Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 41
August 25, 2019
Remember Whose You Are-Part 3 (Sermon) Audio
Remember Whose You Are (Part 3)
Ephesians
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
August 25, 2019 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-25-143026-ryhwk5e7i3k6dvidgmsv-audio-b1879s-e4704s-online-audio-converter.com_.mp3
August 23, 2019
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 57) Nashville Again!
Nashville Again!
Thanks to the kindness of the people I serve at Bethel Church in Jackson, Michigan I am in Nashville with one of my ministry associates, Patrick Kelly. Pat has been the Pastor of Worship Arts and lots of other things at Bethel Church almost seven years now and he is delightful company. We hit a couple coffee shops and a BBQ place on the way down the the hours of travel passed swiftly as we talked about our families and planned things for Bethel.
We are here to attend the SING Conference. It’s an amazing event held in an amazing venue. We’ve been running into people we know from all over the country. It’s encouraging to see people who know and love and serve our Lord Jesus and His church.
I miss our quiet Bittersweet Farm and Lois and Hope. I miss my nice study and the people of Bethel, but I feel that what we are doing here is going to be something we can bring home to bring great joy and worship to the people we love and serve in Jackson.
There are thousands upon thousands of people here. Yesterday we heard from D. A. Carson and Dr. John Lennox. The well-known and gifted musicians here are too many to mention. Today we will hear from John MacArthur and this evening from John Piper in a meeting held in a local Arena. It is worship for the purpose of encouraging and helping others to worship and it’s hard to imagine a more worthy and noble thing to do. Joni Tada and Fernando Ortega sang and spoke as well.
I’m working on a few books. One of them is a book of fifty camp lessons I call: “Between the Fires: How to Keep the Campfire Burning All Your Life.” Today I am going to share one chapter from the book with you:
Knowing the Way Home
You don’t have to know the way home,
if you stay with the One who knows the way home.
Jeremiah 9:23 says; “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
I loved visiting my grandpa’s farm when I was a boy, that is probably why this story appealed to me so much when I heard it. I loved the story so much that I began to tell it when I preached at camps or youth retreats. It’s not my story, but that’s the whole thing about stories, you can give them away and keep them too.
Once there was a little four-year-old boy who was visiting his grandpa’s farm. Late in the afternoon his grandpa said; “Let’s go for a walk.”
Eager to explore the little lad agreed. They walked out over the hill and back beyond to the woods. They followed a path through the woods and the little lad spent some time getting crawdads from the creek. I was in no hurry. He walked across the creek on rocks and claimed bank on the far side and lay down in the fresh mint with his grandpa. It was a great day.
The grandfather wanted his sweet little boy to hold his hand but he would have none of that. He was too busy exploring.
They explored a rocky fence row and a meadow with flowers. The sun sank beneath the trees and suddenly the little fellow said; “We need to go home, grandpa.”
“Why, son. We are having such a good time.”
“Because it’s getting dark. We have to get home before dark.”
“Son, when it’s dark the stars come out. It’s beautiful. Are you sure you don’t want to stay and watch the stars come out?”
“No,” the little lad said, “We have to go home before dark. I don’t know my way home in the dark.”
The wise grandfather got down on his knee and he held the little boys face in his hands and looked deeply into his eyes. “Listen, my son and never forget this. As long as you are with me, you don’t need to know the way home.”
The Importance of Knowing God
If you really know God you don’t have to know the future. If you really know God you really don’t have to have your career figured out or who you are going to marry or your major in college. These things are important, but not nearly as important as knowing God, because if you don’t know God you won’t know the way home in the dark. But if you know God you will know all that you need to now when you need to know it and you will never be alone.
A Camp Song
Some of the songs you sing this week you will remember for the rest of your life. Over five decades ago I attended a camp and we sang a song in chapel that I have never gotten out of my heart. It goes like this:
I know who holds the future,
And I know He holds my hand.
With God things don’t just happen,
Everything by Him is planned.
So as I face tomorrow,
With its problems large and small.
I’ll trust the God of miracles,
Give to him my all.
Even as a small child at camp I understood the powerful security, provision, direction, encouragement, protection, and wisdom that would come from me when I know God and cling to his hand all the days of my life.
You don’t have to know the way home,
if you stay with the One who knows the way home.
