Thankful Thursday: Shelby Andress

“You can learn to help out of the goodness of your heart and still not have a clue. I remember when I first heard Pastor Kelly say that ‘it’s all about relationships.' I honestly didn’t understand it, because I had to become a systems thinker in order to see community collaborations. I had helped people develop relationships, but it wasn’t ever at the core of my understanding...and that’s what I sense at Redeemer, this certain humility.”

These are the words of Shelby Andress, a congregation member at Redeemer Lutheran church and a donor for RCFL. As Shelby reflected more on the relationships that sustain her at Redeemer, she remarked about the women of Redeemer.

“I so value my relationships with women at Redeemer because there’s such an authentic voice and what we can learn from one another, the safety in sharing the things that are difficult...the relationships one-on-one, or as we bump into each other...I came from a very large church and at Redeemer I found a very large world; such a much bigger world than I ever ever had experienced.”

Thank you, Shelby, for investing, engaging, and being present with us.

Join us as we invest in and celebrate North Minneapolis. Be present with us, grow with us: https://www.redeemercenter.org/donate

We’ll see you again, right here, as we embark on a regular journey of diving deeper into the workings of the Redeemer community, who we are, how we engage, and how we together evolve.

As a place based organization, we celebrate and reinforce the diversity of Minneapolis’s Northside through social action and investment in its people, ideas, and enterprises. Community engagement remains at the core of our organizational culture and the primary source for our vision, strategy and evolution.

The support and partnership provided by monetary donations of all sizes, volunteerism, and in-kind contributions enable us to continue to act as an agent of hope and transformation to preserve a vibrant community in the Harrison neighborhood and broader North Minneapolis.