Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 138

Wisdom on Alcohol (Part One)

Title: Wisdom on Alcohol

Text: Proverbs 23

Where: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont

Date: June 16, 2013 PM

A Trial Thick with Irony

Sermon Title: A Trial Thick with Irony

Text: Matthew 26:57-68

Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Date: June 16, 2013 AM

Penniless Vagrant

Drove to the hospital this morning before I’d had my coffee. Arrived to realize that I was without my wallet. No parking pass, no money for gas, NO COFFEE! Plunged into despair. Feeling like a penniless vagrant I prevailed upon the mercy of a parking attendant for a spot in the valet lot. I made my call and hiked back to the car and scrounged breathlessly for change in the ash-tray. For such a time as this I discovered an unused coffee coupon which entitled me to a free cup of premium roast coffee at the Golden Arches. Outright disaster averted. Equilibrium-restored I’m writing you. It’s dreary, wet and gray today. (I’m always inclined to spell this kind of gray-grey, British way). It is a perfect day for some writing.

Squatters

We used to live in a pretty exclusive neighborhood in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. The people who owned homes there (we did not) were people of considerable means. Across the street was a huge, white, Mediterranean-style home. Each of it’s many garage stalls was embedded with a luxury car sparkling like a gem. The occupants of the home owned the kind of dog wealthy people own. Our home was nice enough but not really ours. Our cars were pretty utilitarian, none of them even remotely gem-like. Our garage was filled with boxes of my books and the residual accoutrements of decades-worth of Lois’s crafts and hobbies and business-endeavors. We didn’t have a dog. No room in the family budget for animals. Most of our money was used to feed and clothe people.

After we lived there for a while I noticed an interesting pattern. The little neighbor dog was walked every day. He wasn’t walked very far. Even though he was the dog of people of means who lived in a big fancy house in a pricey neighborhood clearly he still had daily needs which were attended to much in the same way half-breed curs on the bad side of town take care of their daily needs. In the case of middle-class dogs their owners follow them around and gather the product of their necessaries and tote it home in one of those ubiquitous plastic bags. Mutts in bad neighborhoods are not attended to in that way. Rich folk seem to have another plan altogether.

As I mentioned, the neighbors in the impressive Mediterranean-style didn’t walk their dog very far. In fact one of the older girls just walked the dog across the street two or three times and day and watched while he made a deposit on our lawn. She didn’t bother with the plastic bag, I supposed because she knew we were squatters and not landed gentry like her people. Her boldness was remarkable and her dog was remarkably regular.

Lately I’ve been teaching and preaching my way through the book of Ephesians with a group that meets on Wednesday evenings in the Evangel auditorium. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians opens with a soaring paean to the spiritual wealth and privileges that are the inheritance of every single simple believer who is, as Paul loves to put it, in Christ.

A paean is a song of praise. A peon is a debtor held in hard-labor servitude to his creditor. So you could call the first section of Paul’s Ephesians letter a beautiful paean for common peons.

So here is a gentle reminder—something to think about when people are dumping their unmentionables on your life. If you are in Christ you may be a pilgrim on this earth but you are not a squatter. You are destined to inherit the whole thing—the whole thing. When heaven and earth are one we who are in Christ will be neither pilgrims nor squatters.

In Christ we are chosen and we are cherished. In Christ we are the beloved children of the benevolent King of the Universe! In Christ we are already invested with great spiritual wealth in the reality of the spirit-world—in the “heavenlies” and one day heaven and earth will be united in one under the dominion of Christ. In that day we will reign and rule and enjoy that restored creation with Him forever. If you let that sink in it’s enough to make you burst into song.

Paul reveals the truth that God’s eternal plan is to make all spiritual realities spill out onto the earth when the time is right. “…as a plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth…” (Eph. 1:10)

Give that some thought while you are walking your dog today. Oh, and don’t forget your plastic bag.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

June 10, 2013

Preaching is Like Having a Baby

In case you haven’t noticed lately–no one’s life is a bowl of cherries. Life only looks easy when you see other people doing it. A friend of mine once said; “Being a pastor is a wonderful gig–if you can get it.” That’s true. It is a wonderful calling and I love it. But it’s not a bowl of cherries.

