described as coming directly from God? And if human beings are indeed preciously made in the image of God, what are we supposed to do when someone destroys that image by killing someone else? This is the can of worms we'll be opening in this latest series for the fall exploring violence in the Bible. And as we get started, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at a passage from early in Genesis that lays down a policy of taking a life for a life. We'll explore how God intends to limit and prevent human violence, but also the dangerous ways a passage like this can be abused and give license to lynch mobs who see themselves as agents of justice when they are really just bloodthirsty. And we'll begin a journey through the Bible that will deepen our way of understanding the Scriptures, too. Join us for a thought-provoking series here on Crazy Faith Talk!
After the storytelling is finished, there are still lots of BIG questions to wrestle with from Esther's story, and they are all pressing for our lives today. For starters, while we may feel relieved that Esther, Mordecai, and their people get a happy ending by the end of the book, what do we do with the times in subsequent history when tragedy was not averted? The Jewish people were saved from Haman's plot in this story, but what do we say then about the six million Jewish people who were killed by the Nazi war machine (and the quiet complicity of many more who were not explicitly Nazis) during the Holocaust? If we say God was behind the scenes in the plot of Esther's story, where was God during the Holocaust? Or in any of history's other atrocities? And for Esther to get her happy ending, there was a price of 75,000 other residents of the Persian Empire who were killed in the resolution of the story--what do we say about their stories? And even just in our daily lives, how do we discern what God is guiding us to do or say in our circumstances--especially in polarized times when everyone around us seems to have a different opinion of what God's will looks like? Maybe getting to the end of this story has opened a whole new can of worms--so join us for converation between pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve in this concluding episode of our series on Esther.
All the plot twists and tension has been building to this point in the story: Esther finally exposes the wicked Haman's plan, and her people are saved. And as the ancient poets and storytellers of Israel so often spoke of, the schemes of the wicked become their own undoing. It is as close to a storybook ending as you'll find in the Bible, with the villains defeated, the innocent saved, and the heroes vindicated. If you've been joining us along the way this far in our exploration of the book of Esther, this is the moment we've been waiting for. And yet, this neat-and-tidy ending also leaves questions for us to explore and wrestle with beyond the storytelling. So join us for this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, as pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve gather around the table for conversation, exploration, and faithful reflection.
In their ongoing series exploring the book of Esther, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at chapters five and six as Esther goes to the king to save her people and to defeat the crooked scheming of the villain Haman. In a story already full of big characters and outlandish plot twists, here's a set of almost Shakespearean turns that raise the lowly and start the downfall of the crooked ones in high places. Join us for another episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
How do we respond when something truly terrible is about to happen? Do we ignore it and hope it doesn't affect us? Do we make provisions for ourselves alone and hope to weather the storm? Do we risk our comfort, our privilege, and our way of life to speak up? These are the kinds of questions that come to the surface in the fourth chapter of Esther. With the villainous Haman's plan to kill and plunder the whole Jewish people set into motion, and the clock ticking on its execution, Mordecai starts protesting in the street insisting that he and his people's lives matter, and that the rest of the empire cannot simply turn their eyes from what is happening, using the imagery and practices of lament to get their attention. And Esther, Mordecai's cousin and the queen over the empire, has to decide if she dares to take the risk of losing everything by using her platform to get the king to stop the plan of government-sanctioned genocide. And through it all, there is the driving question, "Who knows if you have been brought to your position of influence for just such a time as this?" What do we do with the privileged positions each of us has--how do we use our platforms to save life, to help those who are oppressed and at-risk, and to speak for justice and mercy in the midst of the tragedies and schemes around us all the time? And how do we know what we have been raised up for in our lives in such a time as we are living in? Those are the questions that pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at in this latest episode of our ongoing series running through the book of Esther. Join the conversation!
"To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunitsts who control the fool.... to be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies." So warns famous novelist Octavia Butler, but it just as easily could have been a commentary on the book of Esther, as well. As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue exploring this lesser-known book of the Bible, we turn to the rise of a villain, Haman, who persuades the king to permit a government-sanctioned policy to murder all of the Jewish people because their laws, customs, and culture were different, all becuase he feels slighted by one Jewish person (Mordecai) who won't bow down to him. In addition to being a thrilling twist in the storytelling of this book, this episode explores how easy it is in any time period to find some group who stands out for being different and to blame them for all your problems... and once you've made "those people" your scapegoat, how easy it is to accept the idea of making them disappear without asking too many questions. The threats of racial violence, genocide, and state-sponsored persecution of people who are deemed dangerous becuase they are different are hardly new issues--in fact, the book of Esther might just offer us some insights for how to deal with those threats in our day, too. Join us for this important conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As they move ahead in the book of Esther, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve move onto the second chapter of this story, where we meet Esther and hear how she is chosen to be queen basically by winning a beauty pageant. Along the way, we meet her cousin Mordecai, who will be a wise mentor, confidant, and voice of conscience for her as the story unfolds, and who helps to foil a plot against the Persian king Xerxes (Esther's new husband). Like a clockwork contraption being wound up for movement, the pieces of this story are coming together, and they are setting us up for learning about how to live faithfully when you are not in a position of power, or when living as a minority under the rule of an empire. For the people of God today, living at odds with the voices and values of the dominant culture around us, this story gives us resources for being faithful in challenging times. Join us for this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In a new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve do something they've never tried before in this podcast--to work through an entire book of the Bible, looking at what's going on in the story and how it connects to our lives, too. We'll be exploring the biblical book of Esther, which is not only an epic thriller with life-and-death stakes for a whole nation of people ruled by a foreign empire, but also a story of courage, character, and the community that guides the hero of this story (Esther herself) to speak up, to resist the powers of the day, and to save her people. And we invite you to join us for this adventure. Starting with some background information and the first chapter, this episode is a great place to get in on the ground floor of a great story and to grow in our own ability to recognize God's presence even in hidden ways.
As the close out this short series at the intersection of pop culture and faith, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve talk about the early 2000s series, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and how there can be a lot for grown-ups to learn about life from a show that is ostensibly aimed at kids. As they look at the fantasy world of this TV show, the three friends around the table look at how we discern the right thing to do, even when the voices around us seem to be giving us bad advice, as well as the importance of taking time and space apart for reflection, contemplation, and critical thinking. They discover along the way that Jesus, too, often got his bearings by taking time for reflecting in prayer, and that Jesus understood his role as Messiah in ways that broke from everyone else's expectations in his world. Maybe there's more to learn than first meets the eye from a Nickelodeon cartoon--join us for the conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
The best science fiction often takes the real world in which we live and then heightens, or stretches, some element of it as a way of looking at our actual world. And while it can be entertaining, engrossing, or frightening, those kind of imaginary worlds can also be places for thought experiments that can stretch our faithful imagination, too. So as our three conversation partners, Sarah, Erica, and Steve, continue this new series looking at pop culture and faith, this time Steve brings a novel that is unnerving but also fertile ground for deep thoughts. In Octavia Butler's dystopian novel, "Parable of the Sower," we are introduced to a near-future America where institutions are crumbling, disasters are wreaking havoc, and community is hard to come by. In a world like that--one that sometimes, only feels like a slight exaggeration of the stresses and strains of a pandemic year--where does one find hope... purpose... clarity... community? And how does faith become even more vital in a time and place where many have left it behind as useless? Maybe, as unsettling as dystopian science-fiction can be sometimes, there are lessons we can learn for living out our faith in difficult times. Join us for this conversation on Crazy Faith Talk.
What would it look like for church to be known first of all as a place of radical acceptance--and also one where members of the community brought out the best in each other? And what could help us imagine what that could look like? In a new round of conversations, pastors and colleagues in ministry Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a dive into the waters of pop culture they've been interacting with, to learn more about where books, movies, tv shows, and music offer insights for our faith lives. In each episode of this series, one of the friends around the table will share a piece of pop culture that has impacted their faith in some way, and then we'll see where the conversation goes from here. In today's conversation, we'll look at the Netflix series "Queer Eye" and see what examples its approach to personal makeovers might offer for the church to be a place where unconditional love and powerful transformation can both be experienced. We may just discover we have a lot to learn from some unexpected voices.
Almost everything in our lives has been affected in some way or another by the COVID-19 pandemic, including major changes to what church life and ministry looks like. As our regularly gathering conversation partners, Sarah, Erica, and Steve, explore their own reflections on ministry during the time of coronavirus, they are joined by a fourth voice around the table--Russ, who is also a pastor and married to Pastor Sarah. As we explore successes and failures, learnings and struggles, we also uncover the blessings of a moment like this to help give us clarity about what things we can let go of, what things we hold onto with all our strength, and what things are worth keeping but transforming in new ways. Join us for conversation as we all keep figuring out how to live faithfully as Jesus' followers in this new and challenging time.
As messy, conflicted, and complicated as families can somtimes be (as we've seen for sure over the course of this series!), the thing about family is that your belonging in it is entirely by grace. You can't earn your family, merit your place in it, or decide to keep someone else out because of their bad behavior--in a sense, in a family, we are all blessedly "stuck" with each other. And it turns out to be a really important thing that the early church didn't run away from that idea, but in fact delved into the metaphor of being a sort of "found family"--the people you choose to surround yourself with as family, even if you don't share biology. And in doing so, the early community of Jesus' followers discovered a framework for sticking with each other through hurts and failures and disagreements, and they also found a way of expanding beyond a single nationality, ethnicity, culture, or language. As they conclude their series on sibling rivalries and reversals in the Bible, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the ways the first disciples acted like squabbling siblings, but also how that became a picture of grace that gives us hope all these centuries later. Check out this important conversation
We live in an age of click-bait one-dimensional internet quizzes (like, "Answer three questions to find out what personality type you have," or "Click on a picture to find out which Disney princess you are,"), and it can be easy to do the same to biblical characters, too. For a long time, the sisterhood between Mary and Martha in the Gospels has been one of those places church folk have done some armchair psychology, asking one another, "Are you a Mary... or a Martha?" and often have assumed that one personality is the "right" one for all situations, and that a person's whole character can be summed up in a single story or event. But maybe these biblical figures are richer, more complex, and more nuanced that an Facebook questionnaire--and maybe exploring the stories of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus can help us explore how Jesus will change and reorder our old assumptions about how family is "supposed to work." Join us for this episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve share conversation in their ongoing series on biblical siblings!
When a loving father gracious welcomed home his troubled son and extavagantly threw a party to celebrate his return, the older brother crosses his arms indignantly and asks his dad, "Don't ALL your sons matter?" And of course, they do. The father loves both of his sons, and both of his sons' needs are taken care of--but at the moment, it is the lost-but-now-found son who needs the focus. That's the climax of Jesus' famous story about a lost son, which is the final of three parables about the finding of lost things, collected in Luke 15. And the recurring idea in all them is the same: whether it's leaving behind ninety-nine sheep that are not in danger at the moment to go find one straggler, or searching the house for one coin when there are nine other coins that haven't been lost, or throwing a party for a son who had left everything, God is always specially focused on the ones who are most in trouble. In this latest installment of their series about siblings in the Bible, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now turn to this famous story Jesus tells, and how much Jesus' story draws on the the family stories we looked at earlier, from Abraham's sons, to Jacob and Esau, to the strains in David's family tree. We'll also explore connections in this parable to the voices of protest and concern in our day about how Black lives are regarded, too, and see how Jesus' story speaks to this moment of contemporary history. We'll also discover that if Jesus' story makes us uncomfortable, that is exactly Jesus' design--to push us out of our comfort zones and make us squirm to see things a new way, while at the same time offering us the comfort of knowing we are always welcomed home. Join us for a thought-provoking and grace-filled conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
On Crazy Faith Talk, we have always tried to be honest and real in our conversations, whether it's about our own struggles, quirks, and stories, or with the stories and issues we explore. So as we continue our series looking at biblical brothers and sisters and how their family stories are often difficult and messy, we need to have some honest conversation about the man remembered as Israel's greatest king, David. His own abuse of power and position to forcibly take advantage of Bathsheba, and then his not-so-virtuous attempts to cover up his tracks, show real flaws in this biblical hero, and then the tensions between his children boil over when at least one of his sons uses his position to do the same to another victim, repeating the pattern. As you can imagine, the content of this episode is going to be a little more geared for older ears than most of our conversations, so you may want to make your own decisions about listening to the conversation with young ears in the room (or the car) at the same time, or about choosing if and when to listen. But for those who do join us, we hope you'll find this conversation honest, real, and helpful as we look at the messes our family situations can hold.
As they continue their series on sibing rivalries and reversals in the Bible, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve (and a couple of unexpected comments from a dog in the background) turn to the story of young David--the kid who wasn't even considered an option for the crown by his own family, but whom God chose precisely in his smallness and lowliness. When all the conventional wisdom said to choose a leader based on their appearances and the image of "greatness" they projected, God chose this shepherd boy. And even though the older David would have plenty of troubles and character flaws of his own, David does model the ability to admit when he was wrong, to grieve over his mistakes, and to seek to try to improve. That surprising honesty, humility, and capacity for change makes David different than so many of the power-hungry leaders since David, who would never admit their mistakes, and who used their supposed status as "anointed by God" as way of avoiding criticism. Maybe David's story teaches us, too, that the moment we say that God can't use someone for divine purposes, God rolls up the old divine sleeves and says, "Oh really? Just watch me." Join us for this episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
One of the difficult but necessary lessons of life is that while good can come out of rotten choices or circumstances, we are not off the hook with responsibility for the rotten things we do. Someone can intend to do evil, and yet God can use it for good, as well. In this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the way those tensions play out in the stories of Rachel and Leah, and then in the lives of their children (and the children Jacob has with their maidservants/concubines). And through it all, through tricks and schemes and favoritism and tension, God is able to bring good even out of the roughest circumstances and rawest of raw materials. Maybe there's hope for all of us, and what God can bring out of our complicated lives and messy families.
As they keep looking at stories of sibling rivalries in the Bible, and how God turns the tables on our expectations in those stories, pastors and friends Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the saga of Jacob and Esau, a pair of twins in the book of Genesis, who are constantly fighting and whose story takes some surprising twists. And so does the conversation today, too, since we'll explore this Bible story and what it means for our lives with some unexpected connections to Marvel comic characters, Norse mythology, U2 song lyrics, and the immortal question, "Do newborn babies kind of look like potatoes?" Get ready for a fresh look at an ancient story in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk.
Lots of church-folk know the Bible story of how Abraham and Sarah patiently waited for a child in their old age, and then were blessed with a son, Isaac. But we often forget (or ignore) that the Bible itself tells a more complicated, surprising, and table-turning tale. When Abraham and Sarah doubt that God will come through for them, they take matters into their own hands and Abraham has a son with their Egyptian servant-turned-concubine, Hagar. And then when Sarah has a son of her own, overturning expectations that she is too old, they kick Hagar and her son, Ishmael out... but God provides for this outcast single mother and her boy, even though the great patriarch of the faith, Abraham, rejects them. It seems that just when we think we know who is important, and who doesn't matter, God overturns our expectations and raises up the younger of the older, and then also reserves the right to bless and care for the rejected ones as well as the "chosen" ones. One thing's for sure--in the Bible and in the present day, the living God is always full of surprises. Join us for this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk to explore God's table-turning ways in this set of biblical brothers.
It's been said that the entire Bible is an extended answer to the question Cain first asks near the beginning of Genesis: "Am I my brother's keeper?" In this new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at numerous stories of siblings (usually brothers) in the Bible who have rivalries between one another, and also the recurring way God reverses our expectations when there are struggles between older and younger. In this first episode of the new series, we look at the infamous pairing of Cain and Abel (and often forgotten Seth), and what responsibilities the biblical writers assume we all bear for taking care of one another. Along the way, watch for references to Mark Twain, time-travel thought experiments, and a Russel Crowe movie. Check it out, and join the conversation here on this week's new Crazy Faith Talk!
As they continue their series looking at practicing justice in our lives, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at justice and women today. For a lot of human history, women have been treated as "less than" their male counterparts, or treated like they were defective, or regarded as property of men. And even though there are a lot of ways that has changed over time in many places, there are still ways we implicitly operate as though males were the default way of being human, and that women somehow have to be specially "accommodated" because they are aberrations from "default" humanity. It is so deeply ingrained in us, and pervsasive in so many ways, even if it is often subtle rather than overt, so how do we address the ways women are treated unjustly all around the world, or in our communities still? And what about the ways we talk about God--how have religious folks sometimes caused damage by speaking as though men were more important or closer to God than women, and how might the Scriptures push back on that? Join in the conversation in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," for a glimpse of the kind of listening and speaking that might be a first step.