Remember Whose You Are-Part 2 (Sermon) Audio
Remember Whose You Are (Part 2)
Ephesians
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
August 18, 2019 AM
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-18-RWYA-Part-2-online-audio-converter.com_.mp3
Remember Whose You Are-Part 2 (Sermon) Video
Remember Whose You Are (Part 2)
Ephesians
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
August 18, 2019 AM
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
August 12, 2019
RWYA (Part 1) Sermon Video
RWYA: Remember Whose You Are
Bethel Church–Jackson
August 11, 2019 AM
Pastor Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
RWYA (Part 1) Sermon Audio
RWYA: Remember Whose You Are
Bethel Church–Jackson
August 11, 2019 AM
Pastor Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-11-AM-RWYA-Part-1.mp3
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 56) 43 Years Yesterday
Mid-August Out on Bittersweet
It is mid-August out on Bittersweet—our second August. It was a beautiful week, cool and sunny every day. These days, when I got home from my Bethel duties, I usually stay outdoors until after dark, trimming, mowing, weeding, watching birds, working on the Carriage House, or reading on the porch.
This week a great triumph. I fixed the rolling barn door. The building is a century old and the mechanism on the large rolling door is original hardware so I was happy to get it rolling smoothly open and closed. I have a nice workshop within and a window facing north so when I open the door and windows my workplace is bright and the airy.
I sit on the steps in the twilight and listen to the night coming on. I listen for the sounds to change and I wonder what all thy all are, birds, frogs, insects, sometimes the unique call of the Barred Owl. Fireflies blink out over the green meadow and under the trees in the Walnut grove. Swallows dive through the air toward evening feeding on insects and later as darkness sets in bats flit around in and out of the Walnuts and over the meadow.
This week I heard coyotes howling in the woods beyond the far north field. Hazard heard them to and started growling threateningly, unaware that in a confrontation they would do him in. He was out the other day and I was talking on the phone when a bold Red-tailed Hawk performed a low threatening fly-over, just to remind him of his place in the food chain, I suppose. In all the countryside around Bittersweet is safe and inviting. Bucolic and pastoral.
Yesterday I quietly passed a milestone. On August 11 of my Junior year of High School I was invited to pastor a little country church in Ohio. I served there until late August of the next year when I left to study at Moody. During that year I baptized all the young people in the church along with my little brother, Nathan. I have been thinking about some of the things I have learned in over 40 years of pastoral work. This week I will share one of them:
“There is always music amongst the trees, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.” –Minnie Aumonier
We have a delightful lady named Sarah in our church at Bethel. When she was well and could attend regularly she was on the “A” team, serving at the greeters desk, the “face” of Bethel Church. And she has a joyful face.
A while ago she was in the hospital. On the way up to see her I was thinking about there and praying for her. I wondered, “Does she need a sunny word of encouragement today or does she need a listening ear?”
I walked into her room and she broke into radiant smile. “Sarah, I was thinking about you on the way up. Do you need a listening ear today or a sunny word of encouragement?”
Immediately she said; “O, a sunny word of encouragement.” That is what I love to hear, but that is not alway what people want or need.
43 Years Ago Yesterday
It was 43 years ago yesterday I was called to pastor my first church. I was 17 years old. I pastored there for a little over a year and then left for Moody.
I’ve learned a few things in my attempts to pastor people for 43 years. Here is one of them. Sometimes people need a sunny word of encouragement, or a word of Godly advice. Sometimes they may need correction, warning, or rebuke. Sometimes what people need most is teaching or instruction.
I’m wired to encourage, so that tends to be my default mode. As they say, “If you are a hammer, everything is a nail.”
I usually feel that I can fix about anything with a roll of my encouragement duct tape… but it’s not so.
Sometimes, maybe more often than I have been deeply aware of it in my own ministry, people really crave a listening ear. They don’t want encouragement yet. They don’t need information. They don’t want a lecture or a pep talk or a full-length motivational speech. They need a friend to listen to them. They need understanding. They need empathy.
You may thing someone really needs encouragement and they have wallowed in their troubles long enough, but do be careful, you can get hurt trying to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued.
Today on the first full day of my 43rd year of pastoral ministry I am reminding myself to pray for each of the precious souls for whom I will give an account and listen to them with my heart.
Help me, Lord.
Bittersweet Farm
August 12, 2019
August 9, 2019
Musings on Seeing the Neighbor’s Cat in The Window
The neighbors, Marty and Pat, have cats. A bunch of them. They are indoor cats. I don’t remember the exact number but I do know it is in the double digits.
