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Hopewell Baptist Church March 29, 2006

Western Knox County is a few miles north of my heartland. The countryside there is indistinguishable from the land where my dad, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather lived.

But west of Mount Vernon, the county seat, the countryside rolls gently toward the flatness of western Ohio. There, just off St. Route 229 about a fifty yards down Tucker Road, is a white frame hall shaded by a cluster of Maples. The building is well over a hundred years old. The sign in the gable end reads “Liberty Grange.”

Another mile down the road is the Mark Boucher home. The Bouchers were one of the founding families of a church we started there. He passed the Liberty Grange every day and the building came to mind after the men met and agreed not to borrow money to build a church building.

One night I had a dream of a simple preaching hall where we could meet with our families and preach and worship together. When I heard about the building I drove out on a clear blue autumn afternoon to pray. The little hall looked exactly like the one in my dream.

Within a few weeks we had worked out an agreement with the leaders of the Grange to lease the building for a dollar a year. We agreed to add a wheelchair ramp, paint the building, repair the roof, add indoor restrooms, build a small office and a nursery room, and expand the parking area. The Grange would continue its meetings and we would have the freedom to use the hall any other time. Once a year the church and the Grange would meet together.

In late October the men arrived in pickups with power-tools and tool belts. During the remodeling of the building one of the men leaned a ladder against the back wall and climbed up into the attic to examine the insulation and roof. When he shined his flashlight into the dark attic he could see that the inside of the sign in the gable end of the building had faded writing on it. He removed it and brought it down for us all to see. It was clearly lettered, “Hopewell Baptist Church.”

Mark Boucher’s wife remembered her grandmother telling her that as a young girl she had attended church there. It was there she had come to believe in Christ. The pastor had resigned under a cloud of scandal and the little Baptist church closed. It would be exactly seventy years to the month until another Baptist group sent prayer heavenward from the little building again. It would be seven decades until another assembly of believers would send hymns wafting out the windows over the waving corn again.

It was a rare Sunday when we had fewer than 100 or more than 135 people gathered there for worship. Almost every Sunday the little building was full of young families. Lives were changed there. Much good was done. It was a humble place but it was real Christian ministry. In all God gave our family ten years of service in quiet Knox County.

The night we found the sign I drove west, across the country toward home in my little brown station wagon. The boys were quiet. All along I had thought the church was just my idea, a private dream of my own I shared with a few others. But it was in the heart of God that after seventy years he would bring a group of people back to worship in the little hall again.

Ken Pierpont
March 28, 2006
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan

Third Paneran Epistle March 23, 2006

I am speaking in Indianapolis and I have been borrowing the wireless from Panera. Since I am away from everyone in my family except Holly, I have been writing little “Epistles from Panera” to my family every day. Here is part of todays epistle:

Stories

Tonight I am speaking on “How to Tell Unforgettable Stories.” I had a story in mind to open with, but I can’t remember it. I love the idea of taking back the sacred art of storytelling from the liberals and post-moderns. The post-moderns and emergents like to talk about narrative and story, but they reject or distort the great over-arching story upon which our lives and eternities depend, the metanarrative. I’m on the soapbox for the using narratives within the context of meta-narrative. In other words I think sound, orthodox, evangelical communicators should tell stories without rejecting the clear propositions of Scripture. Jesus did it and I think he intended for us to do it too. He was the master storyteller and the very Word himself the origin and end of all theology. He is my model. I believe we can be faithful Bible preachers and teachers and use stories and it is only legitimate to do so if we are always telling THE STORY.

On Young Dads and the Queen of the Sciences

A couple of guys in front of me are reading theology I didn’t immediately recognize. I “googled” it. Looked interesting. One of the guys said he can do theology with light jazz in the background but not with three little boys running around. He seemed like a nice guy and he is diggin’ into it like I approach the ham loaf special at the Amish diner. Inside I feel happy for those three little boys whose Dad is pursuing the Queen of the Sciences. I, too am a son of a man who was doing theology the night I was born… church history to be precise and I commend the practice to all good fathers for the good of all young boys.

