Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 55

Follow Jesus-Help Others Follow Jesus (Sermon) Video

Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan

Follow Jesus–Help Others Follow Jesus

Luke 15

Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor

November 11, 2018 AM

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 18) A November Evening

Thursday night I cleared the whole place of leaves and mowed for the last time. The temperatures started dropping and In the early darkness Friday morning the first snow of the season came to Bittersweet Farm. It seemed festive. Friday Dewey Schramm (a very handy man from Bethel) came over and helped me prep the tractor for the turning season. (OK, I watched him prep the tractor). We removed the mowing deck and I attached the snow plow. We are ready for snow but wouldn’t complain if we had a few more sunny warmer days before winter sets in.

A November Evening

What does it take to bring you joy? What awakes your soul to God and fills you with praise? What stirs your heart to talk to God? For me sometimes all it takes is some time out in the yard with a hand rake on a November evening.

On my birthday Hope, Hannah and Dale bought me a beautiful plaid, Carhart shirt jacket. The body of the shirt is lined with fleece. The arms are quilt-lined. The shirt reminds me of the kind of jackets and warm shirts that hung on pegs on my grandfather’s place in Licking Country, Ohio years ago.

This evening I put on a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt and my new shirt-jacket and went outside to enjoy the last hour of daylight on Bittersweet Farm. The sun shone today and the evening was peaceful. Deer grazed in the north field as they do every night year round but this evening there were a dozen gray Sandhill Cranes out in the brown corn stubble. The White Tails flagged away into the fence row and the Cranes fled over into the far north field calling as they flew away. Bits of snow clung to the stones at the base of the trees and a few brown and rust oak leaves blew along the ground.

For the last ten years of my life I had to drive for miles to reach a “metropark” to satisfy my longing to be outdoors alone in a quiet place with God. Now I just put on a jacket and walk out the door.

I took out a hand rake to tidy up a little and enjoy the sounds of a fading autumn Lord’s Day. I find myself looking for excuses to be out in the yard and putter around the carriage house. Tonight the air was fresh. The fragrance of woodsmoke lingered on the evening. A few geese called winging their way strait south over the farm.

I hope the time never comes when the sight and sound of geese calling to each other overhead doesn’t quicken my heartbeat and call to mind memories that warm me to the soul like a thick shirt jacket on an autumn evening.

Ken Pierpont

Bittersweet Farm

Summit Township

November 11, 2018

What’s Your Gourd? (Sermon) Audio

Series: The Jonah Story

What’s Your Gourd

Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan

November 4, 2018 AM

Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor

https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Whats-Your-Gourd_-Jonah-4.mp3

The Jonah Story (Full Series) Video

Running Into A Storm (Jonah 1)

Desperate Prayer (Jonah 2)

How Merciful Is He? (Jonah 3)

How Merciful Are You? What’s Your Gourd? (Jonah 4)

What’s Your Gourd? (Sermon) Video

Series: The Jonah Story

What’s Your Gourd

Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan

November 4, 2018 AM

Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 17) A Rock in the Woods

November on Bittersweet Farm. It’s our first November on Bittersweet Farm. The trees are almost bare of leaves. I’ve spent some time mowing and mulching and blowing them into the fields and woods. 

Shepherd’s Pie. Lois surprised me with a wonderful shepherd’s pie for my birthday on Saturday. Hannah and Dale came with Mom and Dad. There was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting after dinner. (The was also chocolate cake with chocolate frosting  for my birthday party at the church on Thursday and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for the Men’s Prayer Breakfast on Saturday). 



Bathed in Prayer. A new Jan Karon book came to the house on the first day of its publication. It is called “Bathed in Prayer, Father Tim’s Prayers, Sermons, and Reflections from the Mitford Series.” It’s a delightful red hardcover with a nice ribbon marker. 

Under the Unpredictable Plant, Jonah and Bethel. Eugene Peterson went to be with the Lord. He had written a book on Jonah for pastors called Under the Unpredictable Plant. I’m reading it to think of him and to prepare my heart for the Jonah series. The series has been well-received. Bethel is growing. Today it seemed full, though we could fit about 100 more in if people moved to the middle and we filled the balcony. Bethel is a singing church. There was love and energy in the building today. We celebrated communion. I reminded the people that communion commemorates our union with Christ which empowers our communion with each other. 