I have a theory that no one really has an easy job. The only easy job is the one you see someone else doing and you don’t know the labor involved. When you approach a text of Scripture to teach it, it is just hard, hard work. Paul spoke of laboring in the Word. (1 Tim. 5:17) It is labor. It’s hard mental work. It’s hard spiritual work. It’s wonderful work, but hard work that takes a lot of time if you are going to do it right. The time I spend in this work is my expression of love to the Chief Shepherd and to His flock… you. (He told Peter, “If you love me…feed my flock…”).

Sometimes writing a message feels like having a baby. When you conceive of the idea it is delightful. As the message grows, it’s a little uncomfortable at times. A little heart-burn, you kind waddle around with it and you twist and turn as the idea grows in you. Then there is that time of transition… it’s painful and hard and you feel like you are going to die. Like a woman in labor (Paul actually used this simile) you have to pass through the jaws of death to bring forth life.

Every once in a while you hear about a lady who has a baby without considerable pain… say while she’s doing the dishes. Sometimes a message comes easily like that. It’s as if you just tap a passage with the tools of meditation and it bursts into sparkling diamonds! That happened this week as I prepared my message for Sunday morning. I love it when that happens. Sunday morning I will share those gems from the Evangel Pulpit. Join us if you can.

Angry with Hunger

I have no idea why I like to read books on farming but I do. I have warm memories of the farm of my youth though my experience there was limited to brief visits. On days off I sometimes gravitate toward the writing of Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry or Ohio farmer David Kline or other writing set in rural places. Maybe it’s because I’m a shepherd and a shepherd tends a flock—my life is pastoral. Recently a farming book caught my eye and I was surprised by an interesting passage in it. In the passage my interest in pastoral work and pastoral settings come together. It’s a true story about a gesture a church makes toward a couple at a pivotal time in their lives. The author and her husband are about to begin farming in up-state New York. They ride into town on bikes, set up camp on their property and ride back into town. Here is the story:

“By the time the tent was pegged down it was nearly dark. We retrieved our bikes and retraced the last part of the ride, back into the village of Essex. I was bone tired, and still jet-lagged from a recent trip to Asia, and the only thing I wanted more than sleep was food. For some reason we failed to bring provisions, and my blood sugar was dropping below the level required to keep me sane. I wanted food like a wolf wants food. I wanted food so bad I was angry about it. I sat on a bench outside the town hall while Mark went to explore our options. When he returned he sat down and put his arm warily around me before delivering the bad news: the only place to eat was in Inn, and they wouldn’t take us, despite the empty tables I could see through the window, because we didn’t have a reservation. There were no stores, and the next town was a five mile ride away, mostly uphill. It was fully dark by then, and I didn’t think I could make it back to the farm, let alone next town, without something to eat. I seethed, hating every quaint quarter of a place so small and stupid you could actually starve to death in it …I considered whether or not I would be arrested if I were to sleep on the bench and decided I wanted to be arrested, because they’d be required to give me a ride to the jail in the car, and feed me. The only traffic light in town blink endlessly to an empty street.

We were fixed in that tableau of misery by the glare of a pair of headlights pulling into the parking place in front of our bench. A man with a silver hair got out, carrying a covered casserole dish. He smiled widely at us, noted our bicycles, asked us where we were from and where we were going. Mark told him we come up from Poughkeepsie and we’re camping at the Essex Farm. Well, he asked, “Are you hungry?” Even in my desperation, I could feel the “No thanks,” on the tip of my tongue, the city habit of distrust for any show unsolicited kindness. But Mark had already excepted on our behalf, and the man led us across the street to the basement of a big stone church and opened the door onto the sounds of clattering silverware and chatter and laughter rising up from the sea of gray hair.