The old line attributed to Dr. King says that "the most segregated hour in America is still Sunday mornings at eleven o' clock." So even though we might like to wish that "racism isn't my problem" or "racism was solved a long time ago" or "racism doesn't have to do with me, because everyone around me looks the same as I do," we--especially we who claim to be followers of Jesus--can't ignore the ongoing ways that injustice is done along racial lines. So in their ongoing series looking at practicing justice, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve (all of whom belong to church denominations that are overwhelmingly white, in contexts that are overwhelmingly white, too) attempt an honest conversation that includes a brief history of the concept of race (and why it matters that it's an invention), a look at American church history and racial prejudice, challenges in our own settings, and recommendations of resources to continue the conversation. This conversation was recorded before the case of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery became widely publicized in the news, but in light of that event, this conversation seems all the more important to have... and all the more obvious that it is only the very tip of an iceberg many of us don't want to acknowledge is even there.
How does it affect the way we see criminal justice if we are looking at it through the lens of the same Jesus who said, "I was a prisoner, and you visited me," and who was executed by the state as a dangerous troublemaker? What does it mean to see the faces of the incarcerated as bearing both the face of Christ and the image of God?
As they continue to look at practicing justice, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn to what our faith says about criminal justice, and how we sometimes struggle with making that connection. They explore questions of what the purpose of criminal punishment is, what incarceration looked like in the biblical world and later history, and what we might be called to do in our lives and faith today. It's a thought-provoking and engaging conversation, and you're invited to join in!
As they continue to explore what it means to actually "do justice" in our lives today, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at what the communitarian practices of the early church in the book of Acts might say to us today. While their situation was much different from our own, and while there is no commandment in the New Testament that Christians must all share their possessions in common like the Jerusalem church did, there is something powerful about the way they faced troubling times by bearing them together. And as the conversation leads us to both the monastic communities of the Middle Ages and modern-day communitarian farms like Koinonia in the USA, we may see that there are practices worth adopting in our own lives together today that embody the beauty of the economics of grace. Check it out in this week's "Crazy Faith Talk."
As they continuing looking at how to "do" justice (and not just to study Bible verses "about" justice), pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore some of the ways the Torah and other parts of the Old Testament speak to justice in our economics and finances. As they look at concepts like jubilee--with its cancellations of debts, freeing of slaves and indentured servanthood contracts, and restoration of land--and laws about leaving produce in the fields for those without land of their own, they'll explore what it could mean to live by these principles in our lives, today. They'll also consider some of the ways 21st century American culture and life are different from an agrarian society like in ancient Israel, and what that might mean for how we apply principles of debt forgiveness and personal economics, too. We'll also take a look at how our faith might lead us to make different choices with our dollars, too--from buying from small businesses even when it costs a little more, to how we tip servers. The conversation ranges from the big picture to the every day, and we invite you to join us for this round of "Crazy Faith Talk"!
In a new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve start to explore what it looks like to do justice in different parts of our lives. Building off of their earlier series on Biblical voices of what justice looks like, now we turn to how to do justice in our relationships with each other, with different groups of people, with creation, and with our resources. And to start things off, we look at our role in doing justice with the created world, tracing back to the story of the garden at creation and the restored garden of the new creation. In a conversation that ranges from asteroid mining in outer space to buying bulk spaghetti to the poems of Wendell Berry, we'll see big and little ways we are called to care for the world which God made, exactly because of our faith--not in spite of it. Join us for this great new jumping-on point for Crazy Faith Talk!
As we make the journey this week with Christians all over the world in retelling the story of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection, our series on the stations of the cross comes to its end. Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the meaning of Jesus' death and burial, as well as the hope we find in the story of Jesus' resurrection. And while many of us these days feel like we are caught in the middle of a dead season, during days of social isolation and coronavirus fears, we discover, too, that God knows what it is like to wait in the tension of Holy Saturday, too, and so even in the valley of the shadow of death, we are not alone. Join us for this episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
As the Gospel writers tell it, Jesus dies loving others, just as surely as he lived and taught that same love. As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to make their way through the Stations of the Cross, they now turn to events that happen once Jesus has physically been crucified, and how even these moments show remarkable mercy and grace. After being mocked by soldiers, crowds, religious leaders, and even the criminals being put to death beside him, Jesus extends mercy to a criminal at his side. And in his dying breaths, when he is in extreme pain, Jesus then turns his attention to his mother to make sure she is cared for, too, after he has died. Jesus spends his life completely oriented outward for others and for God, just as he had taught people in all of his public ministry, too. As we approach Holy Week next week, join us for this episode of Crazy Faith Talk to explore these powerful moments from the cross, as we reflect on the ways we have been loved by this same Christ.
Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue their Lenten series on the stations of the cross, today looking at the journey Jesus took physically carrying the instrument of his own execution. We'll take a look at what how the Gospel writers use this scene to convey something of what Jesus' death meant and did for us, but also how Jesus was aware of the disaster awaiting his people at the hands of the Romans, too, not long after his crucifixion. Sometimes we forget the sheer number of people crucified by the Romans, or the ways the Empire used this tactic to try to break the spirits of peoples they conquered, and we'll explore in this conversation how all of that plays into the story we know so well. And as unpleasant as these moments from the Gospels might be, we'll explore how the whole Christian faith centers on a God who goes all the way through the worst of things with us--even to death, and how Easter Sunday only has power if it comes first through Good Friday's cross. Join us for this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk".
Looking for a way to stay engaged with your faith while stores are closed, schools are cancelled, and worship services are being suspended? How about a podcast! In this latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue looking at the stations of the cross. Today, we look at Peter's denial of Jesus in the courtyard, the trial of Jesus before Pilate, and the scourging and mocking of Jesus. And as we do, we find ourselves drawn more deeply into the story of God's love for us in Christ. And when other ways of connecting with other Christians might have to be on hold for a while with worldwide precautions against social gathers to prevent spread of COVID-19, an episode of a podcast lets you stay engage your faith, be immersed in the Scriptures, and reflect on the cross of Christ, all while keeping your social distance! What a great way to spend 30 minutes of your day and keep yourself from spreading sickness to neighbors! Check it out, and join us on the stations of the cross here on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In this new series for Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the first three moments in the "stations of the cross" progression, beginning with Jesus' prayer in the garden, and then looking at his betrayal by his disciple Judas Iscariot, and his trial before the Sanhedrin. And instead of rushing through these moments as stories we have all heard before, what if we paused and took a closer look at each of these scenes and consider the questions they raise. What does it mean that Jesus is deeply troubled before his death and prays that he be given a way out of it? What does it mean that, despite his prayer, he is willing to go through with the cross anyway? What's going on when Jesus comes face to face with Judas, knowing exactly what is happening, and lets himself be arrested anyway? And why are the religious leaders so stirred up that they want to fast-track a trial at night on a holiday weekend (the day before Passover) in order to deal with Jesus? Just how provocative were Jesus' words and actions that hinted at destroying the Temple, and how would we hear words like that today if someone made threats against our sacred sites or national monuments? As we take a closer look at these moments, we'll get a better understanding of what Jesus went through for us, and why the story plays out the way it does. Join us for this latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
As they start a new series for the season of Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve start the journey toward the cross looking at a faith practice used across several different Christian traditions, the stations of the cross. Some folks, especially out of the Roman Catholic tradition, may already be quite familiar with these moments from the Passion of Christ, and use them devotionally throughout their lives. And others might find this brand new, curious, or confusing. In this opening episode of the series, the friends around the table will look at the history of this faith practice, the different options for what the stations are (and how we can trace the story from the Gospels as well as using a traditional list of moments or stations), and why it can be helpful for our faith to consider the literal journey of Jesus to the cross. As we begin this series, we invite you to take time in your own life to reflect on the path of Jesus, and on what the cross means for us daily.
After looking at how different biblical writers talk about "justice," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve now find themselves asking, "Where do we go from here?" After all, it's not enough to simply know "facts about justice," but rather to do justice in our actions, choices, and thinking. So in this episode, the trio around the table starts to lay out the kinds of questions we'll need to keep asking about different areas of our lives, individually and in community, and how the biblical perspectives on justice that we've looked at so far give us guidance. This conversation might sound like we are just opening a can of worms, which is exactly right! But sometimes you have to spend time figuring out the right questions to ask before you set out trying to answer them. So join us for this episode of our series on rediscovering justice!
Church folks have a way of getting stuck in technical theological jargon, with terms like "justification," "righteousness," "imputation," and "redemption." No wonder we have a hard time knowing whether it is good news or bad news to talk about "the righteousness of God" or even "God's justice." A lot of folks over the centuries have heard the Bible's talk about "the justice of God" and been afraid, assuming it meant only that God is looking to zap people for infractions against "The Rules." But maybe we've had it upside-down and backwards all along! The apostle Paul talks about the "justice of God" and sees it as good news, because he understood it as God's work to put us back in right relationship and to mend all that is broken in the universe, from our relationship with God to our relationships with each other and to our relationships with all of creation. So in this latest episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve keep looking at what "justice" means throughout the Bible, and how it might be a word of unexpected good news! Check it out here!
As they continue to listen to different voices from the Scriptures for a clearer understanding of justice, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn to stories from the Gospels of Luke and John. In a story Jesus tells about two neighbors, we get a reminder that all of the Scriptures command God's people to care for the neighbor in need at our door. And in a well-known story found in John's Gospel, we get Jesus upending our expectations about meting out punishment. One thing is for sure, though--when we encount Jesus, either in stories or actions, nobody is left the same. Join us for this latest conversation about what justice means for us in this week's "Crazy Faith Talk."
Jesus' teaching about justice doesn't just show up in one passage or one parable--it's everywhere. So in their ongoing series exploring biblical voices that speak of justice, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve keep digging through teachings of Jesus. After having spent time in the Sermon on Mount in their last episode, the three friends around the table look at teachings and stories of Jesus that have to do with how we repair relationships with each other, how we take care of one another's needs and meet Jesus unexpectedly, and why God cares that everybody gets to feed their families. Sometimes Jesus' words challenge us to have uncomfortable conversations with others who have wronged us, and sometimes they make us re-examine what we do with the resources we have in this life. But one thing's for sure, we won't be the same after the encounter with Jesus' words on justice. Join us for this latest episode!
For twenty centuries, people have been challenged by Jesus' teachings about turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, and offering cloaks and shirts to those who take them. They are difficult, both on their face, and seen against the backdrop of the Torah's regulations about retaliation (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth). And they definitely have something to say about the subject of "justice." So what do we do with these and other challenging teachings of Jesus, and how might it help us to understand them from the vantage point of people living under the oppressive reign of a foreign empire, and how Jesus might be both insisting that all people be treated as fully human while also subversively breaking the cycle of violence and revenge? We'll explore these questions and more as we dig into the Sermon on the Mount and what it has to say about justice in this latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
The prophets were, let's face it, troublemakers. They overturned people's expectations. They questioned the official decrees of kings and religious professionals with their own minority reports. And they were willing to question whether God's priorities were the same as what everybody assumed they were. And over and over again, the prophets--voices like Amos, Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah--called out the societies in which they lived when the powers of the day forgot about justice. To the prophets, though, this thing called "justice" was about much more than punishing people for breaking rules--it was about setting right whole societies that had become rotten with disregard for those who were most vulnerable. That meant that even when the markets were reaching new record highs and life seemed stable and comfortable (at least for some), the prophets still called for something more, something deeper, and something better. Voices like those are often ignored or silenced, but they remind us that God's understanding of justice is deeper and richer than simply retaliating aginst rule-breaking. In this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn up the volume on some of those voices, to help listen to what the prophets of ancient Israel and Judah have to say about the meaning of "justice" in our ongoing series to rediscover what justice is really all about. Check it out here!
In their new series on how different biblical voices talk about the notion of "justice," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look to the first five books of the Bible, often called the Torah, the Law, or the Pentateuch. And even though these books sometimes get a reputation for requiring brutal and bloody retaliation, we'll see that the picture is actually a lot richer and deeper than that first impression. We'll see how the biblical concept of "an eye for an eye" was actually meant to limit revenge and to stop cycles of violence, how the Law also created safe spaces called "cities of refuge" that offered sanctuary for people who had caused the deaths of others, and how justice in the Torah also included economic provisions like jubilee, which cancelled debts, freed debt-slaves, and redistributed land to its ancestral owners, all in order to prevent anyone from being permanently impoverished. Join us for the conversation and some eye-opening insights on this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
Justice. It's one of those words that everybody throws around, but perhaps only rarely do we think about what we actually mean. TV shows and pop culture use the word "justice" as a shorthand for getting even, getting revenge, or sending "bad guys" to jail. But the chorus of voices in the Bible means something more when they say things like, "Let justice roll down like waters..."
Maybe it's less about getting a required pound of flesh and more about restoring relationships that are out of balance--whether it's criminal acts of one person against another, or the ways we use and share our resources, or the ways we relate to the rest of creation. Maybe in the end, justice is about more than punishment, but includes restoration, renewal, and healing of what is broken--both between us and within us.
So in this new series, starting here with an overview conversation, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve begin to look at the many ways people talk about "justice" and begin to stick our toes in the water before a deep biblical dive into the concept of justice, and how it has a lot in common with the way a body heals, the way hearbreaks are mended, and maybe even the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi to repair cracks in pottery with gold-infused lacquer. Join us for what will surely be a thought-provoking series looking at a major theme of the Scriptures and of the Christian faith.
After spending our last conversation telling stories around the well-known Christmas carol "Silent Night," in this new episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve each take a look at three other carols with some surprising twists--one with an unexpected name change, one written just in the last generation, and one that has been floating around for seventeen centuries! Together we'll explore how we need the different voices of different eras to bring the news of Christ's coming to light. Join us for this conversation in our latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" for the eighth day of Christmas (which also happens to be New Year's Eve). And merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! This week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" tells some stories around the much-beloved Christmas carol, "Silent Night," including the story of the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago, the story of the writing of the song itself two hundred years ago in an unexpected situation, and the truly remarkable story of the way "Silent Night" created a peace in the trenches of World War I between two warring armies for a day. Look at how the story of Jesus' birth makes peace possible even in the most unexpected places. And a merry, blessed Christmas to you and yours!
Once again around the table, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a closer look at some of their favorite songs of the season--the Advent season in which we look not only to Christ's coming at Christmas, but also of Christ's promised coming in glory to make all things new. Today we'll be looking at a new hymn to many English speakers, but one that is rich with imagery of new creation and of God's path in the wilderness to bring us home, "Toda la tierra," and we'll learn that "hoping" and "waiting" are the same idea in some languages. We'll also get a fresh look at the well-loved song, "Joy to the World," which wasn't originally written about Christmas and the manger, but about Christ's coming again, with inspiration from the psalms. Sometimes a new song song opens up insights we had never thought of before, and sometimes an old song heard in a new way can do the same. We hope you'll join in the conversation on this episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
It's hard enough sometimes to remember that Jesus, and not Santa, is the center of Christmas. But sometimes church folk stop there and say, "Christmas is about Jesus," without saying just why it is good news that Christ is born, or who this Jesus person is. And one of the ways the church has answered thsoe questions over time is to write songs about Christ and his long-awaited coming. So in the weeks before the celebration of Christmas, Christian communities often sing hymns and songs that dig deeper into the questions, "Just who is this Jesus, really?" and "Why is it good news that he has come?" Today on Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at two of those songs, one from just the last couple of centuries, and one that goes back much further, to explore the rich layers of meaning of who Christ is and why his coming matters. It's a reminder that the baby in the manger isn't the END of the story--that's really just when things are getting STARTED! Join us for more faithful conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
While the "Holiday Station" playing on your radio dial and coming through the speakers at every department store blares out the latest remake of "Santa Baby," or "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire," the church keeps time differently, singing a surprising collection of ancient and modern songs of hope. Instead of rushing to be "Christmas-y" right away, the church marks off four weeks before celebrating the birth of Jesus to observe the season of Advent, which is as much about hope for the hopeless and homecoming from exile as it is about the promised baby in the manger. In this new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at some of their favorite Advent songs and hymns, what they mean, how they shape our faith, and why we might to choose to sing them even when they seem strange or ancient... and when they don't have any sleigh bells, either. Join us for this series running through the weeks of December as we look at this surprising season of hope for Christ's coming!
