By Ward Shope In the movie Nanny McPhee, a widower’s seven children are committed to preventing him from making a drastic mistake by marrying an ill-suited widow who only wants him for his inheritance. Simon, the oldest child, has a plan to break them up. But realizing that the magical and just nanny might object...
Author: Andrew Bors (Andrew Bors)
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The Way of Love
By Ward Shope 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,...
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Shifting Longings
By Tracy Eide Used by permission. You can read the original blog here I’m stuck on the first line of the well-known Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want”. I am not content to believe those happy watercolor paintings which depict a beautiful, flowery meadow with me as the...
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Baseball and the Gospel
By Tim Shaw We are not a huge sports family, partly because we don’t have the right TV and requisite cable subscription, but every spring we become a baseball family. Our older son started playing ten years ago—I can hardly believe how quickly time flies!—and now he plays at school and on our town’s American...
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Striving to Rest
By Todd Hill Have you ever considered the irony found in statements like larger half, act natural, found missing, or jumbo shrimp? Has anyone ever told you that you are seriously funny? Did you ever use liquid gas in your chemistry class? Have you been frustrated by the structure suggested when someone wants to put...
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Neighboring Well
By Charlotte Gleason When we first moved to our home on Buck Road, we did so rather disbelievingly. A few months earlier, we had been mentally moving ourselves to Western Pennsylvania with its small towns and open spaces; instead, God placed us in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He provided us with land and a home...
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When an Arm Breaks, Love Is…
By Jane Highley In mid-March, on a Sunday morning, I went for a run. Not even 3 miles in, I was down with a broken arm: a mid-shaft fracture of the left humerus, to be precise. I had slipped on a thick patch of ice and broke the backward fall with my arm. I’ll skip...
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Book Review: “Every Good Endeavor” by Tim Keller with Katherine Leary Alsdorf
Review by Ward Shope Have you ever awoken with no desire to go to “work”? Chances are, even if you have your dream job, you’ve had those mornings. Work seems meaningless, fruitless, maybe endless. It feels disconnected from the other areas of your life. Why do we do it? Is it just for a paycheck?...
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The Relief of Obedience
By Shannon Keenan Obedience is The very best way To show that you believe Doing exactly what the Lord commands Doing it happily Action is the key Do it immediately Joy you will receive Obedience is The very best way To show that you believe O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E These are the lyrics to a song we used...
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A Summons to Represent Jesus
By Ward Shope In January, the church received a summons to appear before district court by the police of our township. It was not completely unexpected. Over the last year, our burglar alarm had summoned the police a number of times without apparent cause. The standing rule is that if this happens three times or...
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Bonding at the Sr. High Retreat
By McKenzie On the evening of Friday, February 16, the New Life youth set off on the 2018 winter retreat. We knew we would have a productive weekend in the way of building community, having fun with one another, and learning more about God. What we didn’t realize was that God would greatly challenge our...
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Surrounding Our Lives with the Music of the Gospel
By Melanie Kauffman It feels as if I’ve always been surrounded by music. In the late nineties, when I was just a child, I received my very first cassette tape. Before long, I was playing CD’s on my boombox and my state-of-the-art Panasonic Discman. Nowadays I play music on my iPhone and my Amazon Echos....