This week, I am preaching a text that contains over 31 commands!  Yes, it is firehose of instruction that intentionally was written by the apostle Paul to overwhelm us with a portrait of genuine love for one another in the church.  By the end of Romans 12:9-21 we have a pretty amazing picture of what…

Ten years ago when ReCAST church was just a baby church, we started with a pretty low view of membership.  In my idealistic and poorly informed view of church membership, I brashly stated to many people that church membership is not something that we see in the Bible.  And so it was de-emphasized for the…

Man, oh man, did John MacArthur irresponsibly back his way into a hornets nest!  He apparently told Beth Moore (an evangelical author and bible study leader) to, “go home!” when asked to give the first thing that came to his head when her name was mentioned.  First of all, let me just start by tackling…

I don’t care for you to know my personal opinions about global warming.  They are a hodge-podge of theories and unsubstantiated feelings that come from reading various articles and opinion pieces based on little to no research.  I do not know who to trust on the subject.  But I do want to be clear that…

  Since that first meeting in a basement 10 years ago, ReCAST Church has experienced waves of growth.  It has been God’s Grace that the waves have been spaced out to allow for acclimation each step of the way.  This is not a minor thing.  It would be problematic for a church to experience little…

  I was a lifeguard in my youth.  I served at Camp Barakel as a lifeguard, a head lifeguard, and I even worked at the Y as a paid lifeguard when I was newly married and trying to work as much as possible to make ends meet.  And one lesson that I learned as a…

  People have strong opinions about money.  As a matter of fact, I believe that many people actually love money.  But when money and faith or money and the church combine in discussion, I have found over the years that people get nervous, angry, or opinionated. Personally, I have have intentionally worked to make sure…

ReCAST Church has submitted paperwork to apply to become a member church of Camp Barakel in northern Michigan.  They will be discussing  and voting on our application at their annual meeting in October. On a personal note, this is the camp where I met my wife.  This is the camp where I asked her to…

  The waters are rising.  West Michigan has been experiencing a very wet Spring.  This would not be anything new, except that a couple of  watersheds in our area have experienced unprecedented elevation in the water table.  Pine Island Lake, Bankson Lake, and Crooked Lake are at record levels.  And many people have found their…

  I recently heard that Facebook is going to be getting a new overhaul.  I have personally noticed that Facebook has been on the decline and there are fewer friends on there now than there were even a couple of years ago.  In a culture of over-sharing, maybe there is a corrective movement toward more…

Last week we had a scary situation at ReCAST Church.  A woman arrived to drop off her children at ReCAST Kids and could not find her 7 year old son.  Our children’s director and hall monitors went to work right away scouring the building and the search spread outdoors as the Elder on Duty was…

  I believe that we are an increasingly pragamatic culture.  That means that we believe that the value of something is only according to how well it works to produce a desired outcome.  This comes out in business models that seek to get results by whatever means work.  We value productivity.  We value efficiency.  And…