It looked like we were crashing some kind of geriatric mixer, but I didn’t care, because I had caught sight of the long tables against the wall, crammed with food. I could see plates of sliced ham, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and bright for Jell-O salad studded with fruit and topped with globs of pastel Cool-Whip. The man who brought us asked for everyone’s attention, and fifty lined faces turned toward us. He introduced us as traveling long-distance bicyclists who wouldn’t mind some dinner, and the room erupted in applause. The next thing I knew, someone had me by the elbow guiding me through the crowd toward the tables laden with calories, placing a plate in my hands, pouring me a glass of iced tea. I wondered briefly if I was stuck in a dream, if this is some kind of cruel mirage, but soon I was seated and eating. It was the kind of food that Grandmothers make, the kind invented to fill the stomach at the ditch digger or farmhand. I ate biscuits and gravy, green beans with slivered almonds, a drumstick fried chicken. There was an urn of hot coffee, too, and an entire table dedicated to desserts.

When my peripheral vision returned and I could speak again I learned that we stumbled into the centennial celebration of Essex Community Church. There weren’t many young families in Essex, it turned out, and they were Episcopal. Everyone in the basement knew each other intimately, and most were in some way related. Many of the people I met that night would become important in our lives. The man who found us on the bench was Wayne Bailey. A few years later his wife, Donna, would knit a pink sweater with white piping for our infant girl, with a little cap to match. The small and wrinkled woman he sat next to was Pearl Kelly. She told us that night that she loved bicycling, and until she turned ninety and could no longer get her leg over the bar, she would bike from her house to the ferry, for a joy-ride across the lake. Three years later I was milking a cow when her daughter-in-law came out to our barn to tell me Perl had died. She had farmed all through life just down the road from us. Her vegetable stand is still there, paint chipping, it’s ridgepole succumbing to gravity.

We went back to the farm that night fed and warm in all ways, carrying pieces of cake wrapped up and napkins. I was entirely unused to that sort of common kindness. I didn’t think that communities like this were supposed to exist anymore, in a country isolated by technology, mobility, and work.”

Never underestimate the power of a simple church picnic or carry-in dinner. You never know who is nearby hungry as a wolf, angry with hunger.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

June 3, 2013

You can read about Essex Farm and order the book here

Tommy Oaks, Story-teller

Here is a re-post worth reading.

How I came to love stories is one of the best stories I ever tell. I’d be flattered if you would read it. (See www.kenpierpont.com and search for “How I Came to Love Stories” ). I’d be especially enriched if you would send me a complimentary note…written on a twenty-dollar bill. But the story of how I came to love stories has many chapters. It’s a book I hope to be writing for years to come. If I add a chapter do you promise to read it?

Ten or twelve years ago in central Ohio a friend invited me attend special meetings at a country church. We drove through hill farm-country in fragrant spring to the little stone church. I didn’t expect much and was surprised. My imagination was ignited that night by a story-teller. His name was Tommy Oaks.

Tommy is from Tennessee. I hear he is the first man ever to graduate with a Master’s Degree in Story-telling from East Tennessee State University. I love the sound of that, though-degree or not- I’m sure Tommy would say you can either tell a story or you can’t. You don’t have to have a master’s degree to be a good story-teller.

He wore a wrinkled shirt with a string tie. He had a salt-and-pepper beard and maybe a little more hair on his face than he had on his head. He moved the pulpit aside and spoke without notes. He had in his memory what he was going to say and he skillfully planted it into our memory. This is what he said;

“When I was a boy I went to church a lot. The preacher always seemed to have three points and a story. I couldn’t tell you what the points were later that afternoon, but I always remembered the story. Tonight I want you to remember what I am going to say so I am going to tell three stories and make one point.”

