Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 50
February 17, 2019
The Adventure You Were Meant to Live (Sermon) Audio
Series: Titus, The Little Red Book of Church
Sermon: The Adventure You Were Meant to Live
Text: Titus 2:6-10
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
February 17, 2019 AM
The Adventure You Were Meant to Live (Sermon) Video
The Adventure You Were Meant to Live
Titus 2:6-10
February 12, 2019
Is Wright Right? Is He Clear?
Listening to N. T. Wright today argue that Romans 3-5 are not so much about “how to be saved.” When he speaks he is often especially clear and lucid, but when he speaks about his “new perspective on Paul” I have never heard him be clear and understandable and complete. He seems, to my mind, to always complicate the message beyond the understanding of the common man.
…and that makes think of the young sailors who witnessed so boldly and clearly to may dad those years ago… “Are you born again?” “Are you sure you are right with God?” “Are you saved? The questions burned in his guilty and soul…
Would my father, who was among the first of us, would my mother who believed that Jesus died for her sins the first time she heard the simple story, would they have come to follow Christ as they have now all their lives. Would they have led their whole families to follow Christ. Would they have led generations of our family to Christ, had the ministers complicated it so?
I’m not arguing for ignorance, but the gospel message and gospel conversations must be so simple and so clear that they do not leave people with many open-ended questions, feeling as if only a scholar can really speak with any authority about salvation.
We need another generation of Heralds of the King, men and women who will make salvation by grace through faith alone, crystal clear to lost sinners who are destined for hell. We need people who will lead unbelievers to believe and challenge them to be baptized after they believe, as the Scriptures clearly teach and show. Get saved. Be baptized. That is what they did in the book of Acts. That is the heart of our mission in the world right now.
I’ll keep reading and listening to N. T. Wright. I thank God for his grasp of the scriptures. I am grateful for his defense of the resurrection, but I have never heard him speak with clear conclusiveness on justification by faith and I’m burdened about that.
An Amazing Confirmation
While I’m writing this a member called and asked me how to make salvation plain to a dying friend who was uncertain about her salvation. My point is just that. A common, believing, Jesus follower should be able to make salvation plain to a friend in conversation over a cup of coffee. Their eternal life may depend on it!
This is the heart of what we are here to do. Can you make salvation plain to a friend? When was the last time you did that? Are you praying for your friends and family members every day who do not yet know the Lord? What is more important than that? Will you have stories to tell about people you led to Christ or helped along the way?
February 10, 2019
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 31)
Last Tuesday I gave the eulogy at the memorial service of Charles Perlos. The church was packed, every seat into the overflow. Charles is the man who renovated Bittersweet Farm, took it off the market, and saved it for us, and held my $1,000.00 down payment check until closing so we could have the place. The story is one that I will never tire of telling. I am literally writing about book about it so you will have to wait to hear the full and amazing story. Keep an eye open for details to come.
I also drove to Indiana for the funeral of a pastor with whom I used to work, Pastor Larry Whiteford. On Friday and Saturday I preached at Camp Selah to Teens and toured Crossroads Farm in Hillsdale County. Yesterday I was back in the Bethel pulpit. I like to keep busy.
Camp Selah
Camp Selah is directed by Mark and Shelly Emmons. Tyler and Denae Tracey are on full-time staff there, too. I spoke for the Teen Winter Camp. It was a sweet group of teens and they listened carefully to every word. We had a little time for some conversations with some of the teens. The food was great. They had solid leaders/counselors and a great little band. The teens participated wholeheartedly in worship. I loved my time with them. Speaking and hanging out with people and talking about the things of the Lord is my “sweet spot.”
I dove home Saturday night. My car (DannyBoy/Grenfell) and my heart were warm. It’s an hour of pretty countryside between Selah and Bittersweet Farm. I arrived home in time for some time with the family and a full night’s sleep.
The Selah Team-Good PeepsCrossroads Farm Youth Ministry
Saturday I drove over to Crossroads Farm. I met Doug Routledge and we chatted for a couple hours while he showed me around “The Shed,” their student ministry building. The quality of the facility and Doug’s stories of the teens impacted there moved me to tears. Bethel Church has been a supporter of Crossroads Farm from the beginning.
Crossroads runs a Sunday night program for teens from area rural churches. The teens are also invited into small groups for further discipleship and follow up. Doug and Dawn are involved in training other youth workers from the area and in other places in the country. They have a branch now in Kalkaska, Michigan and one ready to open in Ohio, and another in the U.P.
