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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 disciples and how later New Testament writers reflected on its meaning, we now explore how different theological traditions have ended up with different understandings of what happens when we gather around the bread and cup.  Is Jesus present here at this meal?  Are we just remembering or commemorating a past event?  Is Jesus somehow being sacrificed again?  And how important is it that we all agree or share the same understanding about what is happening here?  Join us for a conversation across traditions and time this week on Crazy Faith Talk!

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 folded into their shared (common) life as disciples.  Join us for this conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!

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 Passover with his disciples, hours before his betrayal and arrest, when Jesus took the unleavened bread of the passover and remaining cup of wine and imbued them with new meaning, pointing to himself as a new kind of passover lamb.  What did Jesus' disciples think was happening, and how much might they have understood? What do the gospel writers want us to know about that moment, and how does it connect to our ongoing practice in Christian worship?  Join the conversation here on this week's Crazy Faith Talk!

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 if the person who baptized me ends up leaving the faith or committing some terrible sin?  What about being baptized by proxy for someone who is deceased?  Why did people in an earlier time sometimes hold off on being baptized until they were on their deathbed?  All of these questions and more are up for discussion on this week's episode of Crazy Faith Talk!

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 baptized all at once, and how baptism was also understood as God's gift of a new identity--like being born all over again.  Join the conversation and listen in here as we explore more of what it means to be the baptized people of God here on Crazy Faith Talk!

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 our conversation here on Crazy Faith Talk!