God is first introduced in the Scriptures as an artist, a designer, or a craftsman--creating the world and celebrating its beauty and goodness. And then, in the very next thought, human beings are created "in the image of God," with some capacity of our own to create, to appreciate beauty, and to practice arts of our own. That capacity for creativity isn't reserved just for "professionals," "master artists," or "experts," but is fundamentally human, which means that there is something intrisically human about the intersection of spiritualtiy and creativity. And it's for everybody, even if we all find different outlets. In this special episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at different ways to explore contemplative prayer and creativity, and the many different trains of thought that may lead to. We'll look at what happens to our hearts and minds when our hands are busy with a project, as well as the value of creating something even if it won't last forever, and the ways that making something for someone else takes on added beauty when we pray for those who will receive them. There are endless possibilities, and we'll trace as many as we can in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
In this concluding episode of our series looking at the different kinds of literature we find in the Bible, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a kind of literature often called "apocalyptic" writing. It includes the book of Revelation, parts of Daniel, and sections of the Gospels as well, and it's the kind of literature that often uses coded language that would have been clearly understood by it first readers, but which can be confusing to us twenty centuries later. Apocalyptic literature is ususally resistance literature, written by people who were under the boot of one empire or another, and it provided a way of hoping for God's victory over wicked empires for people who were powerless and threatened, while using coded imagery to avoid directly confronting those who were in power. And as we take a look at the book of Revelation in particular, we'll see that it's partly about events in the first century, partly about the future, and partly a musical! Join us for this episode of Crazy Faith Talk where we attempt to help make sense of a complicated kind of literature and a sometimes daunting book of the Bible, so that we can hear hope in the midst of it!
Reading someone else's mail is like listening to one half of a phone conversation: you might be able to guess at what is being said on the other side, but you have to tease it out. Reading the letters and epistles of the New Testament can feel like that sometimes: we hear someone like the apostle Paul giving counsel or directions for specific situations that his readers have asked him about, or he has to answer a particular question they have written to him about, and we have to infer from what he says what was going on. It makes reading the Bible something like solving a mystery... but maybe that's not a bad way of thinking about it. We are invited into an ongoing conversation when we read the epistles, whether it's the extended argumentation of Romans, the rabbinical midrash of Hebrews, or the personal appeals of the letter to Philemon. So join us for the conversation this time as pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the epistles in the New Testament, in this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
Part biographes, part movie directors, and part street evangelists, the writers of the four Gospels in the New Testament were doing something unique when they compiled the stories, sayings, and signs of Jesus of Nazareth. They were, for starters, certainly recording the oral traditions that had been circulating by word of mouth by the earliest followers of Jesus, but they were also making choices about where the story moved, what was important enough to include, what scenes and vignettes did or didn't make the cut, and how to lead their readers to interpet and understand who Jesus is. Sometimes Christians don't spend the time paying attention to the subtle nuances or different emphases that the writers we traditionally call "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," and "John," bring to their storytelling, but there are important things to learn by exploring them. So in this episode of their ongoing conversation about the different kinds of literature you'll find in the Bible, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the Gospels, their likely audiences, the different emphases each brings, and how it might help to think of the evangelists as movie directors.
They were less soothsayers and more truth-tellers. The prophets of Israel and Judah were willing to speak a minority report over against popular opinion, the decrees of the market, and the official position of the palace. And they keep speaking to us. In this latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue looking at the different kinds of literature in the Bible, and today they look at the prophets. Even though we regard them today as authoritative and inspired voices of the Scriptures, in their own times, the prophets were regularly ridiculed, ignored, doubted, or just plain silenced, especially when they spoke truth to the powers of the day. Reading them today often means understanding the current issues of their times in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and yet they speak powerfully and timelessly today to us in their call on God's behalf for justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Join the conversation today!
Wherever you find yourself on any given day, and whatever is going on in your heart, the biblical book of Psalms offers the spoken and sung prayers of those who have gone before us that we can borrow and make our own. The Psalms are indeed, part of the same Bible that Christians talk about as "God's Word for us," and yet at the same time, they are our words to God, too. And in times of great joy and deep heartache, in personal crisis or national emergency, in moments of fiery rage or aching despair, these prayers and poems continue to speak to us. As pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to look at the different kinds of literature found in the Bible, today's conversation takes a look at the psalms, how we can use the words of others to express our own hearts, and how we deal with the times when the answers don't come the way we wanted, or when we feel so angry and hurt that we pray for terrible things to happen to others, or when we don't even know what to ask for. Join us for this conversation, so that you can have more honest and authentic conversations with God in your own life, in this week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
The thing is... life is messy. Sometimes it fits nicely into predictable patterns, like "Work hard in summer, and you'll have enough to live on come winter," or "Don't get too big for your britches and puffed up with pride, or somewhere along the way it could blow up in your face." In times like those, we can use the collected conventional wisdom to learn the lessons of those who have gone before us. The biblical book of Proverbs is great for giving those pithy, memorable generalizations for how life often works. It's almost like the ancient world's version of Twitter: short, sweet, and able to get one major point across. But on the other hand, someties life doesn't fit those cookie cutter patterns, and we are left wondering, "What are we supposed to make of this?" What about when you chase after wealth or success or power or fame or sex or knowledge... and it still turns out that life feels empty? Or what about when you do everything right and still suffer a terrible loss--where is God then, and how do we keep putting one foot in front of the other each day? The library of voices we call the Bible also has books that speak to this side of life, too. We find the more nuanced, complex conversation about life when things don't fit the cookie cutter pattern in books like Ecclesiastes and Job. And we get a really curious entry in the entirely non-religious and surprisigly intimate romance poetry of the book of Song of Songs. As pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve continue looking at different biblical genres, join us for today's conversation about the multiple voices we get of wisdom, and of how to live the "good life" both when things are clear and simple and when they are messy and complicated.
Conventional wisdom says that the "great" leaders are the ones who expan the size of their nations' territory, increase their wealth, or help the markets climb to record heights. But the voices in the histories of the Hebrew Scriptures (like the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, and Esther) see things differently. They offer a minority report: that true "greatness" has less to do with military might but with covenant and character, and that it doesn't matter if markets are booming when it comes at the cost of justice and mercy. These books in the Old Testament remind us that even the recording of historical events comes with a perspective. And it can be surprising to discover that even in the Bible itself there are multiple perspectives on events, rulers, and the times in which they lived. Through it all, we meet a God who is surprisingly vulnerable, relentlessly faithful, and at the same time deeply committed to creating a people who life differently from the nations around them because of their commitment to justice, to mercy, to faithfulness, and to love of neighbor. As pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve continue looking at biblical genres in this series, join them for this conversation about the stories we tell about our past, and how those stories shape our path into the future.
It's convenient to have all the sixty-plus books of the Old and New Testaments in one set of faux-leather covers, but we can sometimes forget that the Bible is really a collection of books in different styles, genres, and settings, written by men and women from different cultures, languages, social situations, and nationalities. And just like we would know the difference between how to read a murder mystery and how to read a cookbook, it's wise to know the difference between laws for managing your agrarian society and poetry about the meaning of life--and you'll find both in the Bible! So in this new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the different kinds of literature (genres) in the Bible, and they start with the first five books, often called the Pentateuch, the Torah, or sometimes the Books of Moses or the Law. And along the way, we'll talk about superhero origin stories, ancient Greek myths, and times when the Bible is a musical! Join us for the beginning of a new round of conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In this final episode of our series exploring the lives of interesting people from church history, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the life and ideas of Henri Nouwen, the priest and spiritual writer who brought the perspectives of pastoral ministry, psychology, spirituality, and social justice together in his writing and teaching, and whose work with intellectually and developmentally disabilities at L'Arche Daybreak Community in Ontario gave him a sense of the holiness of loving the neighbor right in front of you. Nouwen was a prolific writer, insightful thinker, and firm believer in the unconditional love of God, and his wisdom is worth exploring. So join us in this episode of Crazy Faith Talk as we learn about being wounded healers from this voice of faith!
As they continue to explore stories from the "church family tree," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore three women of the 19th and 20th centuries who were involved in translating and interpreting the Scriptures. For one, when her preacher's end-times prediction didn't come true, she decided to learn the original Biblical langauges so she could study the truth for herself. For another, it was important to see how the seemingly different accounts in different bibilcal books could be reconciled and pieced together. And for a third, there was the important question of who gets to decide what a passage "means," and who hasn't been allowed a place at the table to reach that decision. Of course, these questions haven't gone away, and as we look at these stories from an earlier era, we get insights for how each of us reads the Scriptures today--and how we figure out what to do when we each read the same verse and come to different conclusions about what it means. So join us for another round of conversation (with a couple of shout-outs to figures ranging from N.T. Wright to the Rolling Stones along the way) here on Crazy Faith Talk!
As the keep rummaging through the old church family photo album, so to speak, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at an early church teacher who is a complicated figure. Tertullian is celebrated for being a brilliant mind who was the first major Christian figure to write in Latin, rather than Greek, wrote several works presenting the Christian faith to a hostile empire, and was responsible for essential ideas to "orthodox" Christian teaching as "the Trinity." He was passionate about the church's witness through suffering rather than violence (and wrote that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" as well as that "when Jesus told Peter to put his sword away he disarmed all Christians forever"), and he reveled in the idea that the Christian message of a God on the cross rising from the dead sounded impossible--that's how you know it's true, Tertullian said! On the other hand, Tertullian ended up becoming associated with a splinter group called the Montanists and ended up being deliberately swept under the rug by later church memory for being tangled up in a group that seemed like a cult. How can we remember that both are a part of this one person's legacy, and learn from all of it? That's the challenge in today's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk"--join the conversation!
As they continue looking at "family stories" from the last twenty centuries of Christian history, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the life stories, writings, and spiritual experiences of three women of the medieval era who had mystical visions or other experiences of God. As we tell the stories of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Siena, we'll be invited to consider the role of those voices who sincerely believed they had one on one conversations with Jesus, or transcendent revelations of God, or unexplainable experiences of the Spirit. And even if we are not quite sure what to make of those experiences with mysticism, we will find that their faith and insight are compelling witnesses for us, leaving us with wisdom like: "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be made well," (Julian of Norwich); or "Christ has no body on earth now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours..." (Teresa of Avila); or "All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said I am the way." Let's join on the mystical path in this episode of "Crazy Faith Talk.
The famous quip notes that while Astaire and Rogers were both known as great dancers, Ginger Rogers not only did everything that Fred Astaire did, but had to do it backwards and in high heels, too. It was true in church history, too. As the 16th century church underwent what is now known as the Protestant Reformation, there were not only the well-known figures like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley who led movements for change within the church, but there were also several notable women who often made similar arguments about Scripture, church authority, and theology--and also made the case that their voices were worth hearing as women, too. In this episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore the stories of two such women, Marie Dentiere and Katharina Schutz Zell, who led movements, preached on street corners, published writings, and worked for change in the church of their day and settings. They knew their Scriptures, and they brought the receipts to back up their arguments. And their stories are worth investigating, both to learn about lesser-told stories from the two millennia of Christian history, but also to consider their example for followers of Jesus in the 21st century, too. Join us for this conversation on "Crazy Faith Talk"!
As they continue looking at different branches of the Christian family tree and the lives of older sisters and brothers in the faith, pastors Erica and Steve take a look at the example of Francis of Assisi. And even though they both come from Protestant traditions as a Methodist and a Lutheran, they discover we have a lot to learn from Francis, even though he is usually most strongly associated with Roman Catholic practice and piety. Espeically in a culture in which everything is treated as a product for mass consumption and excess is treated to be a sign of success, Francis' intentional simplicity, humility, and concern for those who are in need are a powerful--and countercultural--example. What might it look like for us and our daily lives to take the example of Francis seriously, without necessarily joining a monastery? And is it possible that the life of intentional simplicity isn't "settling" for something less in order to earn a cushy afterlife, or might Francis (and Jesus) be telling us that the simple life is actually the fuller life? Join in this conversation looking at another branch from the Christian family tree here on Crazy Faith Talk!
Pastors Erica and Steve are gathered around the table again for conversations from different branches of our church family tree. And today we look a bit into the story and setting of Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer from whom the tradition called "Lutheranism" takes its name. In a time when the "official decrees" of the institutional church didn't seem to mesh with what a young Bible scholar named Martin was reading in the Scriptures themselves, a movement began that sought to peel back layers of accumulated "tradition" and "doctrinal system" to get to the living voice of the Gospel in the Scriptures. Luther not only started to question the authority of the Church's hierarchy, but he questioned himself, too--what could he do with the fact that he was a mess-up, and that when he confessed his sins or tried to start over again, he still doubted whether he had been sincere enough or complete enough in his confessions, or whether there was still something rotten inside himself struggling to live a new life. Those doubts drove Luther to look away from the assumed authority of "the Church" and away from relying on his own goodness or accomplishments, and instead drove him to see the Good News that the Scriptures had been declaring all along: the Gospel isn't about what WE do, but about what God has done for us as a gift in Christ--and even our ability to receive the gift of grace through faith turns out to be a gift as well. This week's episode of "Crazy Faith Talk" explores the background and story of Martin Luther and the movement that took his name.
In a new series, pastors Erica and Steve (holding the fort until their third voice around the table, Sarah, can rejoin them) start telling some family stories from different branches of the Christian family tree. If you've been to a family reunion before, you know what it's like to see some familiar faces, some folks you don't really know, and maybe even some total strangers, and then you get to discover how you are all connected to each other, and how each of you lives out your idenity in the family in different ways. Today, Erica shares some "family stories" from figures in her branch of the Christian family tree as an American United Methodist. As she tells stories about the Wesley brothers and family, and several important American leaders in what became known as Methodism, we get into the ongoing challenge of how to live out our faith daily when it is easy to just compartmentalize our Christianity to an hour or so on Sunday mornings. This series is a chance to dabble in some church history, to explore different traditions within the Christian faith, and to break out the old church family photo album and learn about some older siblings in the faith!
What does it feel like, when you are used to being on the "inside", to find the roles reverse and to be dependent on someone else accepting you? What is it like when you are the one who speaks the wrong language, didn't dress correctly, showed up without an invitation or a friend on the "inside", and doesn't fit in? In this series of conversations, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve have been sharing stories about "the time when..." something unexpected happened that connected to their faith lives. And today, Steve shares about the time he found himself the uninvited guest of a wedding, and suddenly having the usual roles of "insider" and "outsider" reversed. Sometimes, across all sorts of boundaries and in spite of all sorts of reasons why someone "shouldn't" be welcomed, there is still the clear voice of Christ that says, "La paz a usted--peace be with you." Join us for this thought-provoking conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk.
As they continue sharing stories about unexpected moments in ministry, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve talk about an experience Sarah had in her ministry education, during a year of internship in the far northern reaches of British Columbia where there were honest-to-goodness real wolves as a part of daily life and ministry. Along the way, their conversation delves into the importance of a sense of "place" where we live and serve, our identity as congregations, and the awareness of living in a creation that is bigger than just human civilization. Join us for another conversation centered around true stories of unexpected adventures on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
In this new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take turns telling real life stories where they found God in unexpected places. While the Bible is full of moments where the heavens part or angels show up to announce God's presence, and while many church folk assume God only shows up in "religious-looking" places or moments, the living God has a way of surprising us by using the moments and situations that don't seem very "religious" at all. In today's episode, Erica tells the story of how she was ALMOST a Roller Derby Chaplain... and what she learned about God there. Join us for the conversation!
In this final episode of a series looking at pop culture and faith, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take another look at an example from the "dark side"--where we can learn from negative examples to keep ourselves honest. And in this episode, Steve unpacks the premise of the novel-turned-TV-series, American Gods, in which ancient mythologies like Thor and Odin fight for survival along modern "gods" like Technology, Money, and the the World. And focusing in on one particular episode of the TV series, they explore how each of us, as individuals and groups, tends to make up our own image of Jesus, even to the point of having conflicting "Jesuses." What do we do when my mental picture of Jesus never challenges me but only reinforces the hatreds and fears I have, or likes the things I like? Does Jesus transcend the lines we draw between "us" and "them," and how do we spot him? And how do we tell what in our mental pictures of Jesus is authentic, and what we have made into an idol? Join us for opening this can of worms in our latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
As they continue using pop culture as a mirror to check our own blind spots, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at the character of Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (in particular, the Disney cartoon adaptation of the Victor Hugo original). The way Frollo deals with his own struggles by lashing out at the Romani people (or as they are called by Frollo in the movie, "gypsies") and making them into a dangerous "other" has powerful parallels for how we continue to look for scapegoats rather than dealing with our own issues and problems. That becomes even more dangerous when we add in the weight and authority of religion into the mix. How do we deal with our own struggles and shortcomings honestly? How do we learn to "sin well" rather than covering things up or making them worse? And how might we learn not to rationalize our demonizing of other people, whether in a 19th century novel or 21st century American life? Join the conversation in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk.
Pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are back indulging their pop-culture sensibilities with a new question: Where do movies, books, or TV shows show us negative examples of faith that we can learn from? Sometimes our own blind spots keep us from seeing ways that we as church folk can be hypocritical, misguided, or un-Christ-like, and we need someone with a different perspective to help us see what we wouldn't have recognized about ourselves on our own. And much like Jesus often used stories and parables to get the religious hypocrities of his day to see the ways they had strayed from God's vision of justice and mercy, we need stories that can get under our skin and force us to see things from a different angle sometimes. So in today's episode, Pastor Sarah takes us through an early 2000s movie, "Saved!" to look at how Christianity can sometimes become a caricature of itself, and how each of our faith journeys can grow over time to a new kind of maturity, humility, and depth. Join us for the conversation on this week's new episode of "Crazy Faith Talk"!
Most of the time, we don't have the chance for live conversation with listeners during an episode, but in today's "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Erica, Steve, and Sarah took their show on the road to the annual Synod Assembly for the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. Recorded with additional friends in the room joining the conversation with topics they were interested in, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve shared these off-the-cuff impromptu reflections on questions that came up on the spot. Today's episode was recorded on Friday, June 14, and we are thankful for the brave folks who came up to the microphone to share questions and prompt conversation!
In a movie famous for great lines like, "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," and "Here's looking at you, kid," there's actually a powerful image of singing a hopeful song in exile. It's the classic movie Casablanca, and in our latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk," pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve again explore how pieces of pop culture become windows for our faith life. After pastors Erica and Sarah took turns talking about several novels in previous episodes, Steve now takes a look at a scene from Casablanca, and how the people of God live in resistance to the powers of the day, not with violence or hatred, but by singing a different song--a song of home and of hope, much like the songs of praise in Revelation sung over against the Empire. We'll also see how this idea of singing hopefully in the face of hatred and oppression offers connecting points to biblical stories like Paul and Silas in prison; Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; and the faithful exiles living in Babylon; we'll also see connections to the lives of figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr., too. Join us for another conversation in our "Faith Lessons from Pop Culture" series, and see where it takes you! And in the words of Humphrey Bogart, "Here's looking at you, kid."
As they continue looking at how pop culture speaks to faith, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue taking turns sharing pieces of books, movies, and other pop culture that have connected with their faith. In today's episode, Erica shares her reflections on the 2003 novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and looks at the lasting ripple effects of guilt and shame, and how our actions have consequences that reach into the lives of others all around us, even far beyond our awareness. We will also discover how a work of fiction written and set half a world away (in Afghanistan), by an author from a different faith, can speak to us where we are. Join us for this ongoing series about the intersection of pop culture and faith!
In a new series, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve are taking a look at intersection points between our lived faith and pop culture. As we take a look at favorite books, movies, and more, we'll explore what we have learned about our life of faith from authors, moviemakers, and other creators who might not have intended their word as spiritual commentaries, but still have much to teach us. In this first episode of the new Pop Culture and Faith series, Pastor Sarah shares a character arc and learns from Terry Pratchett's A Hat Full of Sky, which is a novel in the Tiffany Aching series within the DiscWorld story universe. What she has to share about faith, ministry, and loving other people is beautifully relevant to our daily lives, even though it comes from a story about people who live on a flat world held up by giant cosmic turtles! See more of what we can learn in this new episode and new series on Crazy Faith Talk!
T.S. Eliot wrote, "The end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time." The Story of the Scriptures is like that. As they conclude their series on "New Creation," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have worked their way back to the first book of the Bible, to scenes of new creation after the flood to the different angles of creation we get in Genesis 1 and 2. See what it means to say that God "hangs up the bow," and how different the Hebrew storytelling about creation was from the violent myths of gods and monsters in other ancient near Eastern cultures, and what that means for how we see the world and our place in it now. Join us for this final episode in our New Creation series
As they work backwards through the Bible--taking the end of the story first--pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at the image of new creation as it keeps coming back in different biblical books and gets used in different ways by different authors. In this latest episode, they look at the way the book of Isaiah imagines this new creation with many different powerful images--a new heaven and earth, a feast for all nations, and a day where swords are beaten into plowshares. What does it mean to live in light of this kind of hope? What difference will that make in how we live our daily lives now, especially in a culture that still takes it for granted that it's a dog-eat-dog-world? Join in the conversation in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
The old Fleetwood Mac puts it honestly, "I've been afraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you." We tend to hear talk about change and get scared--we are used to the familiar, and it is always tempting to picture "the good old days" in some hazy distant past as the times when things used to be "great." But the writers of the New Testament turn our attention, not backward to some imagined past, but forward to a promised future, and they insist it will mean change, but not change we are meant to be afraid of. The hope of resurrection is like that--somehow, the Scriptures promise us, we will be the same, and God holds onto the you-ness of you, and the me-ness of me; and yet, we will be changed, so that we are not subject to the power of death. In today's episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore a central passage in the New Testament from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians to explore this idea of resurrection, change, continuity, and hope, as they continue their series this Eastertide on new creation.
In their new series on the Scriptural theme of "new creation," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at two New Testament passages that remind us that the new creation isn't just "out there" in the world, but that we ourselves need to be made into new creations "in here" inside each of us. And beyond that, the early Christian community saw that part of God's "new thing" was creating a new kind of people who weren't bound by language, custom, culture, or history, and a community in which there were no longer to be privileges and prejudices along the lines of gender, class, or ethnicity. But that has been a challenge actually living out for the past 2,000 years--in fact, we've never done a very good job at really living up to that idea of "new creation" in which male and female, Jew and Greek, free and slave, were all treated with equal value and dignity. So join us for a new conversation in which we explore the Scriptures and also look at how each of us bring our own blind-spots that make it hard to see where we are in need of our own renewal. That's this week, here on Crazy Faith Talk!
In a brand new series for this Easter season, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at a theme that recurs throughout the Scriptures: the idea of God making a new creation. Starting at the end first, our conversation takes us to the end of the last book of the Bible to find, not a scary image of monsters or disasters, but a hopeful vision of a new creation where God is at home with a diverse gathering of peoples. So, for readers today, what does this image of a new heaven and a new earth mean for our day to day lives? What does it say about where our allegiance goes in this life? What does it mean for how we care for the world in which we live? And how do we find ourselves at home wherever life takes us? Join us for the first part of a new series as we look at the hopeful vision of a new creation, here on Crazy Faith Talk.
Sometimes, our talk about the cross can sound like the resurrection of Jesus is an afterthought, or almost unnecessary. When folks talk about the cross like it is Jesus paying a debt for our sins, it can sound like it doesn't make a difference whether Jesus rises from the dead or not. And when people talk about the cross as a moral example of what love looks like, you still don't need Easter for that to work. And yet, the New Testament writers really think that the resurrection of Jesus is vital--essential!--to the Good News. So in our concluding episode for this Lent, pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve ask the question, "What does the cross mean if we start from the resurrection?" Join us for this conversation as we dig into big questions of faith and life.
Somewhere along the way in human history, our ancestors got the idea that whatever being or beings were beyond them (a single God, gods, or goddesses) must require sacrifices to be appeased--to feed hungry deities, to guarantee rains and good harvests, to promote fertility, or to avert their anger. Ancient Israel had a system of prescribed sacrifices in its ritual and worship life, as well as a complicated and layered history full of stories of sacrifice (and almost-sacrifice), and yet the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures never talk about the divine being "hungry" or needing sacrifices to be powered by the people's ritual. So when New Testament writers pick up on the imagery of Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," they are NOT saying that a bloodthirsty Father needs to be "fed" by the sacrifice of a Son on the cross. In a sense, the New Testament deconstructs all of that magical thinking. But then... what does it mean to talk about Jesus' death on the cross being like the sacrificed lambs of the Day of Atonement, the Passover, or the day to day "sin offerings" of the Bible? Pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve pick up the many layers of this conversation as they continue their series for this Lent about what happened at the cross, and how we think about it. Join us for today's conversation!
As they continue asking the Big Question, "Wait--what actually happened at the cross?" pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at a passage from the New Testament that many believe is a fragment of an even earlier Christian hymn or song, the so-called "Christ hymn" of Philippians 2. And instead of fitting neatly into later-developed boxes and categories that theologians call "atonement theories," the imagery of the God who self-empties and endures "even death on a cross" offers new pictures, and new ways of thinking about what the cross is all about. In a culture like ours that so often shouts about putting "Me and My Group First," the notion of a God who put others first, and who teaches us to put others' needs before our own is a downright radical one. We'll talk about how this passage speaks today, what it meant for the first followers of Jesus, and what surprises it holds for us today, in this latest episode of Crazy Faith Talk. Check it out here!
Jesus teaches his followers how to love in his own actions, words, and even his death--so that we, too, will be people known by our love. Fair enough--that seems like pretty solid, basic Christianity. But it also opens up a can of worms, too, when it comes to the cross of Jesus. Do we have to DIE to be really, fully following Jesus' example? And is all I need just a moral example to follow, like the old children's characters Goofus and Gallant, so I'll know I should be good? What if don't improve my behavior--did the cross of Jesus do nothing for me? Is "not sinning" something I can just make myself do by yelling at myself, "Stop it!"? Or what if, like a certain thief on the cross next to Jesus, I don't even have the time or chance to show any moral improvement in my life? Is the thing Christians call "salvation" something I have to "earn" back with the rest of my life doing sufficient good? And if I die with demerits or red marks on my permanent record, will I have to go somewhere else to get them processed or purged out of me before I can go to heaven? It turns out that just saying Jesus' death is an example of supreme love for us to follow raises as many questions as it thinks its addresses. So join pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve for the next conversation in our ongoing series looking at what happened at the cross.
"Jesus died for us," says the New Testament. And once we ask, "What exactly did that DO?" we are doing the work of atonement theology. And the Scriptures are full of various ways of talking about it. In their ongoing series for this Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve have been looking at some of those descriptions. Having already looked at the Bible's talk of Jesus' death and resurrection as a "victory" in a battle over sin, death, and evil, they now turn to another well-known picture, that for many folks is their default assumption: the idea that Jesus' death paid a debt for humanity or took our punishment, in order to satisfy the debt owed to God or God's sense of justice. But... even that picture raises more questions, like: "If God is just going to forgive us, why does someone need to die?" and "If it's OUR sin that needs punishing, why does it count as justice for someone else to die for it?" and "Is God just demanding a pound of flesh as punishment, and if Jesus takes my punishment, can I just be a jerk to everyone?" It turns out that the penal substitution theory for the atonement raises at least as many questions as it answers, and that there are limits to this analogy just as there were to the Christus Victor analogy we looked at last time. Join us for an engaging conversation that includes conversation partners ranging from John Calvin to Harry Potter, and from Anselm in the 11th century to the young adult novel, "The Whipping Boy."
As they continue exploring the question, "What happened at the cross?" pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve look at an ancient way of understanding the atonment--as a cosmic victory over the powers of evil, sin, and death. This model, often called "Christus Victor" ("Christ, the Victor," for non-Latin speakers), draws on biblical passages that depict the cross as God's great triumph in which Jesus defeats the powers that defy God, not by killing his enemies on a battlefield, but by dying at their hands, being swallowed by death, and breaking its power from the inside. Our conversation looks at biblical roots of this way of thinking about Jesus' death, some of the ways it has been developed over the centuries in modern theology, its limits, its strengths, and the ways it reminds us that we are subject to powers that are bigger than ourselves, whether we want to admit it or not. Join us for this week's latest episode in our series for Lent that looks at many sides of the meaning of the cross.
In a new series for the season of Lent, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the question, "What happened at the cross?" From the earliest days of the New Testament community, Christians have made the claim that Jesus' death was somehow not just significant, but unique. Somehow something happened at the cross of Jesus of Nazareth that is different from all the countless others executed by the Roman Empire, or even every other death in human history. But... why? What's it all about? As it turns out, the Scriptures themselves use a LOT of different ways of talking about what Jesus' death "means," what it "did," and what "happened" at the cross. The Bible talks about the cross like it is a victory over the powers of evil, the payment or cancellation of an infinite debt, the punishment of an innocent sacrificial victim, and an example of what love looks like. And all of those are helpful pictures. The way (or ways) we talk about what the cross means is what theologians call your "theory of atonement." And for all of that technical-souding jargon, the core question really comes down to asking, "What do we think Jesus' death DID?" This whole season of Lent, we'll take a look at different ways that the Scriptures and centuries of Christian theology have talked about the death of Jesus and its meaning, and in today's episode, we'll take an overview of where we're headed in this series. Join us as we journey to the cross of Jesus together.
In the last episode of their series on Hard Sayings of the New Testament, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a verse from late in the New Testament, in one of the letters to Timothy. In addition to looking a little bit at the open question of authorship, and whether we have Paul the Apostle writing, or a later teacher writing in Paul's name, the trio looks at what might, or might not, be at issue when a passage talks about women "being saved through childbirth." How do we wrestle with passages that seem to be in contradiction to other passages, and how do we use the whole arc of Scripture, the character of Jesus, and the "loudness" of the chorus of voices to decide how to sift through complicated passages? And how do we deal with passages that are obscure or confusing, without getting hung up on them, or just cutting books out of our Bibles that we don't like? Join us for this final episode in our Hard Sayings of the New Testament series!
As they continue digging into some of the "hard sayings" of Paul's writings in the New Testament, pastors and colleagues in ministry Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at a passage that is challenging because it can seem very hard to relate to in the 21st century. Early Christians across the Roman Empire often only had access to meat that came from markets connected with pagan shrines and sacrifices to other gods, or even to Caesar, and they wrestled with whether it was permissible to eat that meat, or whether that was the same as worshipping other gods (or the emperor). Paul not only gives his answer to the question, but frames it in a way that is bigger than just "Who is right and who is wrong?" to be about how we love one another. Paul gives Christians an alternative to our culture's way of shouting and arguing about who is right, and then storming off if we lose the fight. Paul instead sees the Christian community anchored entirely in love, which doesn't insist on getting its own way, and can bear with differences rather than demand its own preferences. And in a culture like ours that is often torn and divided into parties, factions, and sides, this old hot-button issue from the first century can be a surprisingly helpful model for how we deal with disagreement as Christians today.
It turns out that just having someone shout rules at you doesn't make you better at following rules. At best, it just highlights all the ways we mess up at rule-following. Interestingly enough, the early Christian writer and apostle Paul said something similar about God's commandments: just having more commandments posted in more places won't make us better behaved people, but the Law shows us our need of a grace that is always beyond our deserving. Join pastors and friends in ministry Sarah, Erica, and Steve for another conversation digging into some of the more complicated and confusing sayings of Paul in their "Hard Sayings" series, in a conversation that runs everywhere from ancient theology to classic TV commercials to the climactic ending of "When Harry Met Sally" and back again, in this latest episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
As they continue looking at some of the most challenging sayings and passages in the New Testament, pastors and friends in ministry Sarah, Erica, and Steve turn to some of the "hard sayings" of Paul from the New Testament. Paul's letters are tricky as a whole because they are basically "other people's mail" that we are reading two thousand years later in communities and in a world that are very different from Paul's world, and sometimes we can only tease out what Paul and his readers were talking about. And then on top of that, sometimes the specific words and ideas of Paul are tricky on their own terms. So as a place to start, our trio of faithful adventurers look at a curious place in Paul's correspondence with the Corinthians where he says, "It is a good for a man not to touch a woman." How do we tease out what the original quest was, why this was an issue, and what it means for Christians two millennia later? For early Christians who were convinced that Jesus was coming back at any time, they had to rethink whether they should put all of their lives on hold, leave their families, or quit their jobs, or whether they should keep living regular lives, including marriage and family. Paul writes as someone who had to leave behind his roots and hometown to go share the Good News, and someone who knew he might spend a lot of time in prison, or even die for his faith, and he knew that he was free not to have to worry about putting food on the table for a wife and kids at home. And yet at the same time, Paul sees value in continuing our family relationships, friendships, and daily lives, even while we know Jesus may come again at any moment. Join us for this episode as we look at some hard sayings of Paul.
