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 discip...
May 07, 2024•27 min
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 fol...
Apr 30, 2024•25 min
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 Passov...
Apr 23, 2024•18 min
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...
Apr 16, 2024•37 min
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 ...
Apr 09, 2024•26 min
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 ou...
Apr 02, 2024•24 min
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, se...
Mar 26, 2024•30 min
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 fai...
Mar 19, 2024•26 min
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 avo...
Mar 12, 2024•23 min
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...
Mar 05, 2024•31 min
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...
Feb 27, 2024•31 min
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...
Feb 20, 2024•31 min
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 Richter Kingdom, Grace, Judgment--by Robert Farrar Capon Manna and Mercy--by Daniel Erlander A Celebr...
Feb 13, 2024•29 min
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 ...
Feb 06, 2024•25 min
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, Resi...
Jan 30, 2024•23 min
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 raci...
Jan 23, 2024•37 min
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 afrai...
Jan 16, 2024•26 min
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 th...
Jan 09, 2024•31 min
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 ...
Jan 02, 2024•17 min
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...
Dec 26, 2023•28 min
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...
Dec 19, 2023•24 min
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 ...
Dec 12, 2023•25 min
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 f...
Dec 05, 2023•19 min
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...
Nov 28, 2023•34 min
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 th...
Nov 21, 2023•23 min
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 conve...
Nov 14, 2023•40 min
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 ou...
Nov 07, 2023•30 min
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 part...
Oct 31, 2023•27 min
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 a...
Oct 24, 2023•23 min
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 intention...
Oct 17, 2023•35 min
