A few years ago we moved and I need to get rid of some things. There was one thing I could never throw away because it was too meaningful to me. It was my favorite Adirondack chair. A few who knew me well knew it was a cherished possession but there would really be no place for it in our new home. I held onto it until the last minute not sure what to do.

When the day of the move came a dear friend, John Webster came over to help us load the truck. The last item remaining was my Adirondack chair. I stood and looked at it and memories flooded into my mind. The chair has character and a history. It is a very photogenic chair. John and his wife Beth borrowed the chair from time to time as a prop for family photos. Beth’s photos are some of the best I have ever seen. She is the one who took the photo of our family that we have posted on our web site.

John and I stood in the drive for a while.

I hated to say goodbye. John and his family were dear, dear friends. When we moved to the area six years earlier, his daughters were a specific answer to prayer as companions for our girls. They were inseparable friends. The Websters began to attend our church.

John and I spoke for a few minutes not wanting to say good bye. I tried to express my admiration and love to him and then I said, “John, we would like you to have this chair.”

“How much do you want for the chair?”

“John, I would never sell it. Why don’t you just let me give it to you?”

“Oh no, Pastor, I couldn’t take your chair,” he said. “I know what that chair means to you.”

“That’s why I want you to have it,” I said.

He said, “Let me take care of it for you until you need it again.”

But I insisted that he receive it as a gift and as an expression of my love and appreciation for he and his beautiful family. When I finally persuaded him to receive the chair as a gift, he thanked me warmly and his eyes were cloudy with tears. So were mine. He considered it an honor to receive the chair that meant so much to me. The gracious way he received my gift was more than payment enough for the chair.

Once John’s daughters came for a visit. They brought pictures. The old Adirondack chair was in them. Shuffling through the pictures I noticed that John repaired the chair and gave it a fresh coat of paint. So the chair has gone to a good home, to people who appreciate what a fine chair it is and know a little about it’s history.

My heart was warm when I thought of how gracefully, even reverently John received the gift I gave him a year ago. When you think of it giving is a grace, but being a good receiver is a grace, too. The grace of receiving.

Many, many people will never receive good gifts from the Lord Jesus, even the gift of salvation, because they don’t have the quality my friend John has, the ability to humbly receive a gift as a gesture of love from someone else. John was a good receiver because he acknowledged the value of the gift and was willing to receive it without insisting on paying for it. God gave his only Son for our sin. Imagine the foolishness and pride of thinking we could ever somehow adequately compensate God for the life of his son. A person with a right understanding of the value of the gift simply receives the gift with a reverent heart, humble thanks and tear-filled eyes.

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan
November 7, 2008

http://www.kenpierpont.com/
http://www.evangelbaptist.com//

Are there things about you that you know need to change? The qualities that you long for in your own life are displayed most beautifully in Christ. The best way to have them in your life is to admire them in Him. That is called worship. During the month of November every message will explore one quality of Christ’s matchless character. Be thrilled and changed by the glory of Christ.

The Series is called: How to Change: The Power of the Glory of Christ.

Pastor Ken Pierpont

One day a Michigan State Policeman pulled over a bus on the way to Camp Barakel. The officer got on the bus and asked permission to speak to the children. He was a big man who towered over the campers. Every eye was on him and the children were silent as he spoke.

“Children, you are going to a camp where my life was changed. I want you to listen to everything they say and do what they tell you to do. If you do your life will be changed, too.”

Not long after that he began to give his testimony at the camp. Today he speaks there regularly. His name is Tom Harmon. He is an itinerant preacher who has preached all over Michigan and in many other places. We are delighted to have him here at Evangel Sunday through Wednesday. Invite others. You will be glad you did. Let’s see what God will do.

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan
October 31, 2008
www.kenpierpont.com
www.evangelbaptist.com

It was cold last night—good sleeping weather we like to say—if you have a cozy bed piled with quilts. Last night I got in bed with a warm feeling of security. I slept between flannel sheets. Before I went to bed I prayed to Jesus, the King of angels, that He would watch over our home and our dreams. The house was quiet. I tumbled some scripture over in my mind while I went to sleep. I slept deeply.

Savanna did not. She was drinking with her boyfriend. He was drinking more. Things turned ugly. She was scared. She called the police. They came but did not make an arrest. She packed what she could in a bag and walked away from the house and started south. It was cold. She didn’t have warm clothes. Her bag was heavy. Eventually she ran out of sidewalk. Her thin shoes were saturated with water in the high, wet grass. She was cold and afraid. Her shoulders hurt. She thought of leaving her bag because it was too heavy to carry, but it was all she had. She finally found what shelter she could and tried to sleep.