Autumn Visitors. Friday night I worked hard to clear the leaves from the yard. When I backed Grenfell out in the dark morning on the way the Men’s Prayer Breakfast no one was coming so I paused to take a good long look at my work. It always pleases me to watch the house and imagine people sleeping securely within, light glowing from the kitchen. I breathe a prayer and drive away. When I looked up to start down the road, there, on the south side of the road, standing and looking at me, waiting for me to pass was a large buck. After I drove away, he quietly crossed the road. 

Late Saturday night I was standing in the yard at dusk and heard coyotes howling somewhere in the far north field or in the woods beyond.

In the last week or so I have often stood in the yard toward evening and watched geese migrate overhead usually going south west for some reason. I never tire of watching them fly over and hearing their calls. 

A Rock in the Woods

I preached two funerals this weekend. Both were for 90-year-old long-time Bethel women. One of them had a habit for years of taking walks in the woods. She had a large rock deep in the woods. She used the rock as a place to pray. 

I have a couple rocks where I can sit and rest, or think or pray. They are in the hedgerows, which in this region are filled with beautiful stones. 

It’s important to have quiet, private places to think and pray and retreat from noise and enjoy solitude. These things are good for our souls. I love the warm cabin of Grenfell (my Toyota Camry) in the winter or fall or the warm cabin of George the Red Jeep. I have had many sweet quiet hours with the Lord driving through the night praying or worshiping with the light from the instrument panels on my face. 

My heart remembers and never will forget driving to my speaking engagements in George, the Red Jeep or Grenfell, or driving away with the faces of the people in my memory. 

Ken Pierpont

Bittersweet Farm

Summit Township, Michigan

November 5, 2018

How Merciful is He? (Sermon) Audio

Series: The Jonah Story

Title: How Merciful is He?

Text: Jonah 3

Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan

Lead Pastor Ken Pierpont

October 28, 2018 AM

https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-10-28-2.mp3

How Merciful Is He? (Sermon) Video

Series: The Jonah Story

Title: How Merciful is He

Text: Jonah 3

Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan

Lead Pastor Ken Pierpont

October 28, 2018 AM

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 16) October’s End

The Walnut trees (and there are many of them) are bare of leaves. The Maples on Bittersweet Farm and in the forest across the road are bright yellow in the rain this weekend. Within a week we will turn from October to November and they will be bare too. It’s always hard for me to see October come to an end, but I will never let the frost or thought of snow and cold dim the glory of autumn in my soul. Never. 

This week I want to share a story I wrote in 2001. This story was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul. So, you see, I’m kinda’ famous. Did you know that. 

Friday I drove out and sat at the bedside of a dying saint. Her husband passed in July. She’s gone to be with he and their Lord now. She lived almost to the end of fall and went to the land where we’ll never grow old. He mind is clear now. Her husband built her a big picture window right over the sink where she could look out over their farm. They were married over 70 years and they were still in love when he passed. I wonder what it looks like now in the land made by the One who created Octobers. 

I hope you are will, you enjoyed a beautiful October and your heart is ready for Thanksgiving. Here’s my story for this week. It is special. 

Harvest Moon

He was a farmer, a factory laborer, and a country pastor. He worked hard and lived simply and loved his family. He could be a good neighbor, too. He farmed a small hill-farm and raised beef and some grain for feed. In the summer his grandchildren would come and they would bail hay, fish the pond and eat sweet corn and garden-ripe tomatoes.

When harvest-time came he would piece together his old one-row corn picker and oil it up for the season. It had seen many seasons. He pulled it behind a little Ford 9-N and hooked a wagon on the back. It was a noisy contraption unlike these huge modern green monsters you see shaving the grain off wide, flat fields in wide gulps these days.

His whole operation was like that. Basic. His life was like that, too. He worked hard, helped others and you could count on him keep his promises. That’s what made it so hard one autumn when time and responsibilities and difficult circumstances closed in on him.

He needed to harvest a few acres of his own corn. He also promised to harvest a few ribbons of corn that wound around the hills on a friend’s farm, too. Problems came. First equipment trouble. Usually he was able to fabricate something or rig the equipment so the job could be done but after he had harvested his own corn his little corn picker coughed, sputtered and quit. It was out of use until a special part came from distant lands and that would be too late to help this year. Then the equipment problem was followed by a time problem. The factory had orders to fill and began to require overtime. He was leaving the farm before light and arriving home after dark.

He sat at the kitchen table and nursed a cup of awful coffee while he wondered aloud what to do. His wife said that there was simply nothing he could do. He would have to tell his friend that he couldn’t help with his corn. He thought long and the idea didn’t set well with him. His friend was depending on him. “If you don’t have the equipment, you just can’t do it,” his wife said. “Well, I could do it the way we used to do it. I could harvest it by hand.” “You don’t have time to do that with the overtime, besides it would be dark.”

