A Guest Blog from my good friend, Pastor Aaron Kunce. 30% of people ask questions of the people around them and are persistently curious about others. They are Illuminators. The other 70% might be perfectly nice people, but they don’t ask questions. They are Diminishers.

Collaboration is hard. Here are 13 reasons people use to justify collaboration.

It is no secret that leading as an outsider in York County can be a challenge. There is an unseen graveyard of outsiders who burst onto the scene and crashed and burned here.

The vast majority of us want to become better employees. Have you ever considered that one tactic toward that end is to pray for your co-workers?

Whether we like to wrestle with it or not, each of us will one day breathe our last. Our families will be left to craft a service order for our funeral and names will be assigned to speak about you.

What last word will be spoken about you?

Surely there is some person in York County whose voice is a nuisance to you.

York County has not always been the easiest place to love. Our family’s move to York in 2004 from Raleigh, North Carolina was a bit of a culture shock.

There are a lot of great things to do and places to go that make for a great quality of life and a great place to raise a family. Our family has a number of things we love to do, places to go, and activities we make sure out-of-town guests don’t miss.

The public does not often get to hear the stories of men and women serving as ministers, exemplars of the Christian faith, who make their communities better.

I am not talking about spotless saints, but humble leaders faithfully living out their calling to serve their communities with God’s help.

Like most other US cities, York has complex challenges. Fixing York will require more than just talk. Another branding campaign will not solve the crisis. Public statements, banners, and flowery flourishes on our websites will not affect the kind of change we need.

Each of us needs schools to teach, hospitals to heal, police to protect and serve, government to order civic life, and places of worship to lift our hearts to a higher purpose.

A 2001 Gallup survey reported that 25% of Democrats and 23% of Republicans believed that crime had gone up in their neighborhood over the last year. 20 years later, in 2022, those numbers have shot up to 42% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans reporting they are more fearful of crime.

State budget negotiations are full of false dichotomies. We are forced to choose loyalties between public, charter, or private schools. But is that really our only choice? While policymakers debate whether to spend more or less on education, perhaps we might ask, “How can we spend differently?”

One thing we learn from the farmer is that today’s fruit tells us about yesterday’s seed. What kind of seed have we been sowing in the fields called family and community?

Easter Sunday is still the ultimate reset for the followers of Jesus. Just as the Church was awakened to a bright new reality 2,000 years ago, so too, the modern Church needs to embrace again the life-giving power of the resurrection of Jesus.

There are six ways the Church can hit reset on Easter Sunday and chart a new trajectory for generations to come. This Easter in the year 2023, the Church should affirm the following pledges:

Jesus voiced His trust on Good Friday that God would not abandon Him to the grave. He had no other option when He was at the end of His rope than to trust God. Even for Jesus, God was silent on Saturday.

Sometimes God is silent on Saturday. We might even have to endure Saturday seasons.

Holy Saturday is never the final word. During these dark times, you have to remember that God has not abandoned you. He is at work in your life for your good.

On your most painful days, remember Holy Saturday. It is not God’s final word for your life.

Sunday is on the way.

2022 is going out with a bang in the Anderson household, or rather, with a thud and a crack! My sweet, 16-year-old daughter, Amelia, took a hard spill at the rollerskating rink that fractured her left wrist.

I had intended on writing a reflection piece about 2022. I never realized that a 10-hour stint in the ER would provide inspiration.

“Help me understand” is the kind of slow, gentle, loving language that has the power to take your relationships from where they are today to something far more rewarding and fulfilling tomorrow.

We are Safer Together. A sermon from Romans 12:9-16 about the strategy we employ to build a safer, more loving community.

Could it be that both Republicans and Democrats finally agree that a child’s ZIP code, ethnicity, or class should not determine whether they have access to a high-quality education?