Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 162
July 28, 2011
Jesus is Here. What Do You Want?
I started this message with a story about a camp memory that came back to me this week.
Title: Jesus is Here. What Do You Want?
Text: Matthew 8:14-17
Series: Matthew's Gospel
Place: Evangel Baptist Church
Date: July 31, 2011 AM
Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont
July 27, 2011
Grand Haven
We spent a vacation day at Lake Michigan on Tuesday. It was beautiful. Kyle and Elizabeth met us there with the grandbuddies. We dinner together outdoors and stayed until the sun set and the harbor lights come on. Then we took the long, slow, beautiful walk back along the boardwalk in Grand Haven. It's one of my favorite places on earth.
Before we parted we clustered together to pray right on the beach while the waves lapped the shore and cool breeze blew in off Lake Michigan. It's been a very hot couple of weeks, but there in Grand Haven it was as if we were able to turn the temperature and humidity knob to "perfect."
It was so beautiful to be there and spend time with Kyle and Elizabeth and their beautiful little family, that it brought tears to your eyes.
Jam Pot
Yesterday I re-posted a sweet second-hand story from my son, Kyle about a one-in-a-lifetime experience he had on Lake Superior. It reminded me of a family vacation when we drove out to the end of the Kewinaw Peninsula to a place called Copper Harbor at the very end of the finger of the Upper Peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior.
Just before reaching Eagle Harbor was a beautiful waterfall and at the base of the fall a little bakery called the Jam Pot. It was run by seminarians. Sweet spot…in more ways than one. 
July 25, 2011
Thimbleberries on Isle Royal
Classic re-posted from 2009
Matt Steinbeck is a great Christian guy. He is an experienced outdoorsman with a big, red, Dodge truck. Last summer he planned a trip to Isle Royal on the north edge Lake Superior. Kyle, our oldest son was invited to tag along. There were only five men in the party. They lashed a couple canoes to the Dodge and drove to Copper Harbor on the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. From there they took a four-and-a-half-hour, fifty-four-mile ferry ride northwest to the Island. They paddled into the interior of the Island then hiked and portaged across a couple huge interior lakes.
The largest Island in the Great Lakes is Isle Royal, Lake Siskiwit Lake is its largest inland lake. They camped there for five nights. One night they feasted on fish they caught from the lake. They ate a huge pike, and forty perch – sharing their meal with a couple other hikers.
The men portaged and paddled in to Ryan Island. It is the biggest island on the biggest lake on the biggest Island on the biggest of the Great Lakes. The guys did some cliff diving there. For a couple nights they camped under a full moon.
For weeks before the adventure Matt met with the men and primed them with stories of wolves, moose, loons, bear and other wildlife on the Island. He also talked longingly of huge patches of sweet, juicy thimbleberries.* He said if they were ripe and hadn't been discovered by other hikers they make good eating. Thimbleberries are bigger and juicer and softer than raspberries and they have no thorns. Thimbleberry Jam is a local delicacy up on the UP's Keweenaw Peninsula.
While hiking one day they stumbled on a sparse patch, but a few days later, just before reaching Siskiwit Lake, they came down through a dip in the trail where the forest was cool and found a patch of thimbleberries about the size of a half basketball court. Everyone dropped their packs and canoes and waded in waist deep until they foundered on the berries. The juice ran down their chins and their hands were stained for days.
Reading through the Bible steadily is an worthwhile adventure. There are patches of sweet fruit growing everywhere you look. It is my privilege to spend my life every week wading in waste-deep and picking fruit to share with people on the Lord's Day. Sometimes I pick fruit for them. Sometimes I just show there were it is so they can wade in for themselves until the juice of truth stains their hands and drips off their chins. It's something sweet to look forward to every day.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 18, 2009
*Thimbleberry fruits are larger, flatter, and softer than raspberries, and have many small seeds. Because the fruit is so soft, it does not pack or ship well, so thimbleberries are rarely cultivated commercially. However, wild thimbleberries make an excellent jam which is sold as a local delicacy in some parts of their range, notably in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan. Thimbleberry jam is easily made by combining equal volumes of berries and sugar and boiling the mixture for two minutes before packing it into jars. They are can be eaten raw.