In their ongoing series looking at difficult and perplexing sayings of Jesus, pastors and friends Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore what Jesus (and the rest of the New Testament voice) mean when they talk about forgiving others and being forgiven by God, and also about a strange scene before Jesus' arrest where he tells his disciples to get swords (while then telling them not to use them). So, does God only forgive us when we have forgiven other people? Does God's forgiveness happen within linear time as a reaction to our forgiving of others, or has God "already" forgiven us from before we were born? And if that weren't thorny enough, why does Jesus tell his followers to go get some swords right before he is arrested, and then stop his disciples from using them to defend themselves when the authorities come for him? We've got some thinking to do as we sift through these "hard sayings" of Jesus, so join us for the conversation in this latest episode!
In their new series looking at "hard sayings" of Jesus--teachings that provoke or challenge, frustrate or confuse us--pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the teaching of Jesus against divorce, in order to understand what was likely going on in a first century Jewish context (in which it was largely men who held the power to throw their wives away with easy divorce), and what this teaching means for us today. While it can be tempting to ignore Jesus' words because divorce is prevalent in our culture, it can also be tempting to turn Jesus' words into a weapon to beat people with rather than to redirect the ways we treat ALL of our relationships. In a day and age when everything we buy from paper coffee cups to cheap electronics is made to be thrown away when it no longer "works" for us, how can we be resistant by treating all people, from spouses and family to friends, neighbors, strangers, and everyone else, as people beloved of God--in other words, how can we stop treating people like they are disposable? Join us for a conversation about this challenging, and often heart-wrenching, question on this episode of "Crazy Faith Talk."
In this first episode of a new series of conversations, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at a couple of Jesus' "hard sayings"--things that are either difficult to understand, or easy to understand but hard to live out. As people of faith who wrestle with texts like these, we'll discover that it's worth taking the time to dig into sayings of Jesus that can be challenging, and that the real and living Jesus of the Scriptures is a wilder, richer, deeper, fiercer, and more mysterious figure than the flannel board pictures of Jesus we might have grown up with in Sunday School. In this episode, the conversation around the table turns to Jesus' well-known saying, "Let the dead bury their own dead," to a would-be disciple, and then a strange parable of Jesus where the hero is a crook....who gets praised for being crooked! Join us as we open up a couple of cans of worms and explore these sayings and stories of Jesus!
As they take a look at several stories of Jesus being introduced to the world--from the visit of the Magi who followed the Star, to Jesus' first miracle, to his first public sermon in his hometown--pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore what impressions we are supposed to get about who Jesus is. Of all the things one could say about Jesus, what does it mean that God goes to such great lengths to attract the attention of a bunch of foreign astrologers to see the Christ child, or that God is willing to get involved with producing additional wine at a party for a wedding? And once we've learned to "spot" Jesus in moments like these from the Gospels, how do we recognize Jesus' presence among us and between us in daily life? How do we have our eyes ready for "little epiphanies" all the time? Join us for this, our 100th episode of Crazy Faith Talk, to find out more!
We have heard the story of the shepherds and the angels, and the child laid in a manger, lots of times before. It may be so familiar to our ears that we can miss the radical idea of a God who becomes vulnerable, which is at the core of the Christmas story. But in the week that follows Christmas, the church also traditionally recalls several stories that remind us that the world into which the Christ was born is a world full of violence and terror, hatred, and pain, as well. And that turns out to be GOOD NEWS, too, becuase it means God doesn't merely "drop in" when the decorations are all perfect and there is a fresh blanket of sparkling snow on the ground, but has really come "all the way down" into this world where there is suffering and sorrow. Any made-up deity can visit an ideal and safe world--it takes the real deal to be willing to be vulnerable enough to become a refugee seeking asylum in Egypt, or to be present as a lynch-mob stones a follower of Jesus to death in the book of Acts. These stories give us a deeper appreciation of the Incarnation of God, which is good news as we turn to a new calendar year. Join pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve for this New Year's week episode of "Crazy Faith Talk"!
In this Christmas episode, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve take a look at the way our culture's storytelling about "Santa Claus" affects (or infects) our thinking about God. In this season, we are surrounded by pictures, movies, songs, and storytelling about this magical figure who seems to be all-knowing, can travel around the world in one night, and judges who is worthy of good gifts or bad ones based on how much they believe and how good their behavior is. And it becomes really difficult sometimes for us to distinguish between the myth of Santa and the Gospel's story of a God who loves apart from our behavior, who gives generously and graciously to the well-behaved and stinkers alike, and whose power doesn't depend on how hard we believe in him. In other words, we sometimes let our culture's image of Santa get projected onto our understanding of God without realizing how radical the Gospel of grace in Christ really is. Join us on this Christmas episode as we seek to un-Santa-fy our pictures of God, and to recover the Good News of a grace beyond our earning. And merrry Christmas to all!
Continuing their series on the lives of older sisters and brothers in faith (we often call them "saints") whose lives are remembered especially during the month of December, pastors and colleagues Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at a figure who isn't "canonized" in any official way, but who is well-known to some branches of the Christian faith: Katerina von Bora Luther, who is also remembered as the wife of Martin Luther. Hers is a story that includes a will-they-won't-they romance, kitchen-table faith, and an escape in a barrel of herring! Find out more about this important figure in faith that is lived out in real life in our ongoing series on Lives that Catch the Light.
These days, some folks get fussy in December because they see that not everyone celebrates Christmas, or they get upset when someone greets them with "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas," and want to call it the persecution of Christians. But for the first three hundred years of our faith, it was not only dangerous, but also illegal to be a Christian, because following Jesus meant you weren't giving your allegiance to the Empire or to Caesar. And during this time, a young Italian girl chose to lose her family fortune, prospects for a family, and even her life, becasue she wouldn't burn incense in devotion to the Emperor. Her story of faithful defiant resistance and of amazing generosity for the poor became a compelling witness for generations of Christians, and ever since, people have been celebrating the life, martyrdom, and love of Saint Lucy (or Saint Lucia, which means "light"). Because her death is believed to have happened in December, her story is remembered in this season of Advent. And over enough centuries, her story has been remembered with scenes of girls wearing candle wreaths on their heads, and her faith in dark times has been remembered in the light of candle flames. As pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve explore the history and legend behind the story of Saint Lucy, we look for ways that her very real faith, her care for the poor, and her resistance to the empire in her day can give us an example of courage, love, and strength for our own lives. Join our ongoing series on Advent saints!
In their Advent series about the lives of people who reflected the light of God (that we sometimes call "saints"), pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve take a look at the story of the authentic Nicholas of Myra, a 4th century bishop from what is now modern-day Turkey, and what his life, witness, generosity, and faith have to tell us today. We'll sort out solid history from modern myth, and even explore whether the inspiration behind "Santa Claus" really punche a heretic at the Council of Nicea! As we take a look at the life of Nicholas, seeing both what was good and what might not be so good from his life, and how our calling to be "saints" comes, not with miracles and magic but with God using all of our ordinariness to reflect the light of Christ. Join us for some surprises about who Nicholas was, and why his story matters, in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!
The church has a funny way of keeping time. We start the year a month or so before everybody else cracks open their new calendars with a season called "Advent," and we talk about those who have gone before us as still somehow connected to us in the present in the "communion of saints." We even remember the stories and lives of some of those older sisters and brothers in the faith on the date of their death, rather than something that might seem cheerier to the wider world, because for the people of God, even death isn't the end of our time, but the prelude to resurrection. So here as the church year starts over again with a new season of Advent to turn our hearts toward the coming of Christ, Erica, Sarah, and Steve start a new series looking at some of the lives of sisters and brothers in the faith whose stories are often told at this time of year. We'll have to talk about what it means to be a "saint," and why that is a title for all the people of God to claim, why we tell the stories of saints past and present, and how the examples (both in successes and failures) of other saints can shape our own lives so that we can reflect the light of Christ into the world, even on dark and dreary late November days.
Curiously (maybe?), neither the people of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor the church of the New Testament, have a single holiday or observance focused on being thankful... but that's because for both the Old and New Testament, all of our lives are meant to be lived in constant gratitude in response to the grace and gifts of God! And often, "Christian" or "religious" discussions of gratitude end up sounding like lectures on manners and politenss that are focuses on us, rather than on the goodness of God--especially a God that Jesus insists is "kind to the ungrateful and wicked" as well as to the well-behaved and polite. So let's take a cue from the Old and Testament and explore how grace and gratitude become the whole fabric of our lives. And happy Thanksgiving!
In the final episode of their series, "Heroes for All," pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve zoom in to spend some time looking deeper at the context of several biblical passages often used or cited to forbid women's leadership in the church (or even in civil roles as well). When they spend some time in some of the frequently-quoted passages on the subject in 1 Corinthians and in 1 Timothy, a more complex picture arises than mere proof-texting suggests. We find that Paul, whom we have already seen make reference to women leaders who were coworkers with him in the Gospel, may well be actually turning his readers' previous words back on them to explicitly allow women's leadership, and he may also be teaching the fledgling Christian community how to worship together without shouting over each other, but in fact asking different groups at different times to take turns listening and speaking. We also take a look at how culture informs the way biblical texts were written as well as how we hear them today. If you have ever wondered why some people say that women cannot be leaders in the church and others are convinced the Bible encourages women's leadership, this conversation may be worth exploring. Check it out here.
In their ongoing series looking at Heroes for All from the Bible, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve dig into some New Testament passages where women are named in some pretty significant roles leading the early community of Jesus' followers. Paul names a woman named Junia as an "apostle"--in fact, a rather outstanding one of all the apostles he has worked with, in Romans. And the biblical evidence suggests that it was a woman named Phoebe who carried the original text of Romans to its destination in Rome, and was likely then the first to read it out loud and proclaim it, including whatever other commentary or explanation would have come along with that public reading. And then when Paul wrote to Corinth, he just subtly name drops a leader there named Chloe to get the people's attention about the divisions he is aware of in their congregations. All of these passages suggest that women had a strong, early, and important role as leaders, preachers, and even apostles in the early church--and that the New Testament itself didn't think that women's leadership was a shocking headline, but just had grown up with women as preachers, teachers, and leaders from the beginning. Join us for that conversation, as we also look to see how these women's stories, even if they are only mentioned briefly in the New Testament epistles, give us insights for being leaders, proclaimers, and followers of Jesus today.
What happens after the manger scene? Well, the baby Jesus doesn't stay there--and therefore, neither does his mother, Mary. In our ongoing series looking at models of faith, courage, and love from the Bible called Heroes for All, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve look at Mary the Mother of Jesus throughout her appearances in the Gospels. She is not only the woman who sings about God's table-turning power in the Magnificat, but she is also the one who persuades Jesus to respond when the wine runs out at the wedding in Cana, and she is there through the ordeal of the cross. Mary compels us to see the human faces of need around us, and she gives us an example of what it looks like to weep with those who weep and to share the heartaches and sufferings of others even when there is no way for us to "fix" the problem at hand. So join us in this next conversation as we learn compassion, courage, and the ministry of presence from Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
As they continue looking at the stories of women in the Bible who are examples of faith, courage, and compassion, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve turn to the New Testament to the figure of Mary Magdalene. Mary is presented as one of several women who both supported Jesus' ministry while he was announcing the Reign of God, and also a disciple of Jesus along with those other women. And then when Jesus is buried and the women are going to the tomb to anoint his body but find the tomb empty, Mary is the one named in all the gospels as the first person called to announce the resurrection. She was, in that sense, the preacher of the first Easter message, and also the first one "sent" with this good news to the others who will eventually be "sent" out to the world, too. In an important sense, then, Mary is the Apostle (which just means "sent one") to the Apostles. She has the courage both to face down the reality of death to go and anoint the body of Jesus while the other disciples are all too afraid to leave the locked room they are hiding in, and she has the willingness to share the message even knowing that it will likely be dismissed as "idle talk" just because she is a woman. In that way, too, Mary is an example for us of our calling to be willing to share the suffering and sorrows of the world, even when the culture around us wants to ignore death, and our calling to bring the news of the Resurrection to the world. Join us for an exploration of this important character from the New Testament!
As their series looking at strong and daring women in the Bible continues, pastors Erica, Steve, and new colleague Sarah take a look at two women whose stories are told in the book of Judges--Deborah and Jael. Deborah was already a prophet and a civil leader of her community, and when an invading army came near, she coralled her own neighbors to go into battle and defeat the invaders, even when men were afraid to go on their own. Deborah had courage, wisdom, intelligence, and a willingness to risk her own safety for her people. Later, the story turns to a woman named Jael, who stops the fleeing commander of the invading army when he had tried to hide out in her house and threatened her to keep quiet about it. Jael doesn't back down in fear, but in fact, lulls the enemy Sisera to sleep, and then kills him with a tent peg to end the attack on her people. These surprising stories, along with odd pop culture references to Disney princesses, the Godfather films, and another unexpected "musical moment" in the Scriptures, are waiting in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk--join the conversation!
In their ongoing series looking at strong and fierce women who are remembered as heroes for all in the Bible, pastors Erica and Steve welcome a new voice to the table, a fellow colleague in ministry Sarah, to look at two stories of strong, courageous women, and the roles they played in keeping God's people safe and on their way to freedom in the story of the slavery in Egypt and the Exodus. Two of the women in today's conversation, midwives named Shiphrah and Puah, refused to do what Pharaoh said and ended up saving lives of countless Hebrew baby boys, and another woman in our conversation, Miriam, is a leader alongside Moses and Aaron through the wilderness days, and is remembered as someone important for God's people despite times of doubt and jealousy in her life, too. What we are continuing to discover here in these conversations is how many different women are lifted up in Scripture as heroes and examples, not just for who they gave birth to or married, and not just for their meekness and manners, but for actions of courage, grace, and character. Join us today for the story of Miriam and the Midwives
It's easy (relatively speaking) to be a hero when everyone is applauding for what you do--to rescue the puppies, to save the children from the burning house, or when Superman stop the masked bank robbers. It is harder to be a hero when people are actively criticizing you, trying to silence you, or threatening your life for the stand you are taking. That kind of courage is a powerful (and much needed!) example for everybody these days, men and women. So join pastors Erica and Steve for a conversation about one such hero whose subversive and powerful story is told in the Bible, whose name is Esther. We'll explore how someone who was given a position of privilege risked losing it all in an act of civil disobedience that earned a lot of criticism from other powerful people living in the Persian empire. And we'll take a look at how we are called to speak up and stand up from our perspectives and positions of privilege for people who are on the margins, and how God can move through those actions even without the heavens parting and a voice from the sky. Join us for Part Two in our series, "Heroes for All," as we look at Esther's story.
In a new series, pastors Erica and Steve look at heroic figures in the Bible who show us courage, faith, love, and justice without fireworks or special effects. Here to start things off, join in a conversation about the story of Ruth, an outsider to the people of Israel who yet becomes a powerful example of the "lovingkindness" and "steadfast faithfulness" that Israel's God, Yahweh, was known for. It's a powerful story where God only shows up behind the scenes and in ordinary human circumstances, and it shows us a picture of how we might have such faithful, loyal care for others in our lives, too. And listen in as we discover that people like Ruth are remembered, not simply because of the babies they had or who they married, but for their own lives, choices, and character to show great love, leadership, and dedication. Ruth is a hero for all of us, and this is her story.
In this concluding episode of their conversation on the Lord's Prayer, pastors Erica and Steve look at the concluding phrases, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (or the evil one)," and what this means for people who follow Jesus. While it can be tempting (no pun intended) to think Jesus is offering us the right religous formula for how to have a life free from "bad things" happening, that doesn't seem to be what Jesus really has in mind. In fact, if anything, Jesus insists throughout his teaching and life that living his way of life will send us all the more into the path of suffering with others, for others, and alongside others! And yet, we pray that we would not get drawn into the ways of evil ourselves--that in face of hatred, greed, and abuse of others, we would not become complicit in the ways of evil, too, but would be different in the midst of it. Join us for this concluding conversation, as together we look at what Jesus' prayer means in our lives.
As they continue their series looking at the Lord's Prayer, pastors Erica and Steve explore what it means to be forgiven people who forgive others, and who see our whole lives together in community as a giving-and-taking of forgiveness and of starting over with one another, refusing to weaponize the past or to be defined by it. As we look at other teachings of Jesus on how we forgive, and how God has forgiven us as well, we see a whole way of life unfolding. Join us for our ongoing conversation!
