Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 121

It’s More Than a List (Sermon)

Title: It’s More Than a List

Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Date: November 16, 2014 AM

Text: Romans 16

Our Home in the Country

An old oak grows on the sloping lawn in front of the house. We’ve spent the last few hours gathering its leaves into baskets and hauling them to the garden.

A few leaves still cling tenaciously to the branches. They won’t let go until they’re forced off by the new growth of spring. The rest of them lie scattered on the ground to remind us of our work.

The last green of summer is fading from the grass.

The sun has set and the moon has risen into a darkening purple sky over the red barn east of the house.

In front of the face of the yellow moon a formation of geese honk their way to the south over the woods.

Our white two-story farmhouse sits on a hill on the margin of our woods.

We stacked a bit of wood on the porch and within we are warm and secure and preparing supper.

…Or so I imagine when I look at the beautiful John Sloane painting I have chosen for a background image on my laptop in our little house in the suburbs just south of Detroit.

I love the work of John Sloane. I buy his calendar every year. When I turn the new page each month I have a cherished ritual. I stand for a quiet moment and I imagine myself in the picture, then I go back to work. I often write using Evernote. I make a narrow window to write in and around the edges I can see a beautiful painting of John Sloane. It’s like I am in the picture.

First Snowfall

Evening has fallen as I write this. Yesterday some snow flakes rode the cold air but none of them stuck to the ground. This afternoon the snow has clung to the grass and trees just enough to remind me to keep my scraper and shovels handy.

Toward the end of August, summer warmth and sun walk away and leave us standing and looking down the path that bends into the beauty of autumn in September and in October. 

Autumn falls into November-gray and cold and leaves us looking for our sweaters and scrapers.

November has the redeeming virtue of being the month that our son Chuk and I celebrate our birthdays and it is the blessed month of Thanksgiving. Devout hearts stop and recall God’s mercies at the waning of each year. 

By the time we have cleared the Thanksgiving table, Advent is upon us—the time of anticipation of the arrival of the long-promised Christ-child… and we are counting the days like children.

In Holy December we begin Christmas preparations and Christmas observances. We sing Christmas songs and turn to beloved Christmas passages and Christmas traditions and Christmas commitments. Christmas Sunday. The Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Christmas Morning. Christmas Dinner. When all the celebration has cleared away we get down to the business of a fresh, new year. So we have a lot to look forward to, don’t we?

A Heart As Big As The Whole World (Sermon)

Title: A Heart As Big As The Whole World

Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont

Text: Romans 15:8-33

Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan

Date: November 9, 2014 AM

We are nearing the end of Romans and heart of the book i...

We are nearing the end of Romans and heart of the book is opening up to us. My message Sunday morning will be “A Heart As Big As the Whole World.”

Take a minute to visit the the Evangel website. www.evangelbaptist.com. I have created a short video there for you. Would you be willing to do me a simple favor. I would like you to visit my Facebook site and share the video with all your friends on Facebook. This is a simple way to generate some interest. Would you be willing to do that?

Here is my Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/kenpierpont Just copy and past that into your browser window and then post it on your wall. You can go directly to Vimeo and share it from there: http://vimeo.com/111226326 Let’s spread the word and see what happens.

I Want It My Way – Part 2 (Sermon)

Title: I Want It My Way – Part 2

Text: Romans 14:1-15:7

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Place: Evangel Baptist-Taylor, Michigan

Austin’s Gift

A few months ago we drove to Wisconsin to visit our daughter Heidi, her husband Austin, and our sweet grand princess, Keira. Heidi was pregnant with a little boy due in October. Usually I enjoy conversation with Austin about his work. He is a police officer. He always has fascinating stories to tell about third-shift peace-keeping in his city.

Austin and Heidi live in a pleasant little lake community. Heidi has wonderful taste and creative ideas about redecorating and remodeling. Austin has the initiative and ability to make her dreams a reality. His dad, Eric and his brothers sometime come to help him. He remodeled their kitchen and built a beautiful “man cave” den/theater room in the lower floor of their split-level home. He also built her a beautiful dining room table from barn wood reclaimed from a barn near Oregon, Illinois. I asked him about the table and he described how he built it by hand. It is a beautiful work of art and a labor of love. Underneath the table he hand-lettered a plaque dedicating the table to Heidi and affirming his love for her.

I commented on it and told him of my great admiration for his work. He explained how he built it and how he finished it. I ran my hands over the smooth wood and admired his craftsmanship. During our conversation he offered to build me a writing desk of reclaimed barn wood for my new study—the room that had been the girls room in Granville Cottage. I weakly protested and then asked him how much he would charge for such a treasure. He quickly offered to built it for me as a gift. After a few more minutes of weak and insincere protestations I agreed to allow him to do it. Before I left I pressed some money into his hand to get more reclaimed barn-wood and we began to make plans for my new writing desk.

For months little Koen grew in Heidi’s womb and I cherished the picture working at my new writing desk. The week our grandson Koen was born the desk was finished. Lois, Holly, Hannah, and Hope drove to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon to see the new baby. I preached twice on Sunday and by sunrise on Monday morning Hazard and I were a third of the way across the base of the “Mitten” in the Jeep. While the great city of Chicago was waking up and getting started on a new work week we were around the southern tip of Lake Michigan, through the city and up into southern Wisconsin.