He consulted the Farmer’s Almanac. Late in October there would be another full moon. It is called the harvest moon because it gives farmers more light and increases their harvest time. If the Lord gives us clear weather, I think I can do it.

And he did. The weather was cold and clear and the moon was brilliant. After work he made his way to the field and his wife met him in the truck with dinner and a thermos of more of the awful, strong, black coffee. Then he worked through the night to keep his word.

Late one autumn in 1958 he had a grandson. He and his wife got in their car and drove across the state to see him. They would share the same name. Kenneth Pierpont.

I know this story well, because the farmer was my grandfather. I’m proud to have the same name as he did. I’ve spent hours on the fender of the tractor with my grandpa. I’ve even suffered through some of that same awful coffee. But I had never heard about this incident until I was having a talk with my grandmother one day about values she and grandpa believed very deeply in. Hard work, and keeping your promises.

My grandpa did work hard and keep his promises. He also loved his family. I am proud to have his name. Sometimes, when I am tempted to cut corners or defer responsibilities, I think of my grandfather out under the harvest moon bending low and swinging his sharp corn-knife in a wide arch. I can hear the thump of ears of corn hitting the floor of the wagon and the music of geese honking their way across the cold October sky against the brilliance of the harvest moon.

In the dark early hours of the morning, when his work was done He crawled his tired body up in to the seat of the old tractor and made his way home. Behind him in the pale moonlight, I can see row after row of corn shocks standing at attention in respect for a man who keeps his word.

It’s Fall

A harvest moon shines overhead

And soon we’ll make our way to bed.

The corner of the quilts turned back,

We’ve finished up our evening snack.

The fire fills the room with light,

And warms the chill October night,

Throws shadows on the corner nooks,

Illuminates my treasured books.

The fragrant smell of smoldering leaves

A hundred memories retrieves,

Like incense wafts into our hall

And subtlety declares-“It’s fall.”

Winter’s Coming Summer’s Past

Football games and burning leaves

Frosty pumpkins, turning trees,

Children skipping off to school.

Days are getting crispy cool,

Apples ready for the mill

Leaves raked up into a hill,

A flock of geese flying south,

The taste of cider in my mouth,

Lead me safely to forecast

Winter’s coming -Summer’s past.

-September 1985

Michigan Autumn

Crisp autumn breeze

A swirling spray of colors

tumbling on the ground.

Rich pumpkin pie;

Excited, laughing children

A warm, inviting sound.

A v-shaped flock

of passing geese

Intently wing toward warmer climes

A village chapel white

With colored windows

Peals out sacred chimes.

In gridiron conflict

Armored, numbered soldiers

Make the coeds glad.

A little boy

Fair-haired, a missing tooth

Eats apples with his dad.

-September 8, 1983

Ken Pierpont

Bittersweet Farm

Summit Township, Michigan

October 29, 2018

Home Before Dark

The other evening I was clearing away a few leaves and Lois was puttering around the outside of the house. It was a lingering fall evening–the kind that gives you the sense that they are short and few and will soon be gone. She lit some candles on the porch and in the house. My heart was glad for her. We are different in many ways, but the longer we live together (almost 40 now) the more I see that the things we agree on are powerful.

-We both deeply love Jesus and want to build our lives on the truth of the Bible.

-We both a devoted to our children and grandchildren–that they would know and love the Lord.

-We love our home, Bittersweet Farm… and know it was a special gift of God to us.

-We are deeply thankful for Bethel Church and know it, too was a special grace from God to us.

-We are both child-like, intuitive, creative types…

-We don’t worry–we are not overly “responsible” That keeps us young and light on our feet.

But there are a couple things more that we agree on that are as small as they are sweet.

We like to light small lights to drive out the darkness and create and atmosphere. That is one reason we like to say; “On Bittersweet Farm every day is a beautiful day and the little light in the kitchen is always on.” We believe in the little light in the kitchen…

And another is like unto it… We don’t have to, but we like to get home before dark. We are often out late, of course because of the ministry or visiting family… but on an evening when we go out for a drive or for coffee, or when we go to Horton for ice cream… we like to leave and time our trip so we pull back into Bittersweet farm before dark…. In the dusk the little light burning within welcome us home… Going around lighting up dark places and seeing people home before dark… that is what we are about.

And may all the children be home before dark.

Ken Pierpont

Bittersweet Farm

Summit Township, Michigan

October 26, 2018