Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 15

Put Yourself in the Place of Blessing (Video)

Put Yourself in the Place of Blessing (Ruth 2:1-23)
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont | Lead Pastor
December 4, 2022 AM

Sunshine on Bittersweet

Over five years ago we drove out this way to show our son @wespierpont and his wife @dylanmariepierpont the place we hoped soon to own. I always name things I love. I was thrilled when I saw a cluster of Bittersweet growing here. I think it was Dylan who suggested the name should have Bittersweet in it.

Some of the circumstances of our life at the time were exceedingly bitter involving abuse, betrayal, and injustice. Our family was in deep pain, but God led us to @betheljxn and to our home on a quiet back road in the rolling countryside of Jackson County.

The some Bittersweet caught my eye on my walk today bright in the sunshine on a winter morning and I realized the sweet have overpowered the bitter in every way.

Last weekend was a wonderful weekend at Bethel Church. I large group of men met for a hearty breakfast of eggs and cheese and sausage and potatoes in a burrito covered with sausage gravy, coffee, fruit, and muffins. Later an even larger group of ladies met for a Christmas Brunch. Sunday the children played instruments and sang Christmas songs. The adults joined in. I preached an Advent message from the book of Ruth. Last night Lois and I closed the day having dinner with friends around a big round table talking and laughing and we drove home in the moonlight.

There was bright moonlight last night, but there really is sunshine on Bittersweet this morning.

 

Bittersweet Farm

December 5, 2022

 

 

Keeper of the Story | Bittersweet Farm Journal | December 3, 2022

 

 

Rambling Thoughts

A few minutes ago I stepped out onto the east porch just to check the weather for myself. I can always check the weather on the internet but there is something about just stepping out on the porch and hearing the wind in the trees and seeing the moonlight come and go as clouds blow past. 

If you stand out in the night long enough your eyes adjust to the darkness and you begin to see things. A leaf tumbles across the grass. A car drones past on the road. An owl calls from the wood, coyotes from somewhere out in the woods north of the far north field—from the woods divided by the old railroad right-of-way turned bike trail. 

In the morning the Bethel men will gather in the Fellowship Hall for breakfast, prayer, and encouraging words. I’ll sleep soon, but not too soon. I like to ring every last drop out of every day. 

I’m writing up on the corner of my room tonight and playing a YouTube video behind my writing software—the audio playing into my headphones. It’s the sound of a crackling fire. Oddly, I feel warmer when I listen to it. It’s peaceful like living in the county. 

Before we moved here we lived four years in a city and eleven years in a crowded suburb. It was a mercy to move into our peaceful country home after a time of dark betrayal, abuse, injustice, and family pain. God was in it, all the ugliness of it and darkness, led us to a new and better place and new friends, a whole new life, and to this little farmhouse on this pleasant back road a few miles from a quiet village in range of deer and wild turkeys, geese and cranes overhead, coyotes and owls calling in the night, and the sound of trains in the distance and planes far overhead going who-knows-were. 

We have all we need and more. We have a good church, good friends, a quiet, good life. Only God could have arranged it. It is not something I could have fully imagined. 

A Moral Victory

I won a moral victory today alone in our little home. Lois worked and I enjoyed the luxury of day mostly alone at home. I spent much of my day trying to repair my coffee grinder. After taking it apart and putting it back together a couple times and pouring over the paperwork online and watching YouTube videos about it and reading about it on discussion threads, I feel like a master coffee grinder repairman. I was so thrilled when the dark, fragrant beans originally from South America, roasted in Oregon and shipped to me as a gift, began to growl, ground down into the hopper. I took a couple tablespoons of the precious powder and made a generous mug of pour-over coffee and carried it to my desk for comfort and inspiration. It was rich. 

I went for a thoughtful walk and when I got home a brewed another cup returning to my desk to work on my message for the second Sunday in Advent. 

I’m not particularly handy or experienced at repairing things so when I am able to successfully repair something that is valuable to me it gives me inordinate pleasure. Today I formed a special bond with my coffee grinder and if I ever need to take it apart and replace something I have confidence, tools, and now even a bit of experience. I only left the farm today for a few minutes to make the trip to the village hardware to get the little tool needed to disassemble and reassemble my valuable appliance. It was only seventeen months old and too young to die. 

