Crazy Faith Talk

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...

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 turn...

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...

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...

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 gre...

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...

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 sto...

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...

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 w...

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...

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...

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 o...

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, S...

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...

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...

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 o...

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 t...

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 le...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 askin...

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 afrai...

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...