It’s thrilling to see ministries here in our state that are being used of God to connect with young people in a time that is growing increasingly hostile or at least indifferent to the work of God.
marbles in mason jars represented the number of weeks left with students of various ages.
These game table were designed to survive a nuclear attack.
No broken-down left-over ping-pong tables here. 
The steps to the Library
The is “The Barnyard”
The day I walked through there was not a thing out of place, not a scrap of paper on the floor. There were no corny “youth posters” on the wall. There were no out of date youth curriculums cluttering the shelves. There were no dirty windows. There were no dusty floors. Everything was done with excellence and with teens in mind.
It moved me to tears to walk into the “Barnyard” and see where the teens assemble to sing and hear Doug preach every Sunday night.
Doug and Dawn Routledge
Teach Young Women (Sermon) Audio
Series: Titus, The Little Red Book of Church
Sermon: Teach Young Women (Titus 2:4-5)
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor; Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
February 10, 2019 AM
Teach Young Women (Sermon) Video
This Talk: Teach the Young Women
Titus 2:4-5
February 3, 2019
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 30)
Bittersweet FarmJanuary 2018
Last week was an unusual week in our neck of the woods. It was bizarre-cold here on Bittersweet Farm but inside we were safe, warm, cozy and secure. I would like to have accomplished more, but sometimes the Lord just slows the world down and that’s alright.
Projects Up-Coming
I will be working on some videos and podcast episodes. I am also on a number of books all at the same time:
Red Jeep JourneysThe Bittersweet Farm StoryThe Village Parson, Stories from 40 Years of Pastoral MinistryBetween the Fires (52 Ways to Keep the Camp Fire Burning All Your Life).God Still Speaks Stories (A Collection of Stories of Unusual Providence).
Speaking this Weekend
I would appreciate your prayers for the Bethel Teens who head to Camp Barakel this weekend. A large group is heading up for a snow-camp. I will be speaking to teens at Camp Selah on Friday night and Saturday. I will be in the Bethel pulpit on the Lord’s Day, Lord willing.
The Home-going of Chuck Perlos
Last week Charles Perlos, who renovated Bittersweet Farm and graciously saved it for us until our home in the Downriver sold, went to be with the Lord. I visited the night before he died and the morning of the day of his death.
The night before he died I found out he had been sent to hospice-care. It was dark and bitter, bitter cold outside. I bundled up and made my way to the facility. I parked as close as I could and hurried against the brutal cold to his room. He was surrounded with loving family members.
When I came into the room he had been unresponsive all day. I took his hand and said; “Charles, it’s Ken Pierpont.”
He immediately opened his eyes and a smile crossed his face. His family slipped out so I could talk with him alone. I talked to him for a bit, read him some Scripture, prayed, and thanked him again for his friendship and his kindness to our family. I promised that I would never forget him and that I would always be grateful for what he did.
In the morning first thing I sat with he and his daughter Lindy for about an hour, read Scripture, prayed and thanked him again for his kindness to us.
Lindy said, “The day you first visited, after you left, Dad said; ‘That was not an accident. That was meant to be.'”
It was. God sent us mercifully down the road that autumn afternoon. God moved Charles to renovate the house and to save it for us and to wait until we were able to buy it. He held our $1,000.00 down payment check until closing. He saved the house for us based on a handshake. He kept his word to us.
When I left his side on the day he slipped into the presence of Jesus, I reached out and touched his shoulder and said; “Goodbye my friend. I will see you soon.”
On an earlier visit Charles gave us a large album of pictures of the renovation of our home. It’s an amazing photojournal of the extensive restoration. Lois, Hope, and I live in a home that was prepared for us by Charles Perlos. As I walked away I realized in my heart that when I next see Charles we will both be enjoying the home the Jesus prepared for us. And I will have stories to tell him about the place we call Bittersweet Farm.
Tuesday afternoon I will preach his funeral. I am only a month and a few days older than he. He was my friend and I will always thank God for him.
Ken Pierpont | Bittersweet Farm | Summit Township, Michigan | February 4, 2019
I will have much more to tell about Charles Perlos and the incredible providence, provision, and blessing of God in The Story of Bittersweet Farm. I let you know when you can get your copy.
