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,…
Every once in a while I get the chance to go to a professional conference or an afternoon lecture for pastors. This past week Cornerstone University (where I completed my bachelor’s degree) had a conference for pastors on Mackinac Island at the Grand Hotel. It was an amazing time away of reflection and networking…
In light of entering my seventh year as the lead pastor, the board of ReCAST church decided to offer me a month long sabbatical and a bonus. I am so grateful for this opportunity to take the month of November to read, pray, and spend some time away in reflection. I do not know…
A church is a gathering of people. People need organization. Pastor’s are either very organized or very not organized. I am not very organized. So in the vacuum left by our associate pastor’s move to a new ministry and our office administrator’s move to South Korea, we had some huge gaps at the start…
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…
I have been reading a lot in preparation for my new sermon series “The Rest of the Week”. I am attempting to encourage the dignity of everyday work through the teaching of Scripture. It has been pretty rare in my experience to have the church talk about the work that takes up the majority of…
For a handful of us, we remember that awkward talk with our parents. THE talk. The one where many parents blushed and searched for words, mumbled some things under their breath and talked about the act of procreation. For many of us we never had that talk. We just kinda pieced things together from…
I just read a jarring headline that will be effecting my running routine for months to come. I am running low on podcasts and another pastor that I listen to regularly just resigned due to an affair. It makes me both sad and angry . . . I guess kinda “”sangry”. I am not so much…
In 1952 Congress formalized into law that the first Thursday of the month of May should be set aside as a national day of prayer. I am thankful that we have a history as a nation that includes a decade like the 1950’s where there was a significant revival after the war and people indeed…