As they continue looking at the Lord's Prayer, pastors Erica and Steve explore what it means to pray for "daily bread." The same God who once fed a nation of escaped slaves in the wilderness beyond Egypt with daily bread called "manna" is the same God to whom we call to provide us what we need. And if we take a look at the roots of these stories of "daily bread," we'll see that Jesus is shaping us to be people who seek the well-being of all people, who learn how not to hoard, and who dare to trust that God will provide enough for everybody. Jesus intends us to live freed from the fear that drives us to see everyone else around us as enemies, or as competition in a zero-sum game, and when we are freed from that fear, we are able to share our bread. Listen in as Erica and Steve explore these well-known words from the Lord's Prayer
During the Second World War, members of the Resistance in France lived under German occupation but looked forward to the restoration of rightful rule of their land, and to liberation from the Nazi war machine. In a similar way, you could say, the people of God live in "occupied territory," working and longing for God's full reign and rule over all creation, which is God's "territory," as well. And just as the exiled French leaders did not simply give up on returning to the mainland in order to settle for living away from home in England, God has not given up on restoring and redeeming all of creation, including the world that lives in rebellion against God's ways of justice and mercy. In the end, praying for God's will and God's Reign/Kingdom is about being a part of God's Resistance movement, dedicated to hoping for and living in light of the promised future when God's Reign fills all the universe and beyond. And because of that, we realize that praying for God's will to be done is not just "out there," but inside our own hearts, in every corner where we are turned against God's ways and God's love for all. Pastors Erica and Steve take a look at this part of what we call the Lord's Prayer, to consider what it looks like where and when God reigns. Join them for this conversation in the ongoing series about the Lord's Prayer.
Sometimes religious folks sound like they are saying God has some sort of allergy to our mess-ups, or that God has a weak stomach when it comes to hanging around a sinful humanity. The word "holy" can be used to sound like God can't stand to be in the presence of the riff-raff, the scoundrels, the failures, the sell-outs, and the mess-ups... you know, all of us. But the God we actually meet in the Scriptures doesn't run away screaming from our checkered pasts like a little kid fleeing from a spider. And the God shown to us in Jesus actually makes a point of inviting himself over to the houses and into the lives of the people collectively called "sinners and tax collectors." So whatever it means to call God "holy," it certainly isn't a weak-kneed anxiety that makes God squirm. In fact, the same Jesus who teaches us to pray "May Your name be holy," in what we call The Lord's Prayer, also teaches that being "holy" or "perfect" as God is "holy" and "perfect" has a lot more to do with whether we dare to love as recklessly and widely as God does. Join pastors Erica and Steve for the next conversation in their series exploring the words we call "The Lord's Prayer," and digging into the H-word, "holy."
In their ongoing series about the words we call "the Lord's Prayer," pastors Erica and Steve explore what we mean when we talk about the God who is "in heaven," and how God's space relates to our space... especially talking about a God who is beyond time and space. Is "heaven" supposed to be a geographical or astronomical location, accessible in a spaceship? Is heaven only a future reality, or is God "there" now? Or, as the Scriptures themselves seem to be saying, are God's "realm" (what we often call "heaven") and humanity's "realm" (what we often call "earth") made to be interrelated, interconnected, and interpenetrating? Instead of picturing heaven as "up there, somewhere far away," maybe Jesus has in mind God's space as an all-encompassing reality with the universe we know residing within God's space, so that God can be both beyond us and yet immediately present to us at all times, like the atmosphere of air surrounds us all the time but also fills our lungs with every breath. Or perhaps we could picture it like a child's bedroom that exists within the larger house owned by the parents, a space that the parents still take responsibility for, but in which the children exercise some of their own choices and responsbilities, too? And what difference does it make how we picture how heaven and earth relate? Join us for a conversation that ranges from parenting to particle physics as we explore what we mean when we talk about praying to the God who is "in heaven."
In a time when Christians are divided into countless traditions, denominations, subgroups, and styles, there are still a handful of things that are universally common across the branches of the Christian family tree. One of those things we hold in common are the words we call "the Lord's Prayer," a collection of words that the Gospels say go back to Jesus himself. But even though many Christians--and even many who have never been to a church before--have some familarity with the Lord's Prayer, we can often speak the words by rote without any real thought about what we are saying, or what these words mean. In a new series, pastors Erica and Steve begin to explore these words--are they meant as a script to be recited? Are they meant to be a template? An example? And what kind of view of the world will emerge for us as we let Jesus' words shape our hearts and our minds? What kind of relationship to God does Jesus have in mind for us, and what does that mean for how we are related to others around us? Join us for a conversation to hear the Lord's Prayer again with new ears, so that we can see the world through Jesus' eyes.
For a long time, folks assumed that people who took their own lives were autoamatically condemned to hell and had lost their salvation. And that also meant that for a long time, those whose lives were left in the wake of a loved one's suicide were forced to keep silent or bear shame for what had happened. But as pastors Erica and Steve engage this question, they take a look at where this thinking came from in the first place, what assumptions from medieval church life produced it, and how the Scriptures themselves speak a deeper hope and a surer word of grace than even centuries' worth of systematized theology had been able to offer. This is a difficult but important subject to explore, and it is surely fraught with emotion, with pain for many, and with life and death seriousness. But because it is so vital for us to engage, especially in a culture where so many seem on the brink of despair and self-harm, we invite you into this holy converastion about how grace holds us even at the point where we can no longer hold onto ourselves.
The church does a decent job offering care and support for people with cancer, sickness, or injuries, and many churchgoers are comfortable sharing about their illnesses to ask for prayer from one another. But we aren't great at talking about, or even naming, our struggles with mental health. There's often still a stigma for people who live with depression, anxiety, bipolarity, or other diagnoses, even though we would hope that the community of Jesus should be the one place where it is safe to be honest and real with one another. In a new conversation, pastors Erica and Steve consider how the church can do a better job of creating a safe place for the healing of hearts and minds as well as bodies.
In the final part of their series on engaging evil with open eyes, pastors Erica and Steve take a look at a case study in dealing with real-life evil even when it doesn't wear a red jumpsuit and hooved feet. As they have explored already, the powers of evil are often most effective when they are subtle and behind the scenes: not like in scenes out of "The Exorcist," but operating through systems and structures, and getting people to stay silent and grow complacent. Esther is a helpful, if less well-known, story and hero in the Bible, because she has to wrestle with these questions without an angel showing up or a heavenly vision to give her answers--only the shared discernment of trusted friends and a commnity of faith. In a book that never mentions God or the devil explicitly, we get a glimpse of how real people living their everyday lives gain the clarity and courage to speak up when others are endangered. And even though it is often uncomfortable for us to see where we may be in positions of privilege and comfort, Esther's story helps us to see how positions of privilege carry with them the responsbility to speak up, and even risk getting into trouble, for the sake of those whose voices are not heard or whose lives are endangered. Join us for this conversation that is both rooted in Scripture but also deeply practical, for living in, as the book of Esther puts it "such a time as this."
In their ongoing series about engaging evil with open eyes, pastors Erica and Steve now take a look at what happens when evil operates behind the scenes in systems and structures--often ones that society accepts or goes along with. The powers of evil are often at their most cunning when they don't use pitchforks to force us to do terrible things, but rather when they allows us to feel comfortably doing nothing, or to go along with evil things because "the system" says it is OK. So whether it was the early church getting into trouble with the Empire because they would not bow down or burn incense to Caesear, or the church in North America wrestling over how to speak up against the evil of slavery, or the resistance movements of the Confessing Church in 20th century European countries speaking out against the Nazis, Christians have been faced with the presence of evil that constructed systems to keep itself going. So, how can we learn form those witnesses in the past to learn when we need to speak up against evil, and how to identify places where we have been complicit in sinful, and even wicked, systems, and need to gain the courage and clarity to say, "No!"? Here's where our conversation takes us this week...
As their series on spiritual struggle and the powers of evil continue, pastors Erica and Steve focus on the stories of how Jesus deals with the Tempter and of the demonic powers in the Gospels. These stories may seem so strange and foreign to our ears and context, so how do we hear them and make sense of them? And as Jesus has to wrestle with the question of HOW he will embody the messianic promise (will it be the easy path of glory, power, and spectacle, or will it be the path of suffering love that goes to a cross?), we have to wrestle with the same question, too. In order to do God's work, what MEANS do we pursue, and what strategies, tactics, and attitudes will we refuse to resort to? How do we take guidance from Jesus' interactions with the powers of evil in the Gospels? Join our ongoing conversation to explore each of these.
Cartoons have given us the picture of a horned, pitchfork-toting, cloven-hooved, red-jumpsuited devil, who almost seems laughably obvious in his attempts to get us to steal cookies from the cookie jar or take money from the till at work. And plenty of other pop culture voices paint a picture of two equal and opposite forces (or, popularly, a "Light side" and a "Dark side" of the same "Force," nudge nudge) out there, contending to win the day in an uncertain final battle. But the Bible itself has a more nuanced picture. The Hebrew Scriptures talk about "the Accuser," (the Hebrew word "Satan" is a title, not a first name) not as an equal and opposite force to God, but a created being who serves the role of something like a heavenly prosecuting attorney, and then we get a handful of descriptions through the Bible about "the devil," but no prequel-like "origin story" to answer all of our questions. So how do Christians make sense of their own Scriptures to understand what, or who, evil is like? And once we are honestly aware of the reality of this Satan figure as a real, clever, insidious, and subtle presence in the world, where do we put our focus? Should we be looking for demons and the smell of sulfur around every corner? Blaming the devil for a lack of good parking spaces? Letting ourselves off the hook for our own choices and actions? And should we focus more on watching out for devils or keeping our eyes on Jesus? In a new series, pastors Erica and Steve begin to take a look at these issues, and we invite you into the conversation too!
In the third and final part of their conversation about the gift of Sabbath, pastors Erica and Steve explore the way Jesus picks up the biblical notion of jubilee--the "year of the Lord's favor" in which old debts were cancelled, the displaced were returned home, and society was allowed to hit the "reset button" to keep anyone's family trapped in poverty forever. While it seems doubtful that Old Testament Israel ever faithfully carried out the practice of jubilee (because it was always more tempting to make more money and hold onto old debts), Jesus' first public address back in his hometown uses jubilee language to talk about his own mission--and God's mission--in the world. And while we may not live in a society that practices a 50-year jubilee policy, we can practice jubilee in our own lives in our practice of forgiveness and justice in all of our relationships. Listen to see how an ancient and surprising law from Israel's history might inspire us to radical forgiveness ourselves today!
As their exploration of the biblical concept of sabbath continues, pastors Erica and Steve continue to look at how the day of rest appears in the Scriptures and in our lives. Despite the fact that Jesus regularly got into trouble with the Respectable Religious Crowd for breaking the rules about sabbath, Jesus doesn't seem anti-sabbath, so much as he is convinced that sabbath was always about giving life and saving life. How do twenty-first century people think about sabbath in a world that keeps moving at a breakneck pace, and which has needs for some things to be open all the time--like hospitals and police? What does sabbath look like for us in a culture that is always beating the drum to earn more, produce more, and make more money, rather than to rest? Join us for the ongoing conversation about how sabbath can be a gift of life for us, even if it takes different forms and expressions on our calendars.
Pastors Erica and Steve take a look at the Scriptural roots of the practice of "Sabbath," tracing the rhythm of work and rest, labor and play, through the Scriptures, from creation through the exodus from Pharaoh's Egypt to the intended practice of Sabbath in the time of Old Testament Israel. Why do we need periods of rest, and who is this rest for? Are we supposed to do something "religious" with our Sabbath rest? And how might sabbath be a gift, not just for "me," but for all the people around me, too, when they are given permission to rest? In a new series of conversations, these two pastors explore the Old Testament roots of sabbath and what it means for people today in a world that keeps moving at breakneck speed.
Gandhi supposedly once said with terrible clarity, "I don't reject Christ. I love your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." After all the conversation we have had so far about the beauty of a God who is Three-in-One, an ever-moving, interweaving communion of love between Father, Son, and Spirit, it can be disappointing to experience life in the actual church that claims to be the God-sent message-bearers to the world. We fight, we argue, we disagree... and sometimes we even disagree on what things we have to all agree on. We can be hypocritical. We can be outright sinful. We can be so ruled by fear that we are afraid to let God move us in new directions, and we can be so afraid of seeming irrelevant that we are tempted to give up on what is essential to our faith. The Church is a messy community. And yet... it seems that part of God's genius is in loving and working through such a holy hot mess. In the fifth and final part of their conversation about the God who is Trinity, pastors Erica and Steve take a look at the people of God, the Church, in all our beauty and our ugliness, our courage and our fears, and look at what God might be up to among us, the people where God lives.
God isn't just "up"--above and beyond and distant, the way you might think the way religious people sometimes talk about God. And God didn't just come "among us" historically in the human life of Jesus once upon a time. But God, Christians dare to say, even chooses to dwell "within us." There's a start for how we talk about God the Holy Spirit, this One who is like the wind that swept over the chaos as creation, the breath of life that fills our lungs and brings this human dust to life, and who is drawing us and pulling us from before we are aware of it. And yet... the Spirit is a Person, not a "force." The Spirit is a Who, not a what. So...why does that matter? In their ongoing conversation about the idea of God as Trinity (Three Persons in One Being), pastors Erica and Steve explore what we think we mean when we talk about the Holy Spirit... and why it's good news! Join us for the convrersation!
In their ongoing series looking at the idea of God as Trinity (Three Persons in One God), pastors Erica and Steve explore what the church has classically meant--and not meant--about Jesus being divine and human. Is Jesus God's Vice-President of Human Affairs? An empty human body like an avatar for God to control at a distance? A half-human, half-divine hybrid like the mythic Greek heroes? Something else? Over the centuries, Christians have struggled to find good words to say that God goes "all the way down" into the fullness of humanity, and that God remains a communion of relationships while also taking on the fullness of human experience--hunger, sadness, joy, laughter, loneliness, pain, and even death--in Christ. What does any of that complicated-sounding theologizing actually mean for anybody? Join Erica and Steve as they try and make sense out of these big ideas and why the early church was so insistent on finding good words to talk about meeting God in Jesus... and seeing that God has scars.
In their ongoing series exploring the Christian idea of God as Trinity (Three Persons in One), pastors Erica and Steve start to look at what it has meant classically to speak about God as "Father," and what it doesn't? mean. Using Jesus' intimate language of calling God "Abba," which has the feeling of a young child speaking with a caring parent, Christians are drawn into a particular image of how we relate to God--not of employee to boss, not of simply students to teachers, and not of groveling subjects toward egomaniacal tyrants fearful of punishment, but of trusting dependence. We'll also be looking at how the church has classically understood the relationship of the First Person of the Trinity with the God of Israel, and how classically Christians have insisted that Christ the Son and the Spirit are present at creation and throughout the story of the universe, too. How do we deal with "Father" language if we have had bad fathers, absent fathers, or had to end up caring for fathers later in life? Join us for the conversation, as we try and unpack some of these big ideas of the Christian faith.
For all the complicated credal formulations, fierce debates over heresies, and bad object lessons to try an explain the mystery of a God who is One and Three, the Christian doctrine of "the Trinity," is really a way of saying that there is only one God... and that we have come to meet this God, not as some lonely bearded immortal who stands off at a distance, makes a Son and a world to feel loved, and then sends a Heavenly Vice-President of Human Affairs to save us... but that we know God as a beautiful communion of relationships, who goes "all the way down" into human life in Christ, who dwells in us by the Spirit, and who upholds all creation at all times. The Trinity is a way of saying that God knows BOTH the pain of the cross AND the pain of son-less-ness, and that God is consistent without personality changes over time. As pastors Erica and Steve take a look at the ancient Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we invite you into a new series of conversations about why the Church has held onto this complicated notion for so long, and why it fought so hard over it in the first place. If you have ever wondered why on earth Christians take this seemingly contradictory position that God is One and Three at the same time, join in the conversation over these coming episodes!
Oscar Wilde once wrote, "?How else but through a broken heart can Lord Christ enter in?" Even though Christians are unapologetically "Easter People" who are charged with sharing the Good News of resurrection with the world, we are also called not just to rejoice with those who rejoice, but to "weep with those who weep," and to be honest in our prayer and worship lives... which means being able to grieve, to lament, and even to bring angry prayers to God when we feel godforsaken. In this concluding episode of our Worship Whys series, pastors Erica and Steve explore lament as a gift--even if it's a gift we don't often want to open--and to see the beauty of being invited into a relationship with the living God that can take our angriest words and our most brokenhearted moments. Join in the conversation as we seek to reclaim this important dimension of Christian worship.
