Church Street

Church neighboring daily life.

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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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Kingdom Rick Shafer Kingdom Rick Shafer

Reckoning myself rescued

Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. ⏤ Psalm 116:7

Death surrounds me: violence, hatred, dishonesty, pride, arrogance. Into this world I was born. And from its patterns I have been rescued. I will reckon myself an observer of this death, not its participant. I dwell in a consulate, an outpost of eternal life on the edges of Sheol. There’s a Welcome mat at the door.

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Kingdom Kingdom

All of a Piece

A Church that works for integrity under God and with him.

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. — Matthew 12:30

Sanctification. Restoration. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Invitation. Welcome. Redemption. Jubilee. Repentance. Evangelism. Rectification. Healing. Repair. Defragmentation. Reconstruction. Exorcism. Communion.

These are wholeness words that, themselves, are squares in a ministry quilt.

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Kingdom Kingdom

Upside Down Kingdom

The grittiness of a 'Jesus is Lord' gospel.

Better said, God's kingdom is the right-side-up one. In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5), Jesus says God's favor is on the humble, the mourning, the gentle and kind, those who seek the repair of unjust systems, the merciful, the innocent, the peacemakers, and the oppressed. His kingdom consists of self-giving to God and neighbor. It's something Paul echoes in 1 Cor. 13, and details in Gal. 5. The challenge is to turn this from a religious abstraction to daily discipleship, to deny myself, take up my cross every day, and follow Jesus' lead, along with others in my church family.

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