Little Koen slept quietly in our arms as we passed him adoringly from Grandma to Hope to Holly to Hannah to Grandpa to mom and dad and back around again. The next day Hannah joined Hazard and I on the return trip. This time with my beautiful custom-built writing desk snugly in the back of my Jeep.

I had given Austin the measurements—the depth and width and exact height of the desk. It not only fit me and the room perfectly, it fit in my Jeep for the ride home without a half-inch to spare.

The desk is on two pedestal legs made of red oak—the original beams of the barn complete with the original pegs. The trestle cross piece between the pedestal-beams is secured with three of the four original pegs. Austin fabricated a forth peg, drilled the cross piece and glued it in place. There is not a metal fastener of any kind in the desk. It is all constructed pegs and glue, tongue and groove.

When I arrived in Riverview late that night, another of my fine sons-in-law, Dale, was there to help me move my new treasure into my study. (Dale and Austin grew up at Evangel and they were next-door neighbors). As we were moving the stout desk into the room I realized that it would outlast me. I was in possession of a genuine heirloom that I would never be willing to sell.

The first Stonebridge Newsletter was written from our up-stairs bedroom in the Pine Street Parsonage from Fremont, Michigan in fall of 2000. Since then I have written the Stonebridge from the Character Inn in Flint, Brook Place in Hinsdale, Illinois, the North Woods in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Camp Barakel, Lake Ann, Canada, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Sacramento, Mexico and probably a dozen other places. I have written from my inner study at Evangel in Taylor and from the table in Granville Cottage, but tonight, for the first time, I am writing from my new study at home in Granville Cottage in the Forest of Riverview. This room used to be Heidi and Hannah’s room. Heidi married and it became Hannah and Hope’s room. Hannah married and It became Hope’s room. Holly married and moved to Oregon and Hope took her room and left this room empty. Now it is my study at home. For the first time I am writing the Stonebridge from my study in Granville Cottage on my new writing desk.

The desk has a hand-lettered plaque attached to the underside. On it Austin wrote these beautiful words. “Hand-crafted for the man who gave me the greatest earthly gift one man could give another, his daughter, my wife, Heidi Hancock.” -Austin Hancock

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage Study

Riverview, Michigan

October 30, 2014

I Want it My Way (Sermon)

http://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20141026_Ken_Pierpont_I_Want_It_My_Way.mp3

Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont

Text: Romans 14; Galatians 5:16-26

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Date: October 26, 2014 AM

It’s Not Complicated-Sermon

Title: “It’s Not Complicated”

Text: Romans 13:8-14

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Date: October 19. 2014 AM

http://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20141019_Ken_Pierpont_Its_Not_Complicated.mp3

When Your Brother is “Owly”

In the picture above Leland is in the black watch cap and Oliver is the kid in the bright red sweater with the perpetual smile.

So our oldest son and his wife Elizabeth have three adorable sons, Kyle (K2), Oliver, and Leland.

Our son Kyle calls me Sunday morning and says; “Do you have a minte? I have a story for your back pocket.” I’m all ears. As the story goes–

Leland wakes up in an unconsolable mood on Sunday morning. He’s not at all happy with life. He’s grouchy about the cereal choices. His dad’s sunny banter only drives him deeper into his owly disposition.

Oliver, the next oldest, wakes up most mornings with a half-smile on his face. He enters the room and looks over at Leland as if to say, “What up?”

Leland says; “Don’t look at me.”

Oliver chuckles and settles into the seat in the window where the sun is shining through. He leans back on his chair. Leland knows that one of the house rules is “No Leaning Back On The Chair.” He says; “Don’t lean back.”

Oliver is chill. The smile never leaves his face.

Leland drops his blanket and starts to cry… “…blanket—blanket—BLANKET!…” shouting toward Oliver.

Oliver gets up, walks over, picks up the blanket, hands it to Leland and then he says; “Leland, do you need a hug?”

Without waiting for a reply He hugs his brother for a few seconds.

With his brother’s hug the dark cloud moves from little Leland’s soul and the crabby mood lifts like fog in bright sunlight.

Learn from Oliver. Does someone in your life just need a hug today? You know what to do.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

October 14, 2014

BONUS STUFF:

I was looking up Owly and ran across this little exchange on the site of the “Word Detective.” It put a smile on my face so I thought I would pass it on to you NEC (No Extra Charge). Here you are—Thank me later:

“Dear Word Detective: When I was growing up in rural Nova Scotia, my mother often used a word to describe my sister or myself when we were in irritable moods. I have never known how to spell this word, but it sounds like “owly,” as in “Your sister’s in an owly mood” or “Why are you so owly?” Anything you could tell me about this word would be gratefully appreciated! — Lady G.

That’s a good question. Incidentally, of all the possible introductory biographical clauses one could encounter in such a question, “when I was growing up in Nova Scotia” ranks as one of the most evocative and romantic. It’s right up there with “growing up in the Cotswolds” and “as a child on the moors of Cornwall,” and certainly beats my “when I was growing up in suburban Connecticut.” Technically, I suppose I can claim to have grown up in New England, but that’s only sightly better, and whatever faint cachet it confers collapses completely when folks discover that I don’t like seafood.”

—You can read the whole exchange and the witty replies here:

http://www.word-detective.com/2008/09...