A Good Church (Sermon) Audio
A Good Church (Titus 2:3) | Bethel Church, Jackson, Michigan
February 2, 2019 | Pastor Ken Pierpont
A Good Church (Sermon) Video
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
February 2, 2019
Larry Whiteford, The Singing Pastor
Pastor Whiteford and his family in the years we worked together.Our home was filled with music when I was a boy. My mother played the piano and sang continually. I was usually awakened with a bright song early in the morning and most nights my last waking memory as a little boy was of Christian music playing softly in the house.
My parents only had a few albums. Gloria Rowe. Helen Barth. We had all the albums of “The Singing Pastor” Larry Whiteford, founding pastor of Fulkerson Park Baptist Church in Niles, Michigan. Pastor Larry was my grandparents pastor. On Christmas evening for many years pastor and his wife Bonnie and their children would have a Christmas Concert. The church was full. (Only later did I realize that he and his family really had to give up anything like a normal Christmas for their family to present that concert).
When I was a boy I attended VBS at Fulkerson. Those were days of great increase and blessing at Fulkerson and the church became a model in my heart of a flourishing local church.
In 1981 I discovered that Larry Whiteford was looking for an assistant, a youth pastor. I called him and offered my services. Within a few month Lois and I and our little Kyle Pierpont moved to Niles and it was my privilege to serve on the pastoral staff at Fulkerson.
As I look back on it now it still stirs my heart with thankfulness to God that He would allow me the honor to work so closely with a childhood hero.
Pastor Whiteford and Bonnie were very, very good to Lois and I. We were very young. I had much maturing to do. I made mistakes and had much to learn. Pastor and Bonnie believed in us and they were very patient with us. If I had not been treated with understanding and patience by Pastor and Bonnie, that might have been my last place of service, but because of their love for us and their kindness to us we have been able to continue in ministry for now 40 years.
Pastor Whiteford had a rich, beautiful Irish Tenor voice. He was known as The Singing Pastor. Before every message, every week he would sing.
This is the picture in my heart when I remember the work at Fulkerson.One day he took me to his study and played records by a singer named Ed Lymon, also an Irish Tenor with a beautiful voice and interpretive style. I remember thinking that, though Ed had a beautiful voice, Pastor Whiteford’s voice was even richer.
On occasion Pastor would welcome me to sing with him, big Hale and Wilder or Dick Anthony and Bill Pierce arrangements. A favorite was “Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah.” I would sing baritone and he would, of course sing tenor… we would just thunder together. It was a great honor for me.
Bonnie would play. She had an incredible keyboard style as a soloist and an accompanist. He was at his very best when she played for him.
Pastor trusted me frequently with the Fulkerson pulpit. Many would not have given o many opportunities to a man so young with the formal training I had at the time. He would have me preach the full month of January when he was working with Clyde Narramore in Florida. He once had an extended absence because of an injury playing soccer with his children. I preached every week from January to Easter.
Pastor was very generous with us as a young couple. One Christmas I had presided over an orange sale for Christian schools. There were many boxes of navel oranges left. One weekday before Christmas I asked him what he was planning to do with the oranges that were left over. He said; “Brother Pierpont, do you think you could sell them?”
He gave me the day off and I loaded them in a pickup truck, went home to get my young family and drove around peddling those cases of oranges until they were all gone. There were 60 cases. I gathered over 600.00 that day. I was proud of my work and I was eager to call Pastor Whiteford and tell him of my success for the cause. Standing there at the phone booth I remember his response:
“Well, good job, brother Ken. Merry Christmas. You can keep that money for your family.”
After a few years of service at Fulkerson God led me on to another work. We parted with the greatest love and highest regard for each other. A few years later Pastor Whiteford decided that he would resign the church and begin a full-time ministry of singing. It was about March of 1987. He called me and said; “Brother Pierpont, I am going to resign and I would like you to be the next pastor at Fulkerson.”
He wanted me to follow him in the church that he had founded and poured his life into. I was deeply honored but I had just that day accepted a call to a church in Ohio. We would spend the next ten year sof our ministry in Knox County, Ohio, but the honor of that phone call still warms my heart.
I loved Larry and Bonnie Whiteford and their family. We spoke well of me. He was patient with me. He was understanding with my family. I learned a great deal of good from him.
A couple days ago he slipped quietly into the presence of the Lord. He is with his wife Bonnie and their daughter Judy and many, many others that Larry and Bonnie led or influenced toward Christ.
Working with Pastor Larry and Bonnie was one of the greatest honors of my life.
Ken Pierpont | Bittersweet Farm | Summit Township, Michigan | February 2, 2019
