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…
2019 will contain the 10th birthday of ReCAST Church. The time has gone by in the spirit of the proverbial “the days are long but the years are short.” So I will kick off this anniversary year by sharing five observations from ten years of being a lead pastor. 1. Preaching creates a rhythm. My…