November has passed. High wind swept through a couple days ago and the lawn looks as if someone passed over the grass with a giant vacuum. The old place has an especially well-groomed appearance. We await the inevitable snows and keep reminding ourselves that there is no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothing. We are about to test that theory. I’m 18 days into a goal of walking right through the winter into spring–50 days–six days a week until the leaves return in mid-May.

On my walk today I noticed coolant stains on the road, broken glass, bits of trim, and other car fragments from a deer/auto collision. The auto was a van that belonged to a friend of mine and a Bethel member. He was passing Bittersweet Farm just after dusk last night and a buck sprang into his path from out of the darkness. Neither the deer nor the car survived. My friend is fine, but now he is going to have to replace his car. That’s trouble he didn’t need. He has had his share of difficulty in the last few years. But after a while it will be a story to tell and the pain of his misfortune will be gone.

So Much of Life is Stories. 

Have you ever noticed how much of life is storytelling? On Sunday I usually tell a Bible story or I tell the back-story behind a passage of scripture. I usually illustrate and apply the truth using stories. Through the week I listen to the stories of others. At Baptism I tell the story of how someone came to follow Jesus or I help them to see how to tell their own story. Evangelism is telling the story of the good news. Counseling is listening to the stories of others. At communion we tell the story of Jesus death. Business meetings are opportunities to tell the church stories of why the way we give and conduct business and care for the church matter to all of us. 

Across the nation and around the world men meet at the restaurant or sit around the barber shop and they tell stories. Veterans sometimes tell war stories. Athletes relive their exploits. Hunters have to describe their hunt in minute detail. Women swap birth stories. When the kids get home from school and the parents get home from work stories are exchanged. 

Some people are very aware that they telling a story and others who relate what happened without being conscious that they are storytelling but conscious or not we are all storytellers.

The news is stories. The color commentator at a sporting event is telling the stories behind the players and teams. Movies are stories on film. Some are fiction, some are fact, and most are a curious mixture of both. The holy hour at summer camp is the time in the evening when everything grows quiet and the storyteller is invited to speak before a circle or a chapel or a cabin of campers silenced in wonder. Sometimes the stories are exchanged out under the open sky to the music of a sputtering fire.

I’m always alert to stories. I love them and I use them. You do too. Even if you don’t realize that you do. We are all story lovers and and storytellers by our very God-given nature.

Whenever I meet someone I ask myself, “What is their story? What is the story of what made them who they are?” And I ask myself, “Do they know the story of what God has done for them and have they believed? And “How will the story end for them?”

I often ask myself, “Am I living a story worth telling?”

Now maybe you understand why I like to call myself, “The keeper of the story…”

Old storytellers sometimes end their story by saying, “Well, that’s my story and now it’s yours…”

Stories are to keep and to give away at the same time.

Bittersweet Farm

December 2, 2022

 

 

 

Between Moab and Bethlehem (Video)

Between Moab and Bethlehem (Ruth 1:1-22)
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont | Lead Pastor
November 27, 2022 AM

Walking in Snow | Bittersweet Farm Journal | November 21, 2022

It’s Monday as I write, my day off. We are busy making ready for family to visit for Thanksgiving. The grandchildren are mostly small and filled with wonder and eagerness especially when they come out to Bittersweet Farm on the holidays. The teens will be happy that for the first time in five years we now have high-speed wifi. Doesn’t that just warm your heart? I have to admit. I love to live on the backside of nowhere… with high speed wifi.

In our beautiful part of the world, the leaves are gone and they will not appear again for 25 weeks–mid-May of next year. Until then I am determined to get outdoors every one of those 170 days. 150 of those days, six out of seven of them, Lord willing, I will walk at least 30 minutes. I will document my walks with photos and brief journal entries so all my cyber-friends can cheer me on like friends gathered along the racecourse. On most of my walks I will get up in the morning, dress for the weather, and walk fifteen minutes away from our house. Then I will turn and come back. On other occasions I will drive to special places to walk in villages, towns, parks, and on trails.

Walking after a fresh snowfall shows you how many critters share your woods and fields. Those who walk leave their tracks and this morning in the wind and winter sun I left my tracks among them. As often as the snow falls until the leaves return I will continue. Everything I see was created by God and I, too am one of his creatures. By his good grace and through his Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, I am one of his children.