This morning I was in a hurry. I needed to get some things from the church. I only had a minute. When I arrived at the church and bounded up the steps Savanna was there. She had spent a cold, sad, scary night praying and trying to sleep on the ground under the front entrance to our church.

The pastors and church staff went to work to get her warm and find her a little something to eat. We each took turns talking to her about the things of the Lord and her need for Jesus. Joan made some calls. The Millers drove her to meet a friend who had left from Tennessee and drove through the night to get her. We may never see her again.

Her young life has been filled with incredible hurts. Her mind is confused about what is true. She’s been abused by her family, confused by the exposure she has had to the religious people she has known. Today she is warm and safe and at least six different Christians have teamed up to help her see who Jesus really is. You are a part of that team.

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan
October 24, 2008
www.kenpierpont.com
www.evangelbaptist.com

A few years ago I wrote this little piece. Hope you like it:

Fall has lingered on this year as long as I have ever seen it do, like an old friend who hates to leave. We hate to see him go and keep coaxing him to stay one more night. There was still brilliant color in many trees on my birthday the third of November and I never remember seeing that before. I just considered it a personal birthday present from the Lord. Reluctantly we will have to say goodbye to fall this week and watch him go out of sight around the bend of the road. At night if you listen closely you can hear winter coming on his heels.

Saturday I made my way across Michigan on a blustery late autumn day. I was on the way to tell stories of God’s goodness at a church in the palm of the mitten. The boys rode with me. In Chesaning we stopped and took a stroll. We stood on an old iron railroad bridge and watched leaves carried North on the Shiawassee River toward Saginaw Bay and Like Huron. There the river tumbles over a waterfall.

All day long the wind blew the trees bald. The sky was gray in an inviting way. In villages and along the highway, smoldering fires took be back to my boyhood when people burned leaves on the street in Grand Rapids. Leaves blew down across the road. We listened to football scores on the radio some but mostly talked.

The little white church where I was to tell was the heart of the village of Entrican. When we arrived we got acquainted with Pastor Gene Kooey and his family and the good people there. When it was time to eat I waited while everyone shuffled down into the basement. At the foot of the stairs were two eight-foot tables filled with food. Toward the end of the tables I spotted the dish I was looking for. Scalloped corn. I tried not to be too eager hoping there would still be some left when I got there. I scooped up a nice helping stopped at the dessert table to secure a piece of pumpkin pie and settled in at my table.

I love scalloped corn. You can’t buy scalloped corn at a restaurant. The only way to get scalloped corn is in a church basement or fellowship hall. There are a few women in every church that still know how to make scalloped corn. They are a dying generation like World War II veterans. When they are gone it will be a day to morn in America. When I’m asked to tell stories in church basements I always go if I can.

Without being too noticeable I get down and look for scalloped corn and deviled eggs. I like to consider myself sort of a one-man scalloped corn preservation society. And people wonder why I look so happy all the time. If I could live on scalloped corn, deviled eggs, Jello with carrots and bad coffee, I could make a career of telling stories in country churches.

By the end of the evening we had laughed and cried together. I like to think I have some new friends. I drove away with my heart and my stomach full. Sometimes on autumn nights like this I get to musing about the goodness of God. He is good, even when life is bad. He gives us good things to eat and fills our lives with good things.

The whole earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. (Psalm 33:5)
The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10)
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)
The goodness of the Lord leads to repentance according to Paul. (Romans 2)
Jeremiah said; “…your sins have withheld good things from you…” (5:25)
The devout pour fourth the memory of God’s great goodness… (Psalm 145:7)

I have a suggestion for cool autumn evenings by the fire. Get your Bible, brew some tea and spend a few minutes in meditation on Psalm 145, then maybe call around for a scalloped corn recipe. Try it out. If it’s good e-mail it to me. (The recipe, that is).

Pastor Ken Pierpont—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan

October 10, 2008
www.kenpierpont.com
www.evangelbaptist.com

My cousin Di has Facebook now. When we were kids we saw each other regularly. We have our own families now and our own lives so we only see each other when someone dies, which is very sad. It was good to connect on Facebook. I scrolled through her pictures. We look a lot alike. We could pass for brother and sister. I read her interests. One of them made me smile. She has always been a bright girl, quick-witted and verbal. Even as a child she would commonly read an entire book in one day. She is a neo-natal nurse practitioner so she is a competent professional, but she still has a very simple, common interest that she inherited from our grandparents like our sharp, pointed noses… she likes growing tomatoes.

