Author: Andrew Bors (Andrew Bors)

By Shannon Keenan If I had to choose one word to sum up Mike Hollenbach, it would be messy. Mike was not afraid to get into the mud puddle with people. Relationships, of any kind, are hard. He knew that in order to love people the way Jesus called him to love people, sometimes he...

By Jane Highley Ever since our area went into the “green” phase of the state’s reopening plan, everybody in my family was cautiously eager to venture out wherever we could safely. Everyone but my eight-year-old son. Grant is not a shy kid, but he is also not necessarily outgoing. He loves building LEGO towns, watching...

By Beth Ann Olesen There seems to be a lot of tension recently. Tension over masks, over statues, over presidential candidates, to name a few. I’ve been wrestling with this idea of tension on a smaller, less divisive scale in my own life. Tension between work and family, between two working parents, between safety and...

By Ward Shope I grew up in a small farming community.  My parents taught us not to be prejudiced against people of color, but we had little practice.  I believe there were only two African American families in our school district.  In my childhood years I remember asking my father whether Martin Luther King Jr...

By Beth Ann Olesen The stay-at-home order has forced me to consider my prayer life. During the normal hustle and bustle of life as a working mom of three young children, it is all too easy to avoid thinking too deeply about the shallowness of my prayer life. I tend to pray for something, ask...

By Nancy J. Unks “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message’” Jeremiah 18:3. I like to play in mud. Maybe it started in childhood when I spent summer days with my little brother building roads and villages...

By Todd Hill How many times have you heard someone say, “They say”?  Have you ever wondered who they are?  It seems that they have a lot of credibility, seeing how much weight we put on what they say! As I reflect on the proverbial they, I notice that so often when I talk about...

By Beth Ann Olesen As I work through the book of Mark, I keep coming back to a specific passage: And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you...

By Jane Highley This is not a silver-linings reflection, although that is not a bad idea for another post. Instead, I am sharing with you something curious that I have come to notice since we have all been ordered to shelter in place since March. It took a pandemic for me to notice how many...

By Ward Shope 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Heb 13:8) A number of years before we came to New Life, I was part of a work team whose leader resigned.  As a result, the leadership above us decided to make me the new leader even though I had less experience than...

By Nancy Unks If I am tempted to complain about isolation on my warm, comfy couch, I have only to read Paul’s second letter to Timothy, his beloved young protégé, to snap me out of that mood. It was written in dreadful circumstances. Paul, under arrest, had been taken to Rome in chains and thrown...

By Ward Shope Chances are you’ve heard this phrase frequently recently.  Embedded within this message is the understanding that we are restricting ourselves in a number of ways for the health of the greater whole.  I stay home, not only so that I don’t get the coronavirus, but so that I don’t become a transmitter...