As pastors Erica and Steve continue their exploration of what we think is happening in Christian worship, they explore what it means to pray "together" and how prayer can be authentic, even when we are borrowing someone else's words--whether a leader offering prayer in the same room, or the sometimes centuries-old words of older sisters and brothers in the faith, or even the pattern we call "The Lord's Prayer." If Jesus warns against just reciting empty religious-sounding phrases in our prayers in order to be noticed, then what do we think we are doing on Sunday mornings when we gather together to pray as a group? And how could praying help shape each of our hearts and minds, so that our attitudes and desires and wish-lists come to reflect the character of the God we meet in Christ? Join in the conversation, and help us explore what it can mean to pray with borrowed words.
In their ongoing series about what Christian worship looks like, and what followers of Jesus think they are doing when they gather week by week, pastors Erica and Steve keep unpacking the ancient patterns of Christian worship. Like a symphony in four movements, we begin with Gathering, and then the Word, and then some response to the Word--often involving the Meal of Christ's followers called Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist--and then a Sending back into the world. Coming from different branches of the Christian family tree, Erica and Steve look at how their own traditions think and talk about the Meal of Jesus, and what the various ways of practicing it mean. And even though Christians have found all sorts of ways to let themselves be divided over the particulars of Jesus' meal (how often should you have it, is it wine or is it grape juice or both, is Christ there or is this just a symbol, and on and on and on), Erica and Steve try and recover the beating heart of this event and what brings us together in it. Join in the conversation as we pick up where we left off last episode in the four-fold pattern of Christian worship.
Of all the things you could do on Sunday mornings, why do Christians gather around ancient texts that have been told for thousands of years, and why do they set aside time and space to hear stories they have heard, sometimes for all their lives? What do we think is happening in Sunday worship? Pastors Erica and Steve continue looking at the ancient patterns of worship that shape our Sunday gatherings to this day, from gathering to the Word, our responses to the Word and the gifts at the Table, to being sent out into the world again. If you have ever wondered what Christians think is actually happening? on Sundays, or if you have been at worship services all your life long and never quite knew what was going on, or if there was a method to the madness, join in the conversation here!
We don't "go to church" because God's ego needs stroking, and we don't show up in worship to be entertained like an audience watching a football game or a musical. But in this set-apart space and time, we meet the living God along with a whole mess of God's people... in order to be re-storied?. We gather in praise of the God who went to a cross for us and who walks through the valley of the shadow of death with us. We gather to be re-made in the likeness of the same Christ who rose from the dead and broke the power of fear, of death, and of our own brokenness. We gather to let the? Story of death and resurrection re-orient us for living in a world that is still caught between cross and empty tomb. Join Pastors Erica and Steve as they continue their series on "Worship Whys" and look at how every Sunday is a celebration of resurrection!
In this second episode of their new series on Worship Whys, pastors Erica and Steve look at the way the God the Old and New Testament resists being permanently put in a box, whether a temple or tabernacle, a ritual or a rigid style. That means that God's people will always have the freedom to borrow the patterns of the world around us in our worship life, but also always have the calling to run counter to the culture around us, too. While Christians have often gotten heated and fussy about what the "right" style of worship, or music, or structure should be, maybe God's been after "authentic" worship all along, which asks us to be stretched beyond our comfort zones and preferences, summons us to offer even the things we aren't good at, and draws us to surrender our hearts and minds to God's way of shaping us in light of Jesus. Listen in on the conversation, and join in!
For more than two thousand years, Christians have gathered together on Sundays for some variation of the same event--gathering in corporate worship of Jesus of Nazareth. But... worship really isn't a consumer product or a performance for me to watch passively as an audience member. And the God we meet in Jesus doesn't seem to be so emotionally needy as to require contast reminder of God's own greatness. So if worship isn't "for me" as if I am a movie critic watching a new blockbuster... and if worship isn't "for God" in the sense of proppring up God's self-esteem with compliments, who... or what is worship FOR? In this first episode of a new series, pastors Erica and Steve talk about what really is happening in Christian worship, and how this countercultural gathering on Sundays turns out to be for us and for God all at the same time. Listen in, and join the conversation!
In this final episode of their Big Questions series, pastors Erica and Steve take a look at the story of Jesus' resurrection, the history of how the Empty Tomb got entangled with bunnies and flowers and spring time, and why Christians believe that the message of Jesus' coming back to life is good news for everybody, not just Jesus. How is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection different from the other pagan myths and legends about heroes and gods who die and come back to life? And how does the resurrection give hope and courage for living through the challenges of this life? Erica and Steve dive into all of these questions--join the converstion!
If praying is not the same as making wishes to a genie, and if God already knows what I need before I ask it out loud.... why do Christians say we pray? What's the point of prayer, if God reserves the right to answer as we ask... ?or? to answer differently? What do we think we are doing when we pray if it's not informing the Divine about new factual information? And after getting tired of hearing public officials just vaguely offer "thoughts and prayers" after tragedies like school shootings, or natural disasters, why do Christians keep at this practice we call prayer? What's it all about... and what is it not about? Join pastors Erica and Steve for another conversation in our Big Questions series as we look at the relational side of prayer, the ways God changes ?us? when we pray, the good news in times when words simply fail us, and where the power really lies when we pick up the conversation again with the living God.
Choices with family life, decisions about work, dilemmas about how to deal with tough situations among friends or neighbors. It's hard to know how to decide, and what voices to listen to in life. Christians often talk about listening for God's voice, and we tell stories and sing songs about hearing God's call in our lives, but how do we tell if the gut impulse we feel is really God, or just our own personal wishlists that we have baptized? On the days we don't get a voice from a burning bush or a note on your pillow in the morning from God, how do we do the harder work of discerning? what to do, and how to face the choices in our lives? Pastors Erica and Steve open up another round of conversation to look at what resources we have to help us listen for God's voice above the background noise outside of us, and in the midst of the voices within us as well. Join in the conversation!
Okay, so the Bible--this ancient library of stories, poems, prayers, biographies, letters, and more--is important for getting to know who God is... where do I even begin to wade into it? How do we know if we are anywhere in the ballpark of what a given passage, verse, or author is getting at?
Pastors Erica and Steve continue their series of "Big Questions" by raising issues like understanding the difference between translations, figuring out what kind, or "genre," of literatue you are reading in the Bible, and letting the Biblical writers speak on their own terms to take them seriously. We'll discover that sometimes the Biblical writers may not have been saying what we always assumed they were saying, and sometimes even the most familiar verses carry surprises in them, too. Join in the conversation and learn some helpful rules of thumb for letting the Scriptures speak!
In their ongoing series looking at Big Questions, especially "Big Questions" of life for people drawn to following Jesus, pastors Erica and Steve look at the question, "Why Scripture?" What do Christians think the Bible is? How does the Bible have authority, and what does that authority mean? What does it mean for something that is basically a story? to have authority for people, removed from those stories and writers by millennia and miles? And what does the Bible have to do with God... or with Jesus? For all of our misconceptions of the Bible--from temptations to turn it into a cookbook, a rule-book, a morality-play, or a ouija board--these ancient words keep pulling us to Jesus and to find the living God in the encounter. Help us explore these questions, and join the conversation!
One of the fastest-growing categories of religious identity in our culture is "none"--that is, people who say they have no? religious identity. And yet, at the same time, we are bombarded with countless choices, voices, and groups to pick from of religion, spirituality, faith, philosophy, and self-help. And in an age in which people can pick and choose, buffet-style, from what they like around them, an age in which it is more and more possible not to be an official "member" of ?any religious tradition, community, or faith, why might someone still identify as a follower of Jesus, a Christian? What is it about the particular person, story, life, and way of Jesus that makes him compelling? Today in our ongoing series of "Big Questions," pastors Erica and Steve tell their own stories about where their life journeys intersect with their heads, their heads, and their identity, and how they would answer the question, "Why are you a Christian?" Join in on the conversation and share your stories, too!
As we talk about God and suffering, it becomes clear that Christians don't just believe in a generic "Supremem Being" called "God" and then tack on Jesus as a footnote, but rather Jesus is key to understanding what "God" means. And that means that the vulnerability, suffering love, death and resurrection we meet in Jesus is part of God's answer to the question of why bad things happen. Jesus shows us that the buck stops with God, but Jesus also shows us that God meets us in? suffering, rather than sending it on us from a distance, or walking away and washing hands of us. In the third part of this conversation, Pastors Erica and Steve try and deal with the cans of worms we have opened up in the first two rounds of conversation about how we talk about God and suffering without sliding into cliches or trite religious mottos. Join us for the conversation as we try and look at the Big Questions and find God there.
It's been said that making sense of evil in the world while believing in the God of the Bible is like trying to hold three oranges in your hand at the same time. Christians have classically tried to say three things about God and the nature of suffering at the same time, and sometimes it seems impossible to hold all three at any one time. For one, Christians have classically said that God is all-powerful, and at the same time, they have said that God is all-good. And at the very same time, we can't ignore or deny that suffering in the world is real, and not just an illusion or a figment of our imaginations, or just "good for us" like spinach for the soul. In today's episode, pastoral colleagues Erica and Steve return to the can of worms they opened up last time by poking at the boundaries of these questions. On the one hand, they look at what happens if all we say is that God "makes" everything happen in a direct sense, and on the other hand, they look at what happens to our faith if we say that God passes the buck when bad things happen and leaves us to fend for ourselves. And along the way, they listen to the voices of perspectives from throughout the last two thousand years of Christian thinking. Join in the conversation as we look deeper into the problem of theodicy--how Christians say God is good and just and almighty in a world that is so full of suffering.
Whether Christian or not, religious or not, "spiritual" or not, at some point everybody wrestles with the problem of evil, and why bad things happen in life. Is there something called "justice," is it all random? Is there any guarantee that good wins in the end, and does some force, govern everything that happens in the world? Followers of Jesus ask the same questions, of course, but have the challenge of making sense of evil in the world while also believing that there is a God who is both all-good, and all-powerful, and yet who allows all sorts of things to happen that seem to fly in the face of God's good will. How are we going to face the challenges of life and make sense of where God is when terrible things happen, whether to us, or to people we care about, or halfway around the world? To explore these questions, pastors Steve and Erica are starting a new series that looks at some of the big persistent questions that Christians have to wreslte with, and in this first part, the conversation is a lot like opening a big can of worms. Taking a look at different angles and different ways of asking the question, these two friends in Christ start looking at how followers of Jesus can look together at the brokenness of the world and the reality of our suffering and try and make sense of God's presence there. Listen in, and help us think through the Big Questions.
After the angels and shepherds go back home, what happens next to the child from the manger? In today’s episode of Crazy Faith Talk, pastors Erica and Steve take a look at another telling of the story of Jesus’ birth—one without any shepherds or mangers, but with a star in the sky, a fearful paranoid puppet-king, and traveling strangers from far away. And even though we may be tempted to tame this story, the story of the Magi (or the Wise Men), too, there is surprising power and urgency in this story, as it reveals a God who becomes a refugee in the face of tyrants, and a far-reaching welcome to people from the “wrong” country, culture, language, and religion, to come face to face with the Christ Child. In this concluding episode to our Advent and Christmas series, join in the conversation, and hear a story all over again for the first time!
We have a way of sentimentalizing the Christmas story and imagining the news of Jesus’ birth was harmless and disconnected from the world in which Jesus and his family lived, like a self-contained little scene in a snow-globe. But when the Luke the storyteller recounts the birth of Jesus, he is well aware of the struggles of empires and the political messages of Caesar, the Roman ruler who saw himself as divinely chosen and a god himself with a right to rule the world. And in fact, the angels over the Bethlehem suburbs were not the first to use the language of “good news of great joy” regarding the birth of a new king and “savior”—that was the official imperial party line about Caesar Augustus. So when the Nativity angels speak to the shepherds, they are poking holes in the spin of Rome’s press secretaries and propaganda machine. Join Erica and Steve as they unpack the message of the angels in the Christmas story, as we hear a well-known story with new ears!
Pastors Erica and Steve take a closer look at a scene from Luke's gospel that feels like a musical, complete with characters breaking into song. And just like in a musical, where the motion of the plot often stops in order to go deeper into what a character is feeling or thinking at the moment, Mary's song--sometimes called "the Magnificat," is one of those moments where the story of Jesus pauses in order to say something about WHY we should be getting excited about Jesus' coming onto the scene in the first place. And when Mary sings, interestingly enough, she doesn't just talk about the afterlife, or about Jesus being her ticket to heaven. When you ask Mary why the birth of her son is important, she answers by saying that God's promised Savior is the one who will put things right in human relationships--lifting up the lowly, deflaiting the arrogant and proud, and restoring the hopes of a people on the margins in exile. Now, imagine that you were Jesus, growing up with THAT kind of vision whispered in your ear--imagine THAT was how you were taught to see and think of God. Well, no wonder Jesus grows up announcing God's blessing on the poor, and a new kind of Reign in which all are fed, the brokenhearted are bound up, and the complacent are shaken up. Take a listen and join in the conversation, as Erica and Steve let Mary redirect our focus to hear again why Jesus' own mother thought Jesus was worth getting excited about.
Everybody says they remember the line, "Play it again, Sam," from the movie Casablanca?, but it turns out that Humphrey Bogart's Rick doesn't ever say those exact words--and neither does anybody else! We have a way of ?thinking? we know how a story goes, and can end up either misunderstanding, misreading, or even inventing details that weren't quite there. Maybe it's no big deal if we do it with an old movie, but what if we are inserting extra characters or parts to Bible stories? Think we'd never do that? Here's a question--ever hear a sermon about "that stingy innkeeper" from the Christmas story, who won't let Mary and Joseph have a room in his inn? Well... he's not really there. And neither is the inn! Join pastors Erica and Steve for a dig into the nitty-gritty details of the Christmas story and how to hear it ?less? as a morality lesson ("Don't be stingy like that mean old innkeeper...") and more as it was meant to be heard: a picture of the amazing grace of a God who meets us right in the noise, bustle, commotion, and messiness of human life. Join in on the conversation, and hear the Christmas story again with new ears...
Sometimes we get a picture in our head of how we think God "has" to act... and then God surprises us. It's there at the heart of the Christian faith--in the midst of expectations of a king to liberate the people like David from Israel's collective memory, there comes Jesus of Nazareth, who defies expectations and announces God's Reign, not by overthrowing the Romans in a bloody revolt, but right under the nose of the empire and while being executed by the Romans, too. Prophets like Isaiah were hopeful and excited about a promised coming ruler who would finally put things right--but even Isaiah would never have guessed that the Chosen One he dreamed of would look like the itinerant rabbi Jesus. In our own lives, too, we have a way of pinning down our expcectations of how God "should" act or what God "has to" do in our lives--and the living God always reserves the right to defy our expectations and surprise us... And that's what Advent is really all about--the intentional time for Christians to pause and let God surprise us again as we look to Jesus. Join Pastors Steve and Erica as they open up a conversation about the God who surprises...
In this last of our series on "Weird Bible Stories," pastors Erica and Steve delve into a strange little story from the wilderness days of the people of Israel in the book of Numbers. An enemy king is afraid of the Israelites, and so he pays a prophet-for-hire to do his bidding and speak a curse on them. But when the prophet for hire, a guy named Balaam, is on the way to speak his paid message, he ends up having a rather frank conversation with his own donkey! It's not just a story about a talking animal--it's a story about the power of words to speak life or death, and about the living God who doesn't do the bidding of paid prophets like a magic genie. As outlandish and odd as this story is, it meets us today in a culture where religious voices are easily co-opted to say whatever the powers of the day want them to say, where talk is cheap, and where we need to recover a sense of the power of words. Join us for this conversation and listen in!
When somebody claims to speak for God, it makes our ears prick up. Sometimes it's because we think they really have something to say, and sometimes it's becasue we have heard too many charlatans, fakers, and religious snake-oil salesmen, and we are upset when someone panders and tricks people by saying they have "a word from the Lord." The prophets of Israel had the same challenge--too many court prophets just recited back the official party line of the king and told people what they wanted to hear. And when a real prophet arose with a minority report, who could speak truth to power, people didn't want to listen. So how would a real voice from God stand out from the pretenders and court prophets? Elisha was one of those voices raised up to speak up and speak out when the powerful were not practicing justice and mercy. But even Elisha seemed to cross the line defending his own authority when he unleashes an attack of wild bears on some teenagers who made fun of him in this strange story from 2 Kings in our ongoing series of "Weird Bible Stories." So... what do we do with stories from the Bible in which someone invokes the name of God to do violence? What do we do when they are voices of authority that we have respected? And what does GOD do with US when WE are the ones praying angrily and vengetfully against OUR enemies? Join the conversation and listen in...
