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In a new series for this fall, we'll be exploring some of the biggest issues and challenges that we see as hurdles for the church in the 21st century. In this first episode, we'll explore the challenge of "Christian nationalism," including what it even means, how we can love our country as Christians without building religious empires or theocracies, and why it can be so tempting to wed Christianity to political power. Join us for an important conversation about a real issue in our lives today!

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, many churches scrambled to offer an online way of staying connected to the congregations for worship, often with whatever resources, skills, and technology they had. In the wake of that experience, many congregations are still continuing to offer online streaming versions of their Sunday services, even though the immediate needs of a pandemic are no longer pressing. So in this post-COVID world, what is the purpose of online worship, how does it work, what are its limits, and how do we still speak of the need for gathering in person with one another as God's people? Join us for this concluding episode of our Worship Matters Q & A series!

So many things feel like they have changed in recent decades about our common public life: we don't read newspapers like we used to, watch movies and television as earlier generations did. Many people have online components to their work or schooling, and even many friendships are made online rather in in person. In the midst of all that change, what is worship for in the 21st century? Has it changed from earlier eras? Is it the same for all times? Why do Christians keep gathering, and what do we think is happening when we do?

Can you believe it? It's our 500th episode of Crazy Faith Talk! For this week's episode, we're continuing our series looking at big questions on worship matters, and this week, we're exploring the question, "How do you (or should you) address current events in the world in congregational worship?" When a disaster strikes on Saturday and everyone has heard the news by Sunday morning, does it affect our sermon? Show up in our prayers? Change the direction of what we sing or say or hear? And for more complex situations, do we need to have answers right away, or should we take the time to "preach from our scars, rather than from our wounds" as the saying goes? All these questions are up for discussion in this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!

The church is a community that includes people of all nations, languages, and cultures across time and space, and so our worship will include songs, prayers, and ways of speaking that come from many places and cultures. At the same time, in any given congregation, we always have limits to how well we can sing in another language, or musical style, or tradition. So how do we hold these two together at once? How can our worship be both authentic to OUR time and place while also being connected to the many cultures, languages, and approaches of Christians all over the world?

Which readings from the Scriptures do we hear on Sundays, and how are they chosen? What are the advantages of having a set schedule of readings determined long in advance, and what are the advantages of having the preacher or worship leaders select texts? How do we keep ourselves honest and hear the whole of Scripture, while also hearing things in their contexts? These are the kinds of questions four preachers are exploring in this week's Worship Matters Q&A.

Some church folks have grown up memorizing older forms of English in prayer and scripture, like the "thy" and "thine" of an earlier era in the Lord's Prayer, and others are more used to modern translations and wording, whether in translations, prayers, or songs. So how do we decide when to use one version of a text and when to use another? Is older always better, or should we always embrace the latest iteration of something? And how do we make those choices? Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!

In a new series here on Crazy Faith Talk, we're going to take a look questions related to our ways and patterns of worship--how and why we do things in our various traditions, how we consider frequently asked questions, and what the pros and cons of different choices are in our worship life. In this first episode, we'll take a look at whether categories like "traditional," "contemporary," or "blended" are helpful or not, and how we also make considerations for worship that accommodates the needs of people with limited hearing, with neurodivergent needs, or other kinds of needs. Join us for all of it here in our Worship Q&A series!

The apostle Paul mentions struggling with something he calls "a thorn in the flesh" and also a "messenger of Satan." But when he had prayed repeatedly for it to be taken away, God's response was "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness." So what is Paul talking about, and how do we make sense of this story--and the times in our lives where we struggle and the sources of our struggle don't seem to be taken away? Join us for this final episode of our series, "Bible Stories We Wish We Had."

In a particularly puzzling story from the book of First Samuel, King Saul consults a medium in the hopes of conjuring the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel for advice before a battle, even though he had just recently outlawed such magic-related practices himself! What is this story trying to tell us--is magic real? Is this really supposed to be the ghost of Samuel? What happens to us when we stop listening to God and miss the connection we once had with God? Join us to explore this strange story and all it leaves hanging for us on this week's episode!

The book of Genesis tells the difficult story of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac to God, and yet we are left to guess how Isaac felt about all of this. How old was he in the story? Did he understand what was happening? How did this incident affect his understanding of God, or his relationship with his father? And what are we supposed to do with a story like this? Join us for another episode in our series, "Bible Stories We Wish We Had" to explore this tale!

The biblical book of Jonah ends with an unanswered question: shouldn't God care about a whole city full of people (not to mention animals!), even if they are unworthy and wicked in Jonah's eyes? While many people know the first part of Jonah's story, with the great fish that swallows him, or even know about God's miraculous plant that grows up overnight to shade him, it's really this final question toward which the whole story drives. And yet we don't get an answer? How will WE respond when God turns out to be more gracious than we expected, or when God shows mercy to the people WE thought were unworthy?

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus casts out a "legion" of evil spirits from a man living in Gentile territory on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, and then he sends him back to his life, family, and community whole and well, to tell everyone what God has done for him. But... whatever happened to this unnamed man? Did he and Jesus ever cross paths again? How do we live with the open-ended nature of his story? Join us for this conversation, and what it might mean for us and the lives we only touch for a short time, here on Crazy Faith Talk!

In a well-known (but textually curious) story, a woman who had been caught in adultery is brought to Jesus by an angry crowd of religious leaders, asking him if he supports their plan to stone her to death. Jesus' response is strange at first--he starts writing in the dirt with his finger! What's going on in this story, and why don't we know what Jesus was writing? This is where our conversation begins in a new series, "Bible Stories We Wish We Had," where we'll explore unmentioned details, untold tales, and unspoken pieces of Bible stories that leave us wondering. Join us here on Crazy Faith Talk!

Jesus seems clear in the Gospels that his followers are called to love their enemies and to refuse to answer evil with evil, even forbidding his disciples from using their weapons to protect him in the garden on the night of his arrest. The rest of the New Testament has a profound sense of non-violence as well. But what do we do about the accounts of violence and warfare in the Old Testament, and the times God is described as authorizing that violence? Join us for the final episode of our series, "A Faith of Both Testaments," here on Crazy Faith Talk!