Crazy Faith Talk

In this episode of our series looking at people who lived out their faith in various ways, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Natalie, and Steve explore the faith and legacy of Fred Rogers, beloved creator of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  We'll take a look at how his work in children's public television was a form of his ministry as an ordained Presbyterian pastor, as well as his practical...

As we continue a new series for 2025 on people who lived out their faith, colleagues in ministry Natalie, Sarah, and Steve explore the life and legacy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  From his life experience during and after the apartheid era in South Africa to his deep faith and accessible but profound theology, there is a great deal that the contemporary American church can learn from Tutu's witnes...

A new series is starting here on Crazy Faith Talk, as we take a look at different life stories who embodied their faith in different ways, different settings, and different times.  Rather than being exhaustive biographies of these people, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Natalie, and Steve will touch on the dimensions of these lives that speak to our faith and how they sought to live out their own fa...

As the second half our mini-series on thelogies of giving and receiving, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Erica, Natalie, and Steve take a look at what it means, from a faith perspective, to be receivers of gifts--both from God and from others.  How can we get over our need to "get even" or "pay people back," especially when some gifts are simply given unconditionally?  How might we see others' need...

In this final episode of our Advent series for 2024, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Erica, Natalie, and Steve explore one more dimension of the biblical notion of exile.  This time we'll look at how the New Testament writers see all of our present life right now as a sort of exile-within-the-world, and how each of us are aliens in the world who also care for the good and well-being of the world whe...

As we continue exploring the theme of hope in the face of exile this Advent, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Erica, Natalie, and Steve zoom out to creation itself, and to God's promise to make all creation new and to dwell with us.  Rather than just wishing for freedom from one empire or another--like Babylon in the history of Judah, or Rome in the time of Jesus--Christian hope is ultimately for all...

This Advent, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Natalie, Erica, and Steve are exploring the biblical theme of hope in times of exile as a way of better understanding what the coming of Christ meant for people in the first century, as well as for us today.  In this episode we explore the meaning of the Empire's presence in and around the backdrop of the birth of Jesus, and how traumatic it would have be...

Every year, Christians around the world sing the ancient words from “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” which continues, “…and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.”  So what did exile mean in the Biblical story, and what does it mean for our hope this season? What did it mean for the birth of Jesus that his homeland was under foreign occupation under the Rom...

In this final episode of our series, "Questions We'd Like to Ask God," colleagues in ministry Erica, Sarah, Natalie, and Steve wrestle with the matter of two millennia Christians have been waiting for the coming of Christ in glory.  Why has Jesus not come back yet? And is that a matter of the fixed timing of God's plan, or somehow is it up to human choices or actions?  Is there anything anybody ca...

For as long as human beings have been seeking the divine (which is probably pretty much from the beginning), we have been arguing about the right ways to talk about God, how to understand God, and how to identify God.  Sometimes we argue with spoken debates or written theses (maybe posted on a door), and sometimes we have launched wars (we call "holy") in the name of getting God's identity correct...

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 sug...

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 explor...

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 hi...

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 conversati...

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...

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...

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 someth...

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...

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 call...

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 someti...

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 thr...

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 lo...

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 ha...

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 re...

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, cu...