We live in a world of contracts, deals, and terms-of-service agreements. We sign or stamp or notarize important documents, and the world in which we live makes a big fuss over those who proclaim themselves to be expert "deal makers" who squeeze others to get more out of them. And then there is the surprising God of the Bible, who cuts a strange kind of deal... by giving away everything, and making all the promises, without getting a single "concession" or "perk." That is the strange way of the God who met Abraham out under a starry sky one night...
As Erica and Steve continue exploring Bible stories that make us scratch our heads, we explore the lesser-known, but vitally important, second half of the story of Jonah, that ends with an object lesson featuring a bean plant that grows up over night, a divinely-appointed worm, and God's surprising love for the ones labeled "the enemy." We'll see that the God we meet, not just in Jonah's story, but throughout the Scriptures, has a way of deliberately seeking out those seen as beyond the reach of grace, whether it's Israel's arch-enemy, the people of Nineveh, or those we place on the other side of the line between "us" and "them" in our day, too. Give it a listen, and join the conversation!
In this episode, Erica and Steve turn to a strange handful of verses from Matthew's Gospel that tell of seemingly random dead people coming back to life at the moment of Jesus' death on the cross, while darkness fills the skies and the temple curtain is torn. It sounds like something out of a Halloween-themed zombie movie or an episode of "The Walking Dead," but there it is in the New Testament, right there in Matthew 27! What on earth is this story all about, and why did the early church hold onto it? Join us for a conversation about the way God's power for life breaks out all over the place and overflows even in the moments where it looks like death wins.
?After having to say Godspeed to Drew, new conversations continue on Crazy Faith Talk with Pastor Erica joining with Steve to wrestle with some of the stranger, lesser-known, and weirder stories from the Bible. Why did they get remembered and written down in the first place? What is going on in the parts we want to skip over? And how might God have something to say to us from passages we have either never read or never paid attention to?
In this first of a series, Erica and Steve dig into the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel--the long list of names who are given as Jesus' ancestors. For us in an era and culture that might have very little interest in tracing our roots or knowing our ancestors' stories, it can seem odd to even care about the long list of names we have a hard time even pronouncing that makes up Jesus' geneaology in Matthew. And on top of that--Matthew's geneaology is different from the way Luke's Gospel gives it! What's that all about? In today's episode we'll find that Matthew the gospel writer is more subversive and surprising than we give him credit for, dropping hints about the ways God intentionally includes people who had been deemed "unacceptable" or "unworthy" to be a part of the divine story.
Concluding these four weeks, Pastors Steve, Drew, and our new friend Erica, round out the discussion which has progressed-Gather, Gather Around the Word, Gather Around the Sacraments, to this final moment of leaving the assembly. The thought process follows: those called in have been transformed by the acts and words in this place and are now sent out to be those words and actions in the broader world. The people of faith...if you recall...have been called by God to strange, weird, and peculiar in the world and this work begins on the first step outside the door.
Continuing their four week series on "Living the Christian Life," Pastors Steve and Drew, joined by guest star Pastor Erica, discuss what it means to for the life of faith to meet and see Jesus in the sacraments (understood here as Baptism and Communion). Continuing the thought process of gathering as God's people, gathering around God's Word, and now seeing and participating with God in the sacraments, Steve, Drew, and Erica discuss how the sacraments transform people of faith and send them into the world to be transformative.
(NOTE: Forgive the sound quality; we recorded this week...and next week's...episode in a large, high ceiling room. Just turn your volume up :-) ).
Last week, Steve and Drew discussed what it means to be "God's people" and provided those buzz words, "weird" or "peculiar." They explained that being God's people means that gathering together is not based on place but on people. Today, they explore further what the "gathered in ones" are to be and do when they gather around the Word of God: Jesus Christ himself. Listen carefully as they talk about listening carefully...and what this means for the lived experience of Christian people.
Today's episode marks the beginning of a short four part series focusing on "What does it mean to live the Christian life?" This series has been inspired by the strongly negative examples of living life with grace, humility, and welcoming that are far too commonplace on the news. Steve and Drew use the worship liturgy as a rubric for understanding how Christianity it to be practiced not just on Sunday, but through everyday. Tune in for all four part: Gathering, The Word, the Sacrments, Being Sent Out.
On October 31, 1517 Augstinian monk Marin Luther nailed 95 points for argument to the church door and (unintentionally) began a 500 year trajectory that Christianity has followed. Today, Steve and Drew look back at what happened and what it all meant for the Christianity of its day. And then, they pivot the conversation to considering what does it mean for the next 500 years of church's life and faithful witness. (Of course, they do not make predictions about what it will look like...or do they? You'll have to tune in and find out).
If you remember back to last week, Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew tried to explore the theological implications of natural disasters. As Steve said, the biggest take away is being the hands and feet of Christ in the midst of suffering...even suffering we cannot understand. This week, they open up the conversation on how do people of faith respond in faith to the needs of people 1,000 miles away...and equally to those living right next door.
One of our human and faith wrestling tendencies is to ask questions like, "If God is good, why do hurricanes happen?" or "Why didn't God just stop the hurricanes from hurting people?" when natural disasters occur. That's ok. Remember what Steve and Drew have said a lot: we're humans trying to understand divine things in human ways. And that's hard. We as people have a difficult time with making sense out of evil: humans doing evil; "natural" evil that seems to be done to us. We wrestle and struggle. And that's ok, too. Steve and Drew explore the biblical discussions of evil and God's presence in the midst of the mess and confusion.
In a world connected each day by the famous social media platforms of the world, we lose a lot in the process. Steve and Drew examine the implications of a world that communicates more and more through 140 characters or a post and picture and less and less through embodied human face-to-face conversations. While a technological world may be faster, it is not as effective and leads to bigger problems. Through more nerdy self-disclosure and their usual (bad) jokes, Steve and Drew work to steer us back to embodied, real conversations (even when we disagree).
Steve and Drew are back at it and this time they're trying to keep you off that pink cloud of cozy Christianity after talking for six episodes about hope. While hope does give us confidence and assurance, Christian Hope does not create a fake world to escape to against the real world all around us. Instead, Christian hope gives us the confidence and the mold to live out our lives as ones who not only look forward to the hopeful return of Jesus but leads us to live the truth of the hope in the right here, right now.
Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew share their final thoughts about the end of things (kind of a pun, right?) by putting the entire discussion into the context of, "Why does this all matter?" By understanding that Heaven is not something to be earned and that God is not destructive, the ideas of stewardship, hope, mission, and service are broached. Looking ahead is not a scary proposition, they'll argue. They go on to discuss the question, "So, what difference can I make now?"
All throughout this multi-stop journey, Steve and Drew have been keeping us close to the text. By starting in Genesis and Revelation, going to I Thessalonians, and now today in Matthew 24. This particular chapter, just as the I Thess. 4 chapter, are often used in the "Rapture Theology" argument that appears often in today's world. By looking again closely at the words, their original context, and even the meaning of the language of the original author, they expose that this passage shows us that being left behind is actually a good thing.
Continuing today the ongoing discussion of "What is Christian Hope?" Steve and Drew take a stop off at Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. They explore and unpack chapter 4 which is often cited as evidence of "The Rapture." By looking at what the text says (and doesn't say) and considering the original Greek language and Paul's historical context, they hope you'll walk away from today feeling a bit more assured of what the Bible says (and doesn't say) about Christian Hope and "Last Things" as part of God's ultimate work of redemption and restoration.
When folks think about "end times" they often flip to the end of the Bible and read Revelation. And while Revelation is correctly placed in the discussion of eschatology (final things), it is often taken far out of its original context and understanding. Steve and Drew look at chapter 1, chapter 5, and chapters 21 and 22 to understand many of the keys to reading this text for all its worth and holding back from reading more into the text than actually exists there.
To continue their discussion of Christian Hope, Steve and Drew pause for a moment to provide a helpful and necessary lens through which to read the Bible's Apocalyptic Literature (Revelation and Daniel, for example). In our world of intriuge, scandal, and doubt, we often get caught in the trap of reading Biblical texts for more than what they're actually saying. By using tools that allow us to enter the world of the original authors, we can understand their meaning without scandal and by allowing us to give honor to what they're saying and from where and when they're saying it.
Last Things...Eschatology...Christian Hope. Many words, same ideas. Pastors Steve and Drew own their own traditions and show that they come from theological places that rarely speak or consider these ideas. However, they jump into the conversation because discussions and ideas of "last things" come up often in discussions of what it means to be a people of God. By starting at Genesis and weaving in some Revelation, they begin to explain how the Story of Scripture is really an interwoven masterpiece that begins and ends in essentially the same place...with Heaven and Earth completely interlocked. Take a listen!
Picking up where they left off last week with the warrior and gym teacher views of God, Steve and Drew this week look at two interrelated but wholly different other "popular" views of God: God the therapist and God the cosmic vending machine. These two have become broadly seen across the culture, in both the church and the broader society, which cause us to misunderstand and misdirect our thinking of God. While last week Steve and Drew saw the "mean God," this week they look at the "nice God." They hope these last two weeks get your wheels spinning and will launch you to reach out and join the conversation @ crazyfaithtalk@gmail.com.
Steve and Drew address the misguided thinking that we sometimes have about God...that God is an evil, mean, bloodthirsty killer or God is an overly critical gym teacher for whom nothing is ever good enough. This is part I of two where our two resident theologeeks unpack, discuss, and redirect our often misfired views of God. Steve and Drew fully embrace the fact that many of these "missing the mark" viewpoints are generated by bad teaching of the church and today's episode will hopefully and helpfully reorient your thinking of the Divine.
Today's episode takes a bit of a detour from our standard format as Steve and Drew try their hand at roleplay acting. By channeling his former agnostic self, Drew explores very valid questions that folks around us have: Why do I HAVE TO go to church? Why are church people often not at all like the God they worship? And many others! If you've ever heard these questions (or maybe even asked them yourself) then you'll want to join in the conversation.
Remember: Questions and comments can be forwarded to crazyfaithtalk@gmail.com
Since the time of the Ascension of Jesus, the Church has been arguing with itself about which group of Christians is most right and who is teaching the correct way. There have been battles and feuds. There have been wars and separations. So, it leaves which us all wondering...which group is correct? Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew jump into this conversation, with stories from history and the present day, on Christ's vision for a united (not uniform) Christian communion.
NOTE: Ignore Pastor Drew's continual bad references to 1095 being the year of the schism. In his nerdy giddiness he messed up the date. The Great Schism happened in 1054; the Crusades began in 1095. OOPS!
While centuries of church history and people waaaay smarter than Steve and Drew have attempted to answer the question, "What does it mean for God to be three and yet one? To be one and yet 3" we are left with the grandest of grand mysteries. We find our metaphors and try to make sense out of something that isn't all that sensible. Tune in for another foray into the mist and trying to make sense of this entire thing.
In this week's foray into the Christian world, Steve and Drew leave the Bible slighty to the side and try to explore and explain why there are so many festivals, celebrations, colors, and everything else associated with these in the life of the church. By the exploring the general notion of such festivals, looking to Biblical examples, and give a healthy dose of reminder that God is not impressed by our festivals, Steve and Drew weave their way through to provide you a users guide to understanding all that goes on in the church year.
The familiar and spooky story of Pentecost from the New Testament Book of Acts leaves many people wondering and confused at what this all means. By leaving the traditional thinking and interpretations of this moment, Steve and Drew venture off in a new direction to explore the understanding of what it actually means to receive the Holy Spirit. They look at the ancient, old, modern, and future implications of having the Spirit of God on the loose amongst God's people...working, teaching, loving, and leading. Tune in and don't be surprised if a WHOOOOSH of wind consumes you (results not guaranteed).
40 days after the Resurrection of Jesus comes this story (told both at the end of Luke's Gospel and the beginning of Luke's Book of Acts) when Jesus is described as "going up into Heaven." Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew explore what this actually means (while always keeping in mind the cosmic impact of Christ's raising from the dead) and how it impacts our present and future. While not often understood what this all really means, Steve and Drew take their usual nerdy, humorous, and altogether serious stab at understanding this festival in the life and practice of the Church.
Following last week's discussion of the grand, cosmic revolution of the Resurrection, Pastors Steve and Drew bring this conversation home to you...and what it all means for you. By looking at the resurrection's impact (again, think big picture) they look at what it means to be a person who lives each day impacted by the resurrection. Through their usual silly banter, they unpack the idea of resurrection and how we can live each day who proclaim this Good News...in thought, word and deed.
By returning to the story of resurrection, Steve and Drew walk around and explore the bigger implication of Jesus rising from the grave on the third day. In previous episodes, they explored the what and how. And now they look around the why. They handle questions like, "Did Jesus die so we can go to heaven?" and "What does it mean for us to go to heaven?" and "What does Jesus rising REALLY mean for me and the world right now?" Take a listen and join in the conversation!
In the Gospel of John 20: 24-31 a story is told about a disciple who questions the validity of the other disciples' claims of having met a resurrected Jesus. Centuries of tradition have named him "Doubing Thomas." In today's episode, Steve and Drew wrestle with the wrestling match of faith vs. doubt and show them to be more related than many will have us believe. Through today's discussion, they unpack many ideas that will welcome more and more to the Christian conversation, believers and doubters (and everyone in between) alike.
Looking at each of the four Gospels of the New Testament, Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew look at all the differences and similarities of how the four Gospel writers tell the story of Jesus' resurrection on Easter. By framing it with the saga of Batman and referring to Tommy Boy, they look at how these four writers are telling the same story, but with their own flavors. Join them in this funny, fast-paced, and interesting look at a story you thought you knew very well.
Easter is here....Christ is Risen!...and now its time to talk about it. Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew jump in to understanding this story as far more than just, "Yep, he rose" and looking at the world shaking, reality destroying, and hope granting new life of Jesus. By looking at the story through many different lenses (and peppering in their usual nerdy humor and pop culture references) they show you how this story is more impactful and life changing then you ever imagined before!
After last week's journey from Palm Sunday to the Last Supper, Steve and Drew follow up this week by jumping in with both feet to the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday. By looking at the Gospel stories and and asking the questions you probably want to ask about these stories too! Get comfortable and tune in for the completion of the Holy Week journey.
Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew dig in to the beginning of Holy Week. By walking through all the little details and nuances of Palm Sunday and then Maundy Thursday, they look at what it means for Jesus to ride a donkey and what God is saying through Jesus by taking bread and wine and washing feet. There's a lot more going on than you may have ever noticed before. Take a listen!
Pastor Drew and Pastor Steve took everyone on an odd journey in the last episode while discussing Abraham and others. However, in their quest for perfect nerdiness, they missed a few things. This week, they explore the radical love of God that is set forward in God's covenants all throughout the Bible with his people and becomes embodied in Jesus. As Lent comes to a close and Easter is on the horizon, it's a perfect time to consider the never-ending, crazy, always flowing love of God.
Pastor Steve and Pastor Drew are back to their usual nerdy antics. This time, they're making sense of how Lent and especially Easter are really just a continuation of a much older story. By walking nearly cover-to-cover through the Bible, Steve and Drew reflect on how the stories of the Old Testament are not a distant story, from a distant people. Instead, they show how the Old Testament is the story of Christianity. Listen in!
In this week's episode, numero 4, Steve and Drew pause their forward progress on the "what" and "how" of Lent and go back to the "why." Looking at the history of the festival (including Easter) they look to the reasons for these 40 or so days. And then they go even further...all the way back to Genesis...to understand the death and resurrection of Jesus. All of this while framing the conversation with the Star Wars Saga...yes, they really went there. Take a listen and join the conversation!
In this week's episode, Steve and Drew dive into the world of Lenten Disciplines and try to answer: Why do I have to pray more/eat less/do more good stuff during these 40 days? By looking at three disciplines...prayer, fasting, service (or doing more), they hope to explore the whys and what-fors of this 40 day journey. Peppered with the usual equal amounts of nerd and humor, you're invited into the conversation. Join us!
Steve and Drew are back at it for the second episode. This time...they're trying to answer the plaguing question: Why all those black smudges walking around? They look at the history of this crazy looking celebration, the God-words (theological) reasons, and how it speaks to our need for God and our willigness to accept God's love. Join them for a disussion that ranges from the days of the early church 2,000 years ago to When Harry Met Sally and Anchorman to the here and now...a discussion that promises to be as deep as it is interesting!
An open invitation is issued to join the crazy mess that sometimes is Christian theology. Hosted by two pastors, from two traditions, Pastor Steve (Lutheran) and Pastor Drew (Presbyterian). This pilot episode launches our entrance into an ages old discussion from two humorous, often nerdy, and fun loving guys of the cloth. Join us!