Crazy Faith Talk

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 m...

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 o...

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 ne...

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...

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" ha...

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...

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...

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.  A...

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 t...

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 i...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 prom...

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," nud...

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...

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 givi...

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" wi...

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 actu...

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 c...

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?  Some...

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 ho...

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,...