I will pray for occasional thaws when I can ride one of my bikes. In early February I hope to enjoy the tubing run up at Camp Barakel, maybe even cross-country ski and skate and walk across the icy lake. Maybe the sky will be clear and I can take a night walk. Out under the winter sky among his creation every day until spring returns I will remind myself that I am his one of his creatures–and thank him that I am his child.

 

“Know that the LORD, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people,

and the sheep of his pasture.”

(Psalm 100:3, ESV)

 

Blessed Thanksgiving to each of you. Thanks for reading. It’s nice to know you are out there.

Bittersweet Farm I Jackson County, Michigan I November 21, 2022

 

 

The Generations | Bittersweet Farm Journal | November 8, 2022

Welcome Grey November

Grey November is upon us out on Bittersweet tonight, yet is has its own beauty. This week I spent a few delightful hours out in the indian summer sun managing leaves. Every year my skill increases and I refine my technique. Every season I am better able to read the direction of the wind and mix may means of blowing or raking or mulching the leaves I so looked forward to seeing in mid-May. They shaded the farm through the long sunny days of summer and died in a blaze of colorful glory then wafted down like young dancers to the earth where they turned brown in the sun. Now they skitter along the ground at the will of the wind.

As I stand out in the yard and rake them onto the tarp my heart is filled with thanks for them and “…for the beauty of the earth and the glory of the skies…” A Pileated Woodpecker surprises me with a brief visit. Cars pass. The leaves swirl in a vortex of color behind. Geese, Sandhill Cranes, and murmurations of dark birds I can’t identify fly over Bittersweet.

My chores around Bittersweet are simple. I clear the flowerbeds. I fill the bird-feeders. I tidy the Carriage House (I’m never done with that). I store summer things away. I check football scores on my phone and take occasional calls from parishioners. I gather windfall branches and putter with my equipment and make excuses to stay out under the open sky as long as I can. Out there my puttering seems like prayer. My heart is deeply thankful.

This week the moon rose full into the purple twilight behind dark, slender branches blown bare of leaves by an unrelenting wind. Lois was visiting Daniel and his little family in the panhandle of Florida of all places and visiting the white beaches in 80-degree weather. I drove to dinner out on Clark Lake with friends. We talked and kept a wary eye out for deer and marveled at the beauty of the moonrise over the lake.

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A few years ago a read a biography of the great Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson. I wrote a little something about his growing concern for the faithfulness of the generations to come after him…

 

The Generations

Reflections on generational faithfulness from reading the life of Adoniram Judson.

 

The nearer we get to the heart of God the more we have a vision within for multi-generational faithfulness.  This is true of the Church.  When you see the Church grow cold and apostate you will notice that they speak little and care less of the generations to follow.  We are more concerned with our happiness and prosperity than we are with our holiness and posterity.  We are more concerned with our own comforts than we are with the world and the church our sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will inherit.  We insist on our own preferences without regard to the effect such selfishness has on the generations that will follow us.

When the Spirit brings revival, though, things are different.  When men and women of God grow close to the heart of God they begin to consider and cherish God’s values, including an obsession with generations of faithfulness to God.  When you read Christian biography you see this clearly.

I discovered a beautiful example of this in the biography of the great Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson.  His story was powerfully written by his son Edward Judson in 1883.  Five hundred and thirty pages in, in the record of the final weeks of his life, the great missionary experienced an awakening, a renewal of spirit.  As his physical strength ebbed away his inner man was being renewed with spiritual vitality.  The effect of that renewal was to stir up his heart for the generations to follow for the glory of God.

These observations on the final days of his life were written by his wife in a letter to his sister.  Notice how he was taken more and more with Christ and with things eternal:

“There was something exceedingly beautiful in the decline of your brother’s life—more beautiful than I can describe though the impression will remain with me as a sacred legacy until I go to meet him where sun shall never set, and life shall never end.  He had been, from my first acquaintance with him, an uncommonly spiritual Christian, exhibiting his richest graces in the unguarded intercourse of private life, but during his last year it seemed as though the light of the world on which he was entering had been sent to brighten his upward pathway.   Every subject on which we conversed, every book we read, every incident that occurred, whether trivial or important, had a tendency to suggest some peculiarly spiritual train of thought, till it seemed to me that, more than ever before, ‘Christ was all his theme.’  Something of the same nature was also noted in his preaching…  He was in the habit… of studying his subject for the Sabbath, audibly, and in my presence, at which time he was frequently so much affected as to weep, and sometime so overwhelmed with the vastness of his conceptions as to be obliged to abandon his theme and choose another.  My own illness at the commencement of the year had brought eternity very near to us, and rendered death, the grave, and the bright heaven beyond it, familiar subjects of conversation.

