Category: New Life Notes

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...

By Debbie Shope Have you been intimately engaging your frontal lobe lately?  (Before I go any further, I apologize to all medical and scientific people out there who have far greater knowledge of the human brain.  Please excuse my blunders.  Now, back to your lobe 🙂  At a conference some years ago I learned a...

By Tracy Eide Psalm 5:1-6 “Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray… You hear my voice… I lay my requests before You and wait expectantly…” I love the Psalms; I live in the Psalms. There is so much...

By Nancy Unks While in western Pennsylvania last Thanksgiving, I made a trip back to my hometown. Not the one where I did most of my growing up; the one before that where I lived the first three years of my life and visited often with my family because it was my Dad’s hometown. A...

By Ward Shope As we experience the dislocation of COVID-19, some have drawn a parallel to the persecuted church in its inability to meet for regular worship and Bible teaching.  I’ve done it myself, having close connection to some serving the Kingdom in that part of the world.  There is a mix of prudence and...

By Nancy Unks “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8). All clay is not the same. It comes in a range of earthy colors, from dark brown to porcelain white. It comes in various textures, from course...

By Debbie Shope “We are a people of promise in a world of impatience.” I read this sentence in a blog recently, and was struck by how it seemed to touch a heartbeat of tension in the Christian life, at least for me.  We have the hope and promises of the very God of the...