Speaking Tip

Robert Greenlaw spoke today and will carry most of the load tomorrow as well. He is one sharp guy, an absolute poster-child for IBLP. Mr. Gothard should be proud of guys like this. He, too is communicating on communication. Here was a nugget of wisdom from Mr. Greenlaw that had me scrambling for my pen: “As a general rule, when you use yourself as an illustration, share your failures. When you use someone else as an illustration, share their successes.” As you can see, I’m an old dog but I’m still working on some new tricks.

A Father-Daughter Adventure II March 22, 2006

A few weeks ago I told you the story of Richard and Joanna Barb’s cross-country, father-daughter adventure to acquire a canary-yellow 1972 Volkswagen Squareback. I didn’t tell you the whole story because Joanna didn’t know it yet and I didn’t want to ruin her surprise. When her dad was injured and they were not able to drive her new car back to California, Joanna was not upset about not having a car. Her emphasis was serving the Lord. She went to Mexico and helped build a widow’s house. She did children’s work. She didn’t selfishly pressure her Dad to get her a car.

Until today (Tuesday) she was on a missionary trip to Romania. I had not communicated with the family since they left Flint, but I had heard that the car was not running yet. For some reason a few weeks ago I remembered the story again. When I called Richard told the story of how they had just gotten the car back on the road. Today, when Joanna returns home to California, her car is waiting for her. The very hour she left town to fly to Romania her brother David, contributing his own money, and her father Richard began to work to find a rebuilt engine and the other parts needed to get the car running for her.

Richard is convinced that the Lord provided the engine and other parts needed to get Joanna’s little yellow VW on the road. He believes that God cares deeply about helping fathers express their love to their daughters. I agree with him. If you have a son or a daughter what do you have to do right now that is more important than showing them your love? In the years to come what memories of your love will they cherish?

Ken Pierpont
March 21, 2006
South Campus Indianapolis, Indiana

Vietnam March 13, 2006

In 1964 I was five years old. Young Americans were dying in South Vietnam. Every night on the evening news Walter Cronkite told how many were killed and wounded. If I remember right they had a little graphic in the corner of the picture with a running casualty count. For thirty minutes a night immediately after dinner Dad expected us to be silent while he watched the news.

My dad was an officer in the Army. Our car had an officer’s sticker on the front bumper. On the base the traffic officer always saluted our car. We had privileges at the officers club. I especially loved the pool but it was meager compensation for the separation, loneliness, and fear we would have to endure when he would go to Vietnam.

One afternoon my Dad drove out into the country with me to practice shooting his pistol. It was a powerful weapon. It blew big chunks out of the telephone pole. Dad said since he was a chaplain that he would not be in as much danger as other men and that he would probably never have to use the gun.

One Sunday afternoon on base they announced a movie in the basement of a hall. We were bored enough to attend. I think my parents thought it would be cartoons or a classic movie. Instead our afternoon diversion would be a documentary of Vietcong tactics and traps. It was frightening to me. One of the things they filmed was a trap where they would dig a hole in the ground and fill it with sharpened bamboo rods smeared with cow dung and pointing up. They then covered the whole with straw and grass. When a soldier would step into the hole the bamboo stakes would penetrate the combat boots and the dung would ensure infection in the wound.

One of the boys in our church, an eighteen-year-old that seemed larger than life to my five-year-old view went off to the war and never came back. All these things clouded my heart, troubled my mind and added to my fear. Every night before I went to sleep I wondered if my Dad would be safe.