One of them is sitting in the window looking out on the world now, a black one with a white neck. Now he is reclining in the window, not quite as vigilant. Snoozing. Looking away. Feigning disinterest. Like you do.
I wouldn’t be a good cat for that very reason. It’s hard for me to mask my general enthusiasm for life and my unflagging curiosity. I’m a little more like a puppy, I suppose. Eager, mostly. It works for me for the most part. There have been times when I wish I could be more disinterested and detached but mostly I’m happy to be the person I am.
Bittersweet Farm
August 9, 2019
August 5, 2019
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 55) Greenfield Slip-N-Slide
I often remember fondly of the simple church camp of my youth. Let’s just say, it wasn’t Barakel. There was no lake, no pool, no waterslide, no waterfront, no pond, really nothing involving swimming or water if you don’t count the unauthorized blow-out water-ballon fight we would have on Friday night after we were supposed to be lights out in our beads. It involved shaving cream, water balloons, and a variety of other sticky, messy things and it was called; “Wipe Out.”
There were some very sincere, good Christian people there, but funding was thin and few of them had the gifting to organize things well enough to keep us out of mischief. They loved us and fed us and exhorted us. They taught us and warned us and prayed for us and they tried to arrange fun things for us. But usually we made our own fun.
One year I was a counselor and I may have been a little too distracted by my girlfriend who was a counselor. When I wasn’t looking my boys created their own slip and slide—which sounds innocent enough on the face of things but this was not your grandmas’s slip-n-slide. This was made by pulling back the shower curtains and running the water out onto the smooth concrete floor, taking off your clothes, lathering up with a bar of Irish Spring and getting a good run and sliding on your tail the length of the shower room and out over a little drop and onto the floor of the dorm. This was an all-male naked Christian slip and slide.
The really slippery, athletic, bold guys could slide almost to the front door of the dorm… There was a little privacy wall there to keep the girls from leering to the men’s dorm. It was a riot and entertaining even for those of us who only watched and laughed until our sides hurt.
But all good things must come to an end which happened when one soapy kid slid out of the shower room, through the width of the dorm, and out the door at the exact same time our camp speaker stepped around the corner in his black suit with his Bible under his arm. (No, I am not making any of this up. I promise you. I have a witness. My little brother and I were having a good laugh about this the other night. He was a camper that summer).
The water sports were cancelled after that and we were back to ping-pong, shuffleboard, and tether ball—with our clothes on.
I still have a fond affectionate feeling that wells up in me when I remember standing around after the evening meeting, sipping a little paper cup of cold Mountain Dew and talking as the cool of night came on.
It’s a miracle any good ever came from the goings-on at that camp, but God was there and miracles do happen, and people prayed, and gave, and served, and sang and preached and God really did show up and we met him there and that was sweet and stimulating to the soul. I got a taste of the sweetness of Christ and a glimpse of the glory of Christ and I wanted more.
August 3, 2019
“Dispatch” from Camp
Facing south from the footbridge on the north end of Shear Lake at Camp Barakel.Here is a little “dispatch” from Camp Barakel. I’ve been preaching the Word twice a day to the campers from a list of my 50 favorite “Camp Lessons” …over the years I have labored to speak to campers in a way that is faithful to the Word and fresh and understandable to them. I’ve worked hard to hone a storytelling craft and gather stories to capture their attention and make truth memorable. (Jesus was the Master Storyteller).
The weather has been perfect. Warm enough to draw most of the campers down to the waterfront every afternoon, cool enough at night to make evening chapel pleasant and sleeping sweet.
My brother Kevin A. Pierpont and his family are on full-time staff here. If you forced me to tell you what I love the most about camp, the short list would include the beauty of creation, fellowship among the workers, shared meals and rest, but above all I love to hear the campers sing the praises of Christ and I love to join them.
Tomorrow they will gather the camps from both sides of the lake into one chapel and I will preach to them. That is an experience that will ring in my heart for the rest of my life. In the afternoon we will all go to the other side for music and in the evening we will hike out to a fire ring for testimonies.
If you are grown-up and you miss or missed the camp experience you can sign up starting this week for fall and winter and spring retreats and experience Camp Barakel for yourself.
Camp Barakel
August 3, 2019
(photos are not from this year in keeping with camp policy) 