When he was touched by God he had a renewed unction in the exercise of his gifts and he had a vision of a long unbroken line of his generations gathered around the throne of Jesus.

“I believe he has sometimes been thought eloquent, both in conversation and in the sacred desk; but the fervid, burning eloquence, the deep pathos, the touching tenderness, the elevation of thought, and intense beauty of expression, which characterized those private teachings, were not only beyond what I had ever heard before, but such as I felt sure arrested his own attention, and surprised even himself.  About this time he began to find unusual satisfaction and enjoyment in his private devotions, and seemed to have new objects of interest continually rising in his mind, each of which in turn became special subjects of prayer.  Among these, one of the most prominent was the conversion of his posterity.  He remarked that he felt impressed with the duty of praying for their children and their children’s children down to the latest generation.  He also prayed most fervently that his impressions on this particular subject might be transferred to his sons an daughters, and thence to their offspring, so that he should ultimately meet a long, unbroken line of descendants before the throne of God, where all might join together in ascribing everlasting praises to their Redeemer.”

When a man walks with God and nears the throne of God he acquires the heart of God and the heart of God is for a godly posterity.  Men and women of God are concerned, burdened with godly generations.  They are not content to simply survive the entrapments of this present world and make it through safe to heaven as the world crumbles behind them.  They want to build bridges of faith for those who follow them on the path.  They want to plant trees of fidelity to truth so their generations can live in the shade and eat the fruit of them.

“O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.  Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to everyone that is to come.”  (Psalm 71:17-18)

Prayer: “God of Eternity and of all the generations to come in all the earth, be honored and glorified by all people for all time.  Be exalted in the ages to come and today give us an eternal vision to see into the future with the eyes of faith.  Stir up in us a spirit of intercession for the nations around us and the generations ahead of us.  May we live and speak and work and pray and serve with that eternal impulse always  beating within us.  For Jesus’ sake, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  -Amen.”

Bittersweet Farm

November 8, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bittersweet Farm Journal | November 8, 2022

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Notes to Self When Things Go Wrong (Psalm 16) Video

Notes to Self When Things Go Wrong (Psalm 16) Video

Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan

Pastor Ken Pierpont

November 6, 2022 AM

 

Bethel Men

Men, Following Jesus,

Helping Other Men Follow Jesus

 

Good brothers of Bethel and others. This morning I shared some material I called a “Holiness Hack.” Here I the notes I handed out and promised to include here.

The Principle of Imitation:

You will tend to become like

 whoever you train yourself to admire  

Who do you want to be like?   

He who walks with wise men will be wise, 

But the companion of fools will be destroyed. 

Proverbs 13:20  

Ultimately we want to be like Jesus, but we are “wired” to imitate others we can physically see. God intends for us to find others with admirable qualities of holiness and be like them.“He who walks with wise men will be wise…”

Galatians 4:19  My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you Luke 6:40 “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. 1 Corinthians 4:16  Therefore I urge you, imitate me .Philippians 3:17 Brethren, join in following my example , and note those who so walk , as you have us for a pattern. Philippians 4:9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me , these do, and the God of peace will be with you.1 Thessalonians 1:6  And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit,2 Thessalonians 3:9   not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.1 Timothy 1:16 However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.1 Timothy 4:12  Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.Hebrews 13:7  Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you , whose faith follow , considering the outcome of their conduct.1 Peter 5:3  nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; Acts 20:28-38  This is why older, godly Christians are so important in a Christian fellowship.

Here is how the process works:

1.  the behavior is modeled

2.  the behavior is admired and imitated

3.  I accept by faith that the behavior is God’s will

4.  I trust the prompting/enabling power of the Holy Spirit

5.  I repeat the behavior (Romans 6:18ff)

6.  I continue over a prolonged period of time

7.  I am among others who support the behavior

8.  Over a period of time it becomes the behavior I deeply desire.  (affections) 

“…A companion of fools will be destroyed.”

Proverbs 12:26  The righteous should choose his friends carefully , For the way of the wicked leads them astray.Proverbs 22:24  Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go 1 Corinthians 5:11  But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. 1 Corinthians 15:33  Do not be deceived: “ Evil company corrupts good habits .”