It was forty-two years ago, but I remember very clearly the night my Dad left for Vietnam. We drove to the bus station in South Bend, Indiana in my grandpa Shipley’s International. On the way I sat next to my Dad. My Dad’s hair was shaved close. He was handsome in his uniform. He walked toward the bus on a platform, stopped before getting on, knelt down and hugged me to himself and kissed me good-bye. He told me, “I love you, Buddy.” I could feel his whiskers. I could smell his pleasant familiar fatherly fragrance. I had a dark fear I would never smell it again. I wondered then how long it would be until my Dad would eat a treat with me at night, tuck me into bed, and pray with me again.

Every night we watched the news while Dad was gone. I wondered if my Dad was one of the casualties. Every night I lay in my bed and I missed him. I longed for him. At Christmas time he sent gifts home, but we had to celebrate without him. Mom was pregnant with my brother Kevin at the time.

A lot of Dads didn’t make it home alive but my Dad finally did. He would live to tuck me in bed and kiss me goodnight hundreds of times more. On winter nights we played chess until bedtime. In the spring we played basketball in the drive and tossed the baseball. On summer afternoons we went to the dump and shot the BB Gun into the river for hours together. He helped me deliver newspapers on winter mornings. He coached me through life, my first job, young love, savings accounts, oil changes and college. He even mentored me into ministry. A boy has a powerful longing for his father. Without a father only God himself can make up the difference.

Pray for Fatherless America. Look around for a boy who doesn’t have a father and draw him into your life. If you are a Dad, know how important your calling is. If your Dad is alive, thank him for all he has done. Honor your father. If he was not what he should have been it will do your soul good to honor him anyway to the best of your ability.

Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
March 12, 2006

A Father-Daughter Adventure March 8, 2006

On a snowy winter morning a couple years ago I got a call from the airport. A father and daughter were there, Richard and Joanna Barb. They needed a ride because they were on an adventure. They are from California but they bought a car on e-bay from Birch Run, twenty-five minutes north of here. It was a canary-yellow ’72 VW Squareback. Isaiah Mays, one of our men here, went to pick up the car for them and it was waiting here for them.

Their plan was to do the needed maintenance on the car and drive it back to California. I like it when people let me in on their adventures. It’s like reading travel/adventure writing or a good trail journal. Ken Krause and I picked them up from the airport.

Richard was not at all intimidated by a 2000 mile road trip in January in a thirty-two year old car that is notorious for being cold, oh so cold. I know. I owned a ’72 Beetle. It was a wonderful little car except for one thing. The engine was air-cooled and the heating system didn’t work well. It was so cold in the winter I had to carry an ice scraper to keep ice from forming on the INSIDE of the windshield as I drove along. On a trip I would take along the warmest clothes I could find, bundle up in a blanket and just shiver my way across the country.

Richard ripped right into the little car removing the engine to replace the clutch. He did this with tools he brought with him on the airplane. His daughter Johanna stood by to help. At one point he needed to modify a part and was using a table saw when his adventure took a tragic turn.

His hand slipped into the saw blade. When he drew back his hand he had nearly severed his index finger. We drove him to the hospital. Through the whole ordeal Rich never lost his spirit of adventure or his patience. I think I might have turned into an ogre on the spot.

A few days later Rich and Joanna left without the car and flew back to California. Today he is well. His finger was saved and he has fully recovered. They sent a transport for the car and it is at their home in California now. It’s not on the road yet but someday they still hope Johanna will use it to explore the back roads of California.

I guess some people would consider it a great waste of time, money and effort. I don’t think so. Not at all. I think Richard is a very wise man and I admire him. I think Johanna is a very blessed girl. I don’t think they will ever forget their cross-country adventure– even though it didn’t go as planned. I don’t think Joanna will ever doubt her father’s love for her. He sacrificed to show it and when their Father-Daughter adventure took a tragic turn, he didn’t turn into an ogre over it.

Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
March 8, 2006

Richard and Joanna Barb

Men’s Conference March 2, 2006

Later this month it is my priviledge to minister at Mayfair Bible Church to the men all day May 18 and in the two morning services on the 19th. Mayfair is a thriving church in Flