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…
Nobody ever refers to the children of an engineer as EKs. Or the children of a Doctor as DKs. But I have often heard children of Pastor’s called PKs. And I have the privilege of raising up three of them. My church has been a blessing to me on this front and I would…
Don originally posted this in 2015 – his 20th wedding anniversary. December of 2025 found them celebrating their 30th anniversary! And all these thoughts are still accurate… In desperation and youth Linda and I chose to get married 2 days before Christmas in 1995. We were so very young. I finished my final, final exam…
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…
