My Little Brother December 28, 2005
I stumbled across this little piece on my hard-drive today looking for something else. It interested me. Maybe it will interest you, too. About a year ago I preached in the church where my little brother is the pastor. Here is how I introduced the message:
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Pierpont Family December 26, 2005
This fall we enjoyed a Lord’s Day afternoon together taking pictures at a covered bridge near Lowell, Michigan. The young lady in front of Kyle is his sweet, new wife, Elizabeth. We all love her so much.
New Year Idea December 25, 2005
I have a pastor friend who is hurting. After years of pastoring the same church he was betrayed by a near associate and the church he spent his entire ministry building split leaving him devastated. Within a few months he had a major physical set-back. I spoke with him on Christmas Eve. He is a wounded man.
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Brad’s Christmas Prayer
I have a tradition. I write a Christmas story for my family every year. I read it on Christmas Eve or on Christmas night. Tonight (Christmas 2005) after everything else was over we all sat down and I read the story for this year.
After the story we had pumpkin pie. It was a beautiful day. I have included the story here, Brad’s Christmas Prayer. I hope you like it. The next post is last year’s story, Highland Park
Brad’s Christmas Prayer
Brad is alone on Christmas Eve for the first time in years. He was on the road. In a few hours, depending on weather, he would be home but when he got there he would still be alone.
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Highland Park
Ted loved his new company car with leather upholstery a high-end music package and the special Bose speaker system, but he hated the idea of spending another day driving in it hours north into the West Michigan sales district. The Western Michigan rep was down with appendicitis. A key account had to have attention and they wouldn’t wait until the first of the year.
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Giving: A Rare and Wonderful Gift December 18, 2005
There is such joy in giving. I had just a taste of it when I was young.
When I was about fourteen years old I made fifteen dollars a week delivering the Dayton Journal Herald Monday through Saturday morning. In my neighborhood was a small store with bikes and toys and hardware called Western Auto. I was browsing in the store one day about a month before Christmas and my eyes fell on something I had always wanted myself when I was younger. It was an electric football game. This was long before realistic and reliable computer games were introduced. But the television commercials made those electric football sets look irresistible. They had little plastic men on tiny plastic feet the moved when the board vibrated.
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A Christmas Gift From Heaven
Tomorrow is Hannah’s birthday. Here is a poem I wrote when see was born:
Our snow-enshrouded home was nestled
neath God’s providential care
Anticipating the arrival
of a special package there.
Then as if dispatched from heaven
borne on angel-wings
A parcel came to rest among
our festive fashionings
What a priceless little bundle
of life and dreams and love
Came into our home last Christmas
like a present from above.
Yuletide night my eyes were misty
if I must tell the truth
For the Christmas gift from heaven
of our precious Hannah Ruth.
Kenneth L. Pierpont
December 1989
Crisis Next Door December 13, 2005
Chuk came back from the bank next door yesterday and reported that one of the tellers is not in the Christmas spirit this year. “That’s sad,” I said. “We can’t have that.”
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Good Things? December 5, 2005
When I got out of bed this morning I sensed the Lord put a question in my heart. “Is your heart a treasure of good things?” Jesus said; “How can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure in his heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things…” (Matthew 12:34-35)
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Larry Whiteford
I was raised in a family of modest means, but I have very happy memories of every single Christmas growing up. Mom and Dad made things nice. There were always decorations, treats, gifts, and wherever my mom is there is music.
The music in our home was Christ-exalting music year ’round with no exceptions, but at Christmas time the music was especially beautiful and sacred. Mom played LP albums by Gloria Roe, Helen Barth, and Larry Whiteford all day long until I drifted into dreamy sleep.
We would usually be in South Bend on Christmas. Christmas night Pastor Whiteford would have a Christmas Concert at Fulkerson Park Baptist Church in nearby Niles, Michigan. Niles was always in the path of beautiful lake effect snow so it was appropriately Christmas-like for the concert. The red-brick colonial church was always full on Christmas night for those concerts. Pastor Whiteford is an Irish Tenor with a powerful voice.
When I was a little boy lying in bed on December nights listening to him sing, I didn’t have any way of knowing that one day we would work together. Pastor Whiteford would later be my good friend and boss. I would be a Youth Pastor at Fulkerson. He was a delight to work with. He was very encouraging, patient and affirming. He would eventually ask me to pastor the church that he started. At the time I didn’t know that one day he would even give me his personal library including many well-marked books that had belonged to his mother.
This morning thinking back on memories of Christmas in my childhood I wished that I had a recording of Pastor Whiteford’s Christmas album. I was happy to find a site dedicated to his music ministry. Including some audio samples that brought back warm memroites.
When I think of Pastor Whiteford I find myself asking God to bless him and each member of his family for his kindness to me and I want to be the kind of leader he was. When I think back on past Christmases I find myself praying that I can bring the joy and mystery to my children that I enjoyed as a child. When I remember those December nights snug in my bed listening to carols I renew my commitment to expose my children to the most beautiful Christmas music I can find. You don’t have to be rich to do that.
Ken Pierpont
December 5, 2005
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
