As I was reading through some obscure parts of the Old Testament about the assigning of cities of refuge, God impressed upon my heart His great grace in recognizing the messiness of life in a fallen world. The concept of the city of refuge was God making a provision in the event that someone…
There is truly nothing new under the sun. Teens these days are confronted with drugs, with social pressure (usually online now), academic pressure, sports performance pressure and everything else that goes along with the struggles on the road to adulthood. The beauty in life, however, is that despite the problems being recycled in various…
What would you do with the money!? Quick math (you can check on me) indicates that you would need to spend $136,986 per day in order to spend 1.5 billion dollars in 30 years! I know the pay out wasn’t a full 1.5 billion dollars but little math games like this put big numbers into…
This past year was a good year for reading for me. I enjoy reading and have started listening to audio books while I run or work out. For those of you familiar with strengths finder I have input, ideation and learner in my top five strengths meaning that I spend a lot of time…
I do not know why I have a Master’s Degree in Muslim Studies. Let me be clear. It wasn’t an accident, like I woke up one morning with a headache and a fuzzy recollection of taking a bunch of classes in Muslim Theology. What I mean is that I haven’t figured out God’s plan for…
I am back after a month long sabbatical. I have been to the mountain top, and I have returned with many words of wisdom. Or put in a less dramatic way, I am back after a refreshing break. God did impress upon me several things while I was away. Some of them more personal in…
Through the various stages of church planting, I have often had to dig deep and ask some tough questions. Why start another church . . . in West Michigan of all places? Where is this thing going? Now that we have some stability, have we arrived? Why isn’t there a good Mexican restaurant in…
Update January 2019: This post was originally published in October 2015. In 2018, God brought Sharron Sternbergh to ReCAST. She has had an abortion herself and has been a certified counselor with Healing Hearts since 2006, a ministry originally started to minister to post-aboritve women. She is passionate about helping other women experience true healing,…
The new clothes have been purchased and are all lined up in the closet. The pencil top erasers are all ready to remove some rare mistakes. The trapper keepers are all stocked with lined and ruled notebook paper. Okay, maybe not trapper keepers . . . But some of you knew what I was…
Way back on July 20, 2012, just moments after midnight, James Holmes walked into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado armed to the teeth with the only goal being that he would kill people. After killing 12 and injuring 70 others his gun jammed and he walked out of the theater and surrendered to…
Why do we call it a bullseye? Why not call the center of the target the bearseye? Or the catseye? I’ll let someone else google it and post the history of that word in the comments. But all of us know the target analogy, right? We are shooting for something. We desire for success in…
Society and history marks the swing of pendulums. There is a correlation between the legalism of one generation and the licentiousness of another. The pendulum swings in the church hymns – choruses – hymns – choruses. The pendulum swings in the church suits – shorts – suits – shorts. And in many subtle ways…
