Below is Pastor Don’s blog, where Pastor Don shares his thoughts on Scripture, current events, and more. Make sure to check back here frequently to read more about topics we may even discuss when we meet!
When we set out to start a new church about four years ago, we went through a pretty clinical process. We visited some communities, we did some demographic studies, we prayed, and we decided to love a little community called Mattawan. I have always said that falling in love should be more of a decision…
God’s grace has been evident in ReCAST church over the past four years. We started on April 19, 2009 with about 30 people in the basement of a home in Mattawan. This past week I counted up the number of volunteers to make our Sunday morning programs run, and there were over 30 workers! We…
A fairly common routine in my family came to light this week with the news that a very young Mattawan fire fighter, Nate Fruin, died on his way to a fire in the Mattawan area on Tuesday. Linda and I began the habit of praying for the people involved in emergencies whenever we saw an…
I love science. It was by far my favorite subject in school and I am still not sure how I ended up in a field predominantly utilizing language arts and humanities. I have two full shelves of books on the subject of apologetics, including titles like, “The Case for a Creator”, “Creation-Evolution: The Controversy”, and…
The coffee shop is my office away from my office. It is a fun place to hang out, enjoy an overpriced cup of joe, and take in the sights and sounds of my community. But that is not the only reason I am sitting at a coffee shop blogging right now. As a Pastor, I…
It has been awesome to see the growth of ReCAST Church over the past several months. I have blogged a couple of times on the space issues we are currently facing in our current facilities. The leadership has been working to pull together short-term, mid-range, and long-term solutions in order to maximize our current facility.…
Today is my 40th birthday. I fielded a few jokes today but in reality I have had a little time to reflect on how quickly forty years has flown by! Scriptures refer to life as a mist that burns off when the sun rises or is blown away by the wind. It is a fragile…
What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? What is male and what is female? Biology gives us some obvious definitions. But just as God has designed the human body, he also created both male and female to reflect Him. He created a male mirror to reflect…
I have been greatly encouraged in the past year by taking in preaching from other pastors, and reading good blogs. I would like to pass along a couple of resources that I regularly take advantage if with the hope that some of you will also benefit spiritually from the great stuff available for free on…
At the end of every year I am making it tradition to share my reading list from the previous year and give a brief summary. This year I have read more fiction than ever in my life and I think that has been impacted by my use of the Kindle app on my iPad. For…
I have been reading, watching, praying, and listening in response to the events of last Friday. I am late in writing this in the sense that everyone has already weighed in on their feelings and thoughts. First, I need to say that my heart has truly grieved the senseless violent taking of human life that…
I picked up The Lord of the Rings from the library shelf as a freshman in high school. It was thick had little print and was completely unlike anything I had ever checked out from a library. I always spent time in the nonfiction section somewhere between astronomy and biology. Little did I know that…