Growing tomatoes has always been a big deal in our family. My grandparents survived the Great Depression and they were devoted gardeners. They grew bell peppers that grandpa always called “mangoes.” They grew wagon-loads of seet corn. They grew wonderful green beans and cucumbers… (They always called them pickles, even though I don’t remember them pickling many of them). But the memory I cherish most is the memory of garden-ripe tomatoes. They were just plain champion tomato growers. The kitchen window was always lined with big, juicy, beautiful, red tomatoes.

Grandpa would grab a salt shaker and sit down for lunch and eat tomatoes like apples. Our part of Ohio was perfect for perfect tomatoes. They were so common and abundant when I was growing up that I had no idea how rare and wonderful they were at the time. I long for real tomatoes to come into season.

If you bite into something that looks like a tomato and juice doesn’t run down your arm, it’s probably synthetic. It’s not a real tomato. Real tomatoes are grown by real people in real places with real dirt and real water and real sunshine and real care and they are real good—real, real good. There really is no substitute for real tomatoes.

Zach, a man in our church, has an impressive truck-patch garden on a few acres behind his home. He and his family are very diligent people. Our son Daniel has worked for them this summer. One of the wonderful fringe benefits of his job and been occasional produce from Zach’s farm. This week he came home with a beautiful basket of real, red, ripe, perfect tomatoes. Saturday we had bacon, lettuce and TOMATO sandwiches.

When I pull a burger off the grill on a warm summer evening I don’t want to ruin it with a slice of insincere tomato-like product. I want a real, honest-to-goodness slice of red, ripe, juicy ‘tomatoness’ on that thing.

Have you noticed that there are “Christians” and then there are Christians. Sometimes you meet professing Christians who have that same “real tomato” quality of sincerity about them. You immediately get the feeling that you are with an honest, genuine, open follower of Jesus Christ. They look you in the eye. Their smile is real. Their words are sincere. They do what they say. Their honest. I hope people find me to be a “real-tomato” kind of Christian. The real thing, not some “hot-house variety” type of Chrisitan. I don’t want to be slick and professional and distant with people. I don’t want to be plastic and produced. I don’t want to be “canned” and full of hollow talk and clichés. I want to be the real dirt, real sun, real rain, home-grown, down-to-earth and rooted in Christ kind of Christian that only the Spirit of God can produce over time.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
September 22, 2008

Last night I noticed three young teens horsing around with skateboards over in Riverview. They were wearing the uniform of rebellion. They were looking like they were eager to get involved in something questionable. They looked like trouble. They looked like they were impressing each other with profanities. They looked like they were disrespectful types. They looked like the kind of kids that destroy public property. They were the kind of kids you don’t really want hanging around your business discouraging the paying customers. They stared at us as if to invite conflict. They looked at us. We looked back at them.

I looked a little longer. I looked a little deeper. I looked at their eyes. When I did they looked like the kind of kids that might have to deal with hurts at home. They looked like the kind of kids that were used to being hurt at school. I kept looking at them and when I did, they looked like the kind of boys I would love to speak to around the fire at Camp Barakel. I imagined them paddling across a Canadian lake with a group from Evangel. They looked like the kind of boys that I would like the see in our church parking lot getting on a bus for Lake Ann. I imagined them in clusters talking in the foyer at church. I imagined them playing pool in our church youth room. I imagined lowering them into the baptismal pool on a Sunday night in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One of those boys could take my job some day. And that would be a good thing.

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan
September 19, 2008
www.kenpierpont.com

My grandfather used to love to tell a joke about a man who advertized a mule for sale. He said he was an obedient mule. He claimed all you had to do was whisper in his ear and he would do what he was told. The man who bought him soon discovered that the mule was stubborn and willful and unwilling to do anything. The new owner called him and said; “You said this mule was obedient. You said all I have to do is whisper in his ear. He won’t do a thing I say.”

The seller said, “I’ll be right over and we’ll see what’s wrong.”

When the seller arrived he walked over to the mule, picked up a board, and hit him over the head with it, then he whispered in his ear and the mule instantly obeyed.

He turned to the buyer and said, “I forgot to tell you that you have to get his attention first.”

