Church Street

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Church Street, Princeton
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It would be just like him

The God of the Bible looks like Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. It would be just like him to go to the cross.

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Practicing Our Scales

Imagine if our walk with Christ, representing his kingdom in the world, were as practiced and pure as Hania Rani’s fingers on the piano keys.

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Rescue

I practice the spiritual discipline of rescuing earthworms on paved surfaces. It's a reminder to me that I can pause what I'm doing, get a little dirty, and help. Also, that I've been given the responsibility to care.

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Your Roots Are Showing

The life that I bring to the world can only be found in my attachment to Christ. His presence with me is essential.

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Connection

I live in a U.S. county with traffic problems. It's a peninsula, and what's not swamp land has been developed. Building new roads is difficult and expensive. Making things worse, roads that could connect don't.

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Living Rick Shafer Living Rick Shafer

Same, but different

We can occupy the same kingdom and experience it differently. It’s a reason we need one another.

You and I have been rescued from Pandemonium, a place of brokenness and horror.

Now we explore Eden together.

But our escape was from different provinces.

So our journey is both same and different.

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Knowing Rick Shafer Knowing Rick Shafer

An Explosion of Words

How do you describe the Indescribable?

I love your pictures of the sea and the mountains. I love your photos of forests, flowers, and every kind of creature. Now imagine we lived in a time before cameras. How would you help me see that sunrise? How would you portray that platypus? Our family recently played the game Catch Phrase; it's so hard to describe even the simplest things.

Now here's a challenge: describe God. Isaiah, a great Old Testament prophet, makes a good effort in Isaiah 40. It's an explosion of words. But I come away feeling he barely scratched the surface. How do you describe the Indescribable? Now, we know in part; now, we see a reflection in a mirror. One day we'll see fully; one day we'll see face-to-face. How awesome will that be? There aren't enough words!

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Forming Rick Shafer Forming Rick Shafer

Spoken Word

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

“Be filled with the Spirit by speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (singing and making music with your hearts to the Lord), by always giving thanks for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by submitting to one another in reverence for Christ. ”
— Ephesians 5:18-21

For millennia, Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs have helped to encourage and to lift spirits. Here, Paul tells the Ephesian church to take what's helpful personally and offer it to one another. The Church is a distinct, called-out body that's in the world but not of it. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs remind us of where we're really from and whose we really are. Over the next few weeks, can we be generous with one another in this way?

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