He told a story. It was a good story and when he finished the story he did make any point but simply said; “Alright, that’s the first story. Now for the second one,” and launched into another. The first story was short and humorous. The second story was simple and short, too. The Tommy said, “That’s the second story, now here’s the third.”

The third story was slower in telling and serious. Everyone, even little ones held still and breathed quiet and followed him with their eyes. By the time he reached the end you could start to tell the truth that tied all three of the stories together. It was a profound and weighty truth. It didn’t seem like he had talked for along time but looking out through the open window you could see that the sun had slipped from sight and the fireflies hovered over the grass. The air was cooler and all of us sitting on the wooden pews enjoyed the silence that a good story produces. We listened like we were smelling fresh bread or slowly savoring a piece of gourmet cheesecake.

In the circles in which I run (that’s right I run in circles) we are pretty theologically-conscious. We take a dim view of messages that are not rooted in Scripture top to bottom. We have a carefully-drafted doctrinal position and we like to be able to tell our preachers are sticking pretty close to it. We don’t really think the pulpit is the best place to express our personal opinions or preferences. We like some meat in our preaching. We want to hear someone handle the Word of God with skill and passion.

When the liberal theologians abandoned the authority of Scripture they substituted moralistic stories about social themes in their place. As a result we often rightly assume that story-teller preachers don’t quite have all their theological marbles. They aren’t always playing with a full theological deck. They are armed but they are no danger to the enemy because their homiletical gun is loaded with blanks.

I met a guy like that a few summers ago. He was a very good story-teller. I was eager to hear him because he was a pastor. He was from a denomination that is not well known for wearing out their Bibles so I was not surprised to find that he was not obsessed with truth. His specialty was tall tales. He sure could spin out a yarn and lay a whopper on you. Sort of a liar for hire, I guess. You could tell from listening that his was a sort of smorgasbord theology, you take what looks good to you and if you see something that you don’t think would taste good to you, you just leave it alone.

After he told I talked to him. I congratulated him on his skill and his style. I said; “I understand you are a pastor.”

He must have seen me coming or read my mind. Before I could speak again he offered, “Don’t try to make any sense of my stories. They are strictly for entertainment.” I smiled politely but the idea went against my grain. I don’t think I have ever told a story without a specific lesson or point. As I see it if you don’t have anything to say that tells me something. You are making the point that you don’t think it is important to make a point. I not suggesting you have to assault people with truth. If you tell a good story you shouldn’t have harangue them to get a point across. A good story well-told mostly applies itself.

My favorite preachers are story-tellers who know the Story of stories and tell it well. The stories of the Bible are often left untold or they are not told well. Secular story-tellers commonly tell tall tales, myths and legends. There is a place for different kinds of stories, but my own niche is true stories. Usually I know they are true because they happened to me, but in my story-telling repertoire I have a few well-chosen favorites that I have picked up from others too.

In my view it is illegitimate to tell stories in the pulpit and inconsistent to try to make a point with them if you don’t believe there is a major “over-arching story” that gives purpose to all the other stories. They say that post-moderns are opposed to meta-narrative. That’s too bad because there is a meta-narrative, God is the author of the great story, and it gives meaning to all other stories ever. To reject the big story is to lose your place.

Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 78 by being a storyteller. You can tell a lot about Jesus by the commands he gave, by the questions he asked, the prayers he prayed, and the stories he told. Do you remember when Jesus told three stories to make one point on Luke 15? You have to agree that in telling three stories he made one of him most memorable points and the first two stories climax into one of his most powerful stories anyone has ever told. They were three stories of lost things found. In every story everyone rejoiced when the lost things were found, including the Father. At the end of the third story was the only exception. There was one who would not rejoice.

Men are filled with ambition from boyhood. They want to fight fires, fly to the moon, populate planets, win championships, subdue kingdoms, and capture fame, honor and beauty. I just want to be a really good story teller. My ambition is the Kingdom of God and my calling is to stir people up to press into the Kingdom with the Story and with Stories and with stories.