Has God ever had to get your attention? He is merciful and kind and will usually warn you in multiple ways, sometimes quiet and even subtle ways, before he gets out the board. That’s how good He is. You can save yourself a headache to say the least if you listen and obey right away.

God often uses the ministry of the church, Christian friends, songs during worship, and preaching to instruct and to gently warn us. –Another good reason to come to worship every week with an open heart.

Psalms 32:8-9  I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding…

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study—Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor, Michigan
September 12, 2008
www.kenpierpont.com

It's a glorious morning. Lois and I have been married 29 years today. We're planning a day together. Yesterday I started our new series; Psalms for the Seasons of Life. Tom Graef and his family dropped in for the evening service. He is one of our missionaries and our former Senior Pastor's son. Tom told a beautiful story of God's protection on a dangerous mountain road. We celebrated communion together. It was a sweet Lord's Day. I love Evangel and the people of Evangel.

Pastor Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Things are changing fast. I am sailing away at a clip from my youth into uncharted waters they call “mid-life.” I am finding it bittersweet. I used to have so many plans. I still do. But now along with the plans I have memories like treasured photos of children who have grown up or places that have grown sacred.

One memory that will never fade from my mind took place on Labor Day our last year all together under one roof as a family. The next summer our first born son Kyle would leave for a year of missionary service and then it would be off to college a continent away.

We had spent the day together in the yard working in the herb garden, grilling out, reading, talking, and sipping lemonade. We played a little touch football, Mom standing guard with a water hose to make sure no one trespassed into her flower beds. Toward evening we all agreed to drive to Grand Haven and watch the sun set on Lake Michigan.

In a resort town like Grand Haven the whole atmosphere changes after Labor Day. When we arrived it was cool and fall-like. The sun was falling steadily into the lake. We strode quickly trying to reach the lighthouse before the sun disappeared. As we walked the sun touched the horizon and then steadily sank from sight. Walking along more than once I heard someone say, “That was over so fast.” Everyone had gathered and waited to see the last sunset of summer and they were talking about how quickly the sun had set. All I could think about walking out toward the sunset with my precious first-born son was about how quickly the sunset on summer had come.

The whole family gathered at the foot of the lighthouse on the end of the pier and watched the sky turn golden-orange. A few boats growled into the harbor for the evening. A ship sat out on the horizon moving imperceptibly slow going who-knows-where. Gentle waves lapped the rocks. Occasionally a bigger wave spouted up in spray and mist. The wind swept strong over the point and we all stood close to keep each other warm. There was a sweetness in the air. My heart grew tender and alive to the world around me.

My mind went back through the years with my son. They passed swift as a summer- short as a sunset. We went to a few ball games together. We camped out together a few times. Together we gazed into a few campfires. Together we floated a few rivers. We went fishing a few times. We washed the car together a few times. I taught him to tie a tie, shake hands, and drink his coffee black. I taught him the books of the Bible. I taught him to ride a bike and a few days later I taught him to drive. Together we laughed and cried. We loved a couple of dogs together, together we buried them, and together we hurt. Together we tried to understand the mysteries of life and love. A few times we walked together under a full moon in awe at the wonder of God’s world. Together we sang and prayed and worshipped God. And soon, for the first time, we would go on– but not together. The reality of it settled in on me that night on the pier.

As the purple of night pushed in on the pale blue and orange twilight we turned and made our way back. Kyle was holding his little sister Hope. She was giggling over his shoulder at her mother when suddenly she said “Momma” for the first time. Lois was delighted and her eyes glowed. Hope looked back with the same lively brown eyes. One child ready to go make his way in the world was carrying another just learning to talk.

When we reached the boardwalk we all turned and saw the lighthouse and pier lights blinking red against the dusk. A string of white harbor lights lined the catwalk. The afterglow of the sun cast the lighthouse and the pier light in a sharp black silhouette. Stars appeared in the growing darkness overhead. Lovers held one another or walked hand-in-hand. Fishermen packed up their gear and sauntered toward shore. Children climbed on the rocks. Everyone made toward shore along the lighted walkway.

In an hour we had watched the sun set on summer and turned toward autumn with a life-long memory in our hearts. I felt the pain that always comes with love and my soul whispered; “Breathe deep, walk slow, hold tight to those you love, the sun is setting and it will be over so fast.”

Whenever I think back on that evening I hear the words again and again, “That was over so fast.”

 (I wrote this a few years ago around Labor Day. A version of this story is the final chapter in my book; Sunset on Summer. I thought you would enjoy it this weekend).