Category: Uncategorized

By Lisa Leahy We’ve been studying Esther in Women’s Bible Study. It’s been stunning to see God’s sovereign hand directing the lives of each person in the story, including a young adopted Jewish girl, her uncle and a pagan king. I wonder at how God’s power is so often with the weak, marginalized and powerless,...

By Sharon Brennan For Christmas break in my second year of college, I went home to spend the holidays with my parents. Shortly after New Year’s Day, we experienced a house fire. I knew they needed help, so instead of returning to college, I got a job. The biggest challenge for me was buying clothing...

By Ward Shope We are now about a year and a few months from Ron’s departure from New Life. The Search Committee is working hard to identify possible candidates for the lead pastor position. And we as a Session (the elders) are moving forward in thinking about what ways we need to adapt as we...

By Elise Elise is a member of our Sr. High Youth Group I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Senior High Winter Retreat for the first time this year. Jim Lovelady spoke over the weekend and I was able to take important lessons away from it all. He mainly spoke about how “We Are...

By Katie Ruby InterVarsity Christian Fellowship exposed me to many people in college who chose urban ministry. But I thought to myself, “That’s nice, but not my calling.” I guess you shouldn’t say that unless you’d like it to be your calling. Then one summer I served with InterVarsity in the inner city of Lancaster,...

By Lois Carr My shocking introduction to serving poor families in Kenya was by volunteering at a cramped three-room pre-school where I cleaned and dressed festering wounds and tried to stress the importance of hand-washing where there was no running water. Children infected with AIDS, burned by open cook fires or born with physical deformities...

By Zach Weik I was not sorry to say good-bye to January 2016.  January, generally speaking, can be a tough month.  Between the bitter cold, shortened daylight hours, and poorly performing hometown sports teams (looking at you, Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers), the post-holiday letdown can take its toll on my psyche.  This year’s January also...

By Eloise Briscoe As I was walking out of church a few weeks ago after Anthony’s “Identity Crisis” sermon (1 Peter 1:1-4), I started humming a song that I hadn’t thought of in a long time. It was a Sara Groves song called “To the Moon”. Do you know it? You can hear Sara sing...

By Jane Highley I’ll be turning 38 this month, and that number puts me squarely in the “late-30s” demographic. It’s also the age that feels like I’ll be entering a 2-year holding pattern for the formidable 40s, which sounds really grown-up. I’d like to say that, at this point in my life, having been a...

By Aaron Ullman “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” ~Virgil, from The Aeneid While there is no real English equivalent to Virgil’s famous Latin phrase, some have roughly translated it to “Maybe someday you will rejoice to recall even this.” The words are powerful and emotional in the context of the epic—Aeneas and his nomadic...

By Ward Shope Several weeks ago, I replaced a light bulb in my dining room. I just screwed out the old bulb and screwed another bulb in its place. Predictably, I flipped the switch and haven’t thought about it since. If only it were that easy replacing lead pastors… But THAT is more like roping...

By Laurel Kehl Immigration. Just the word itself raises a lot of strong emotions in our hearts these days, especially the idea of undocumented (illegal) immigrants. As Americans, we have a lot of pride in being a nation that from the beginning has said, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” but we...