You don’t need many friends.

What kind of friends do you need?

1.  You need friends who fear God and obey Him.    

Psalm 119:63  I am a companion of all who fear You, And of those who keep Your precepts.

2. You need friends who refresh you in the things of the Lord.    2 Timothy 1:16  The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; 

3.  You need friends who will stimulate you to love and good works.    Hebrews 10:24  And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works…

 

 

Bethel Men

Men, Following Jesus,

Helping Others Follow Jesus.

A group of men are meeting on Wednesday nights in the Bethel Library (the room just to the right of stairs when you come in the east door). We welcome you to join us this week. We meet from 7pm to 8pm. We will meet until November 16 and then break until the first of next year. We are men who want to follow Jesus and help others follow Jesus.

On October 26, 2022 we talked and studied the scriptures about what it means to walk in the Spirit

“But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:18–25, ESV)

 

“Walking in the Spirit is continually obeying

–the impulses of the Spirit in

–the power of the Spirit which produces

–the fruit of the Spirit.”

 

When a man discovers his life filled with the works of the flesh, he should examine his heart and ask himself, “When did I ignore or disobey in impulse of the Spirit, a teaching of scripture, or the example of Jesus, which led to this?” He should then return to the area he left the path of obedience and obey in the power of the Spirit until it produces the fruit of the Spirit.

We Did It! | Bittersweet Farm Journal | October 31, 2022

The Archives: If you click on the “Ken’s Books” tab at the top of the kenpierpont.com website you will see a “archives” drop-down menu. Here you will find almost 3000 posts, many of them stories for you to enjoy. If the writing encourages you, there is a lot there and it’s all free.

Stories from Bittersweet Farm: I’ve added a couple stories to the podcast. There is a lot here if you explore it.

 

Lois is on a two-week trip to Florida visiting Dan and Kate and keeping an eye on the boys while Kate gets some training for work, so it’s been quiet out on Bittersweet Farm. I’ve been puttering with clearing leaves and preparing ” ‘er the winter storms begin,” and getting in some beautiful autumn bike rides. This afternoon I will head to Chuk and CC’s to hang out with the kids for their church’s “end of October free candy giveaway thing and BBQ chicken slider after. Stay tuned for pics of adorable kids all amped up on sugar. It’s my day off today and it’s wet outside so I’m sipping coffee and writing to you. I’n Lois’s absence I’ve been thinking about God’s kindness to us an that stirred up a memory.

 

We Did It!

In August of 2020 the last of the children left our home and Lois and I completed 40 years of raising children to launch their own households. Now all of them are starting their own families here in Michigan and in Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, and Oregon. The last to leave home was Hope America, the baby. The the very last to pull away a few days after her wedding were Dan and Kate and their boys, heading back to New Mexico. 

They pulled out onto the road and drove away. Lois and I stood together watching them drive away through an arch of trees. A warm emotion swept over me and I remembered driving away from the church in Ypsilanti with my young bride over 40 years earlier, just a couple rather clueless kids. Now there were stood after raising children for 40 years. It was quiet for a moment and we stared down the road after the car until it was small in the distance. 

“We did it,” I said.

“We did it,” Lois repeated

“That was amazing,” I said, “It was. It really was,” Lois replied

“I love raising those kids,” I said. “I loved it.”

“So did I.”

“I would do it again, all eight of them,” I said, tears forming in my eyes.

“So would I,” said Lois.

Holding her and looking her in the eyes I said, “And I would do it with you.”

Not real comfortable with so much intimacy and emotion, she looked back for a split second and said, “Would you?” and turned and started toward the house. 

Back in our little farmhouse we sat down on the loveseat together and I said, “Let’s pray and thank God for what he allowed us to do.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

I prayed and thanked God for four amazing decades of provision and protection and direction and love over ten people under one roof. She prayed, thanking God. 

It was a moment I will always cherish. 

During Hope and Tim’s wedding we erected a wooded cross on the north backline of our property (Dale, our son-in-law did it). We left it there and when I look out the fields north of our house I think of that weekend and the last of the children leaving and I thank God again for those years together. 

We are in another season now and it is a good one, very good, but for forty years we raised four sons and four daughters together. Just two clueless, needy, sinners… and Jesus. As I often say, “We will never tire of telling the stories.”

Bittersweet Farm

October 31, 2022