Plus I think I will be a grandpa some day and I want to be in good practice when the time comes.

Ken Pierpont

Nursing a strong coffee at the cool, new bookstore that opened last week in

Flint, Michigan

June 21, 2006

A Sacred Memory

(Incident from the summer of 2010)

It’s Saturday evening toward nine. I’ve been at a beautiful camp in northern Michigan this week speaking to teens. I speak twice a day and spend time with campers and counselors between my chapel talks. It’s been gray and cool most of the week.

I came tired and pressured from the ministry down-state so I’ve enjoyed the extra rest and refreshment of unhurried reading. My quarters are pleasant pine-paneled rooms in the chapel where I speak. I’ve been coming here for years so it’s a familiar and welcome place to me. The came is named Camp Barakel. Barakel means “where God has blessed” and over the years it’s been obvious to me that He has. The first time I ever set foot on this camp I had a sense of the presence of the Lord and the blessing of the Lord. Over thirteen years ago sitting in this very room God impressed on my heart that this camp would be a significant place in my life. At the time I did not know why, but God has clearly made it significant in a number of profound ways, but those are stories to tell another time.

It’s an hour before the start of chapel and normally I would be thinking through my talk, but I felt a tug to walk down to the lake to spend some time in prayer. Next week I’ll be back downstate and I will my regular responsibilities will resume. I will preach this evening. If my timing is good Chapel will end about 10:30. I have the Jeep packed and I will drive away as campers quietly walk back to their cabins. I will drive down state, my heart full from a week of ministry. I’ll get a large iced coffee in Mio. It will keep me awake until I arrive home about 2:30 a.m. In the morning I will be in the Evangel pulpit again. I realize that I’ve been here all week and haven’t been down to the Lake. I’m not sure when I will be back.

I walked out into the evening and down the wooded path toward the lake. The sun had come out for the first time all week. The air was filled with the fragrance of new-washed pine. Rain droplets formed on the needles and glistening in the evening sunlight. The water was still, the air was cool and all was quiet.

On the other side of the camp the Junior campers were gathering into chapel. I begin to talk to the Lord. Thanks comes easy tonight. I’m in my element when I’m preaching and spending time among people. It’s been a good week. Since Sunday morning back home I have spoken about a dozen times. My heart is full and I am filled with a powerful sense of well-being, a deep conviction of the goodness of the Lord. I thank him for the week and the great privilege of being his Herald. It’s all I have ever wanted to do since I was fourteen years old. I pour my heart out to God over and over in thankful prayer.

I pray and sing and follow the path along the edge of the lake. A lone fisherman silently casts his line into the long shadows of the trees in the southwest corner of the lake. Praying I climb to a high place overlooking the water and stand with my hands lifted in praise. The silence is broken by music wafting out over the lake. The Juniors have been together all week and by this time in the week they sing with enthusiastic energy. The songs work their way down into your soul during the week. Standing there, listening to the singing, joyful tears of thankful worship run down my face.

I’ve always taken the call of the Loon as special sign of God’s love for me. He knows how much I love it and how rarely I hear it. As the music from chapel fades the silence is broken by the haunting call of a Loon carried on the wind from Shamrock Lake to the north. I’ts been a good week. I’m ready to preach. I turn and follow the wooded path up the hill toward the chapel.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

May 27, 2013

A Flyover of Revelation

This evening I feel like I finished a Marathon! For the first time in my life I finished preaching through every book of the Bible. I started Sunday evening April 18, 2010 and finished a little over three years later on May 12, 2013. Each Sunday night that I was in the Evangel Pulpit I would preach a flyover of one of the books of the Bible.

This evening I just finished a flyover of Revelation and I am exhausted and joyful to have accomplished a study of every single book of God’s Word. My voice is tired but my spirit is refreshed.

Mother’s Day Message 2013

Here is something burning on my heart that I feel the Lord wanted me to preach to the folk at Evangel on Mother’s Day. Let me know what you think.