How do you succinctly explain 312 responses to a survey which took a half an hour to complete? First by saying “Thanks!” The high participation allowed us to get a good feel for who and where we are as a congregation. Both women and our older members participated more strongly than their counterparts, but overall...
Author: Andrew Bors (Andrew Bors)
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Deep Work
By Jane Highley For the past seven months, I feel as though I’ve been swimming in history books. Not because I am using them to teach my 8th-grade history class, but because they are required texts for graduate school. As a newly matriculated grad student with an already full load of work and family life,...
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John 4: A Satirical look at Jesus’ Methods (And Ours!)
By Ward Shope Sometimes I am amazed at how undiplomatic Jesus is in his evangelism techniques. It almost seems as if he ignores all the bridge-building training many of us learn and behaves like a bull in a china shop when it comes to proclaiming the good news. Take his encounter with the Samaritan woman...
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Why Singing Matters (Part 2)
By Tim Shaw Following up on last week’s post, here are three more reasons why singing matters: Singing is one way God meets his people. Psalm 22:3 reads, “Yet you are enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Now, I don’t mean to suggest that singing is like rubbing a bottle in order to summon a genie, nor...
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Why Singing Matters
By Tim Shaw Last fall, one of the Adult School of Discipleship classes read Andy Crouch’s book The Tech-Wise Family (Baker Books, 2017), and I led a session on chapter 9, “Why Singing Matters.” Drawing from that class, here are three reasons why we sing when we gather together in worship: Singing is how God’s...
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New Life’s Family Meeting 2018
Something about starting a meeting with a meal draws us together. Maybe it’s the shared chicken, the conversation around the serving tables, the danger of spilled drinks, or the loitering around sweet treats. Whatever it is, when the meeting starts, we’re all ready to engage. The year’s congregational meeting was set up in just that...
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Reflections of an Insecure Middlescent
By Charlotte Gleason Many of us store proof of our insecure, awkward years in photo albums, yearbooks, and painful school pictures. My hair-sprayed bangs and shoulder pads certainly grace too many childhood photos. But my sophomore year in high school truly introduced me to insecurity. At the close of my freshman year, my parents decided...
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The Eagles and the Gospel
By Todd Hill Fly eagles fly, on the road to victory! That was the sound of the dozen or so people who squeezed into my living room last Sunday to cheer on their underdog Philadelphia Eagles to a resounding victory over the Minnesota Vikings. There was much jubilation not only in my living room, but...
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What You Can See When You Slow Down
By Dave Almack This blog was originally posted January 1 at https://faithlit.wordpress.com/. This edition is slightly edited. For many years, our family has had a tradition of going to Center City Philadelphia on Christmas Eve to see the sites of the season. This typically involves a stop at the Comcast Center, shopping at the Christmas...
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The Enoughness of God
By Debbie Shope Recently, our family, or at least I, have developed a great attachment to a number of the Brit Crimes on PBS. One such show is called Grantchester, about an Anglican priest, Sydney, who solves mysteries. A secondary storyline, though, is that the woman he loves got tired of waiting for him to...
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New Year Reflections
By Ward Shope New Year’s Eve has come and gone. Debbie and I found ourselves alone this year for possibly the first time since Wes joined our household 28 years ago. Still, we followed our tried and true routine: homemade Stromboli (no, we’re not Italian), a movie (this time a somewhat obtuse futuristic Spielberg film...