When we started ReCAST Church back in 2009, we had no employees.  Technically, I was paid full-time as the church planter/pastor, but I was paid fully by another church that entire first year.  Berean Baptist Church in Portage, MI, was generous and gracious to give us a great financial start! But now, fast forward to…

I have songs.  Now let me back up for a minute and identify that I am absolutely one of the LEAST musical people that I know.  I have never produced anything that comes close to music.  I enjoy singing.  I enjoy listening.  I even enjoy trying to dance if the moment is right.  But I…

I listen to a handful of podcasts most weeks, and two of them highlighted the problems of ai (you may note that this is not in all caps as usual, keep reading to see why) within the past 24 hours.  Both of them spoke to the same issue, and this got me thinking. In one…

I fear that far too many American Christians have formed an opinion of their responsibility to the poor from experience or from political leanings.  I have had many conversations over the years about poverty that concluded with discussions of poor choices and drug abuse.  I have also spoken with people who have a shocking level…

Last week my wife spent a few days near the Florida-Alabama border with several others ladies from the church.  The event was for women and was called Bible at the Beach with Nanny G (Nancy Guthrie for normal people). And while I missed my wife, I was glad for the time she was able to…

I used the word ‘worldview’ in my title instead of ideology, because worldview strikes me as more comprehensive. And that is the point. I do not imagine that there are many people (though I tremble at the thought that there are some) who set out to embrace death, who hope to some day plunge off…

I have been a pastor for 20 years and am closing in on 100 weddings that I’ve officiated. And there a couple of trends I have seen in the past several years that I think are worthy of note.

Most weddings are now outdoors. I don’t have a STRONG opinion about this, but just an opinion. A church building is meant to evoke thoughts about the presence of God. I will be the first to admit that He is NOT any more present in a church than He is in a vineyard, or on a farm, or at an outdoor wedding venue . . .

The Christian who believes the Bible is true, knows that this world is NOT the way it was supposed to be. We know we are frail. We know disease is real. We know we are dying. I start in this place, regarding the topic of holistic health, simply to set the field of play for this discussion.

I went through a yo-yo phase. I could walk the dog, I could rock the baby, and do the elevator. All of these are fairly entry level tricks, but I thought I was cool . . . If yo-yos could be called ‘cool’.

[11] so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.   I just finished a podcast series on the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s. I enjoyed listening in, because it was a trip down memory lane. The decades of the 80’s and 90’s were formative…

I was raised by wolves.  Just kidding.  But I was not raised in a context anchored to any tradition.  My spiritual formation took place in a non-denominational Bible church.  I was raised by a single mom who remarried after my dad died.  Even after my mother remarried, I had little to no stability in my…

My wife and I made it quite a while without a large animal pet.  There were Amelia and Zaccheaus, the zebra finches we had early in our marriage.  We had a brief foray into hamsters when our kids were young.  We had a freshwater aquarium for a few years.  But Linda and I both shared…