Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 35
February 16, 2020
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 74) 60 Years of Ministry
What’s Up (Written on Sunday, February 9, 2020)
This morning I left for the church about half-past-six. The sky was clear and a nearly full moon shone in the western sky. So the whole wide world as far as I could see was moon-lit and snow-covered. There is fresh snow out on Bittersweet tonight. It’s the Lord’s Day and we are warm and well. It was a good day at Bethel Church. We started a series of messages based on the letters from Jesus to the Seven Churches in Revelation. We had some new families visit this week. Our teens are returning from Barakel today. This week I attended a leadership conference at Ada Bible Church with son Kyle and Chuck and my brother Nathan. Tonight our son Daniel starts the police academy in New Mexico. He is a sheriff’s deputy. Those are some of the things that are up around here. The dear still graze in the back meadow every night and in the near north field. Turkeys stroll out of hiding occasionally. I hope you and yours are doing well.
It’s winter out on Bittersweet and it will be for a while. That is Michigan for you. We love it here and winter is a part of the Michigan we love.
(Written on Sunday, February 16, 2020)
This afternoon the sun came out and the temperatures climbed into the 40’s which was delightful. Everyone in town washed their car. I took Grenfell through the wash. It got me to thinking about the blessing Grenfell, my Toyota Camry, has been to me since I got it in June of 2017. God has supplied all we have needed. This car came to me through the diligence and generosity of our son Daniel and his wife Katelynn. They bought it new and paid the depreciation and then sold it to me for a very fair price and until I secured my pastorate they supported us every month in about the amount of the payment. Whenever I turn the key, I remember and I thank God for his kindness and for our son Daniel. Grenfell gets over 35 miles to the gallon of gas.
Mom and Dad announced their retirement from the pastorate today after over 60 years of faithful ministry. Here is what my other wrote on her Facebook page today:
“Over 60 years ago Ken and I began our ministry together in October of 1959…..at IL-Mo Christian Camp in Illinois and this morning Ken gave his notice of retirement to our dear people at South Litchfield Baptist Church here in Michigan. What a blessing and privilege it has been to serve our Lord. Jesus Never Fails! We will be moving on the 13th of March to Kalamazoo to live at The Village of Sage Grove. We would appreciate your continued prayers for us as we scale down and transition to this change in our lives.”
I grew up in their home. I watched their faithfulness. I saw and experienced God’s direction and supply all those years. They were faithful. He was faithful. He supplied all they needed all those years and used them in the lives of many, many others. Many men have gone into the ministry as a result of my parents ministry including a significant number of family members. So we do thank the Lord. In a few weeks the brothers will join together and move them out of the parsonage and into their place in Kalamazoo.
Mike Anderson wrote this in a comment on their post: “I sensed my call to the ministry under Pastor Pierpont’s ministry at Maple Avenue Christian Union Church in Newark, Ohio in the early 1990’s. I will be forever grateful for the faithful example of both of you reflecting what it means to love and follow Jesus. I am a life that was changed!”
The View From the Rock Pile (Sermon) Video
Letters From Jesus
The View from the Rock Pile (Revelation 1:9-20)
Bethel Church–Jackson
February 16, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
The View from the Rock Pile (Sermon) Audio
Letters From Jesus
The View from the Rock Pile (Revelation 1:9-20)
Bethel Church–Jackson
February 16, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2020-02-16AM-The-View-from-the-Rock-Pile-online-audio-converter.com_.mp3
February 9, 2020
Eternity Vision (Sermon) Audio
Series: Letters from Jesus
Eternity Vision (Revelation 1:1-8)
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 9, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2020-02-09AM-Eternity-Vision-online-audio-converter.com_.mp3
Eternity Vision (Sermon) Video
Series: Letters from Jesus
Eternity Vision (Revelation 1:1-8)
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 9, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
February 4, 2020
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 73) Musing on the Muse
Back from Up North
I spent last weekend at Camp Barakel preaching to a chapel full Sr. High campers. The camp was at capacity. My brother Kevin is on the Barakel staff. He led the chapel services. Two of his sons Zach and Josiah helped with music. My brother Nathan led the music and played the piano. His daughter Grace helped with the singing. I preached. We met in the West Side Chapel, built in the 40’s, a rustic place of worship with two huge stone fireplaces on either side of the platform. On a winter retreat the fires blaze and crackle while you sing and preach. A few inches of fresh snow fell and frosted all the pine forest surrounding the frozen lake.
I drove home Sunday out of the snowy north, sipping a strong coffee (for I rise early when I preach), down the state, across the Zilwaukee Bridge and into winter sunshine.
I’m basking now in the memory of it. I’m praying the Word took hold in the hearts of young people. I like to think the memory of a beautiful white weekend in the great north country of Michigan, the smiles of the workers, the abundance of good food, the order of the place, the beauty of the singing, the hissing of burning wood, the laughter of friends, the taste of cocoa, the exertion of skating and skiing and tubing and snowball fights, and the ministry of the Word will draw them Godward and leave them changed. I hope to see them again. One day, when I am gone, out from among them God will call forth preachers and singers and workers to continue to spread the aroma of Christ in this blessed place they call Camp Barakel.
I’ve been invited to speak again to families in the spring, teens in the summer, and fathers and sons in the fall. Should the Lord allow, I will have spoken at Barakel in all four seasons this year. I’m humbled at the privilege of driving up into our beloved Michigan in each of the four seasons with a Bible on the seat beside me and a message burning in my soul. It never gets old.
Musing on the Muse
It’s quiet on Bittersweet Farm tonight. I’m mending from illness. Thinking, watching, listening, and writing in the corner of my upstairs room. It got me thinking about where writers write.
Francis Schaeffer wrote in a plain chair pulled up the end of the bed in a small upstairs room of a chalet in the Alps. It was from this modest place he moved the world.
If you want to go down a fun rabbit-hole surf around that ‘net for half hour looking for pictures of where famous writers write. Sometimes they wrote in uninsulated huts out behind the house. Many of the most productive writers wrote in very simple surroundings.
Last week I was privileged to spend some time with Pastor Jeff Manion, the lead pastor af Ada Bible Church. He has a tiny office at the church which draws over 8,000 a weekend. He does most of his study at home in the basement at a simple table with a common chair and a lamp. I’ve met men who surround themselves with every conceivable comfort and productivity tool who have not had a fraction of their influence. I have a good desk, custom-made my my brother-in-law, a state-of-the-art computer. I have a good light, a comfortable, usually quiet room that stays year round a comfortable 70 degrees.
Louis Broomfield wrote Pleasant Valley, and many other books. He had the most amazing desk and writing I have ever seen in the house on Malabar Farm in Richland County, Ohio. It was huge, but he wrote all his books on a card table pulled over in front of the window.
Sheldon Van Auken wrote by the fireplace in a little one-room cottage he called VanCot. It was his home and he wrote on a manual typewriter on on a portable stand.
Your productivity has little to do with how expensive your tools are. Good tools that work are important, but surrounding yourself with toys, trinkets, novelties and luxuries will not make you productive. Getting regularly into a simple, quiet place and spending time in undistracted work will make you productive. We must continually fight the temptation to believe that we need something more than what we have in order to do what we are called to do.
Bittersweet Farm
February 4, 2020
February 2, 2020
Who Do You Think You Are?
I spoke at winter camp this weekend to a couple hundred senior high students. I spoke on identity.
Who you think you are is one of the most important things about you. Others are quick to tell you who they think you are. Satan would even love to define you by your darkest sin struggle, but who does God say you are?
If you are a believer you are in Christ and in Christ this is who you are:
1. You are Blessed and Privileged. (1:3)
2. You are Chosen and Cherished. (1:4)
3. You are Holy and Blameless before God. (1:1. 4)
4. You are Accepted, Included and Adopted. (1:5-6; 2:11-32)
5. You are Forgiven and Cleansed (1:7; 2:1-10)
6. You are Trusted with the Mysteries of God. (1:9-10; 2:11-13)
7. You are Spiritually Wealthy. (1:11)
8. You are safe, sealed, and secure (Eph. 1:13-14)
9. You are spiritually strong and powerful. (Eph. 1:15-21; 3:10-11; 6:10-18)
10. You have a home and a place where you belong. You have a people and a nation. (2:11-22 esp. 19; 3:6)
11. You are called, commissioned, and sent as a representative of the King of kings. (3:7-13) You have a job, a skill-set, a placement, gifts and a purpose. (4:11ff) You are custom-made by God for good works. (3:10ff)
12. You are loved with an immense and eternal love. (3:14-21)
Ken Pierpont
Camp Barakel
February 2, 2020
January 26, 2020
The Day of the Lord (Sermon) Audio
Series: Restored: Better Than New (Joel)
Sermon Title: The Day of the Lord (Joel 3:1-21)
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
January 26, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2020-02-26AM-The-Day-of-the-Lord.mp3
The Day of the Lord (Sermon) Video
Series: Restored: Better Than New (Joel)
Sermon Title: The Day of the Lord (Joel 3:1-21)
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
January 26, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
January 20, 2020
Bright Promises for Dark Times (Sermon) Audio
Series: Restored Better Than New (Joel)
Sermon: Bright Promises for Dark Times (Joel 2:28-32)
Bethel Church; Jackson, Michigan
January 18, 2020AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2020-01-18-AM-Bright-Promises-for-Dark-Times-online-audio-converter.com_.mp3