July 24, 2011
July 23, 2011
Creative Thinking…
People look at things from their frame of reference. A musician would see these birds on wires as a musical score. One did. Here is the result:
July 20, 2011
Holly Sings…
This is our oldest daughter Holly singing a tribute for her mother. Thought you would like to hear it. You can listen here.
July 19, 2011
Falsely Accused
A Classic Re-posted from 2003
The note from my campus mailbox made my heart pound. It was summons to the office of the Dean of Men. "Please report to Dean Pride's office at once." Dean Pride was nothing more than the college disciplinarian and the college I attended took discipline very seriously indeed. The smallest infraction could send you packing home to momma and cost you a semester of academic blood, sweat and tears. Visions of shame and disgrace, failure, ruin and poverty assaulted my mind.
Immediately I began to think of what the interview might mean. What rules had I broken? Rather which of the rules that I had broken were they aware of? Of course the Dean was a skilled interviewer. He came right to the point but he didn't.
"Ken, why have I called you here?" His eyes locked on to mine. He didn't blink. He didn't look away. He didn't clarify his question. I felt like the silence betrayed my guilty hammering heartbeat. A truthful answer might have included a number of rule infractions. I would list some of them here but as a matter of policy I try not to document my sins. You'll have to use your imagination.
Of which was he already aware? I feigned innocence trying hard to sound convincing. "I'm not sure," I answered honestly.
My tactic worked. He clarified the accusation. "Mr. Pierpont, I have an eye-witness report that you kissed your girlfriend in full view of the entire student body outside the cafeteria. The report comes to me from Chuck, your own floor supervisor. This is not something we can overlook."
In this enlightened and tolerant age of co-ed dorms an innocent good-bye kiss may not seem like a capital offense, but the college I attended was a little old-fashioned. I'm sure that was one of the reasons my parents sent me there. Kissing was not something the college forbade, but they did require a special document for it. To kiss you had to have a valid Marriage License. I wanted one, but didn't have one yet.
Once during a chapel service a guest speaker was saying that we should save kissing for marriage. He claimed he had done so. I figured his sweetheart must not have been as tempting as mine but he fervently maintained that this was a discipline he practiced. In fact he said so plainly. "I did not kiss my wife until we reached the marriage altar," he said emphatically. He strode over and addressed his next comments to the Dean of students, repeating his last statement, "I did not kiss my wife before we reached the marriage altar, did you?" All eyes turned to the Dean who without hesitation answered; "I've never kissed your wife." The entire student body roared with laughter and applauded his quick and evasive wit.
Squirming in the chair across from the Dean of Men I had a moment of relief. I was innocent of this specific charge. I had not kissed Lois… not in front of the plate glass windows of the Cafeteria. I had not kissed Lois… not in front of the entire student body. I had leaned close and whispered a few parting words in her ear. Chuck, my dorm supervisor who had lenses in his glasses thick as the bottom of a coke bottle must have had a problem with depth perception. I wasn't in danger of making the Dean's list, but I did know that kissing in public would be bad for my college career.
I waited for Dean Pride to ask if I had ever kissed her at all, but if nothing else he was a gentleman and did not pry beyond the specific accusation. In that moment I saw a just a tiny flicker of warm humanity in his eyes. He dismissed me with a warning.
I hurried to my room to call Lois. Her roommates informed me that she was out. I knew she would be called into the office of the Dean and I wondered if she would cave in under pressure and talk too much. Her lips, the subjects of the accusation themselves, were sealed. We survived the interrogation system and by the next fall we were getting pretty good at kissing… legally, with a license and everything.
There is a confidence only those with an unsoiled conscience enjoy. There is nothing quite like innocence to engender boldness. Solomon was a wise man and he wrote about this a long time ago. He said; "The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion." Paul, the Apostle said; "Rulers are not a terror to good works." If you are driving the speed limit, red lights in your rear-view mirror do not strike terror in your heart.
Well I gotta' go. I have a woman here who hasn't been kissed in a while. Don't worry. I'm licensed to kiss.
Kenneth L. Pierpont
Fremont, Michigan
July 18, 2011
Chords That Are Broken…
Series: Matthew's Gospel
Title: Chords That Are Broken
Text: Matthew 8:5-13
Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
Speaker: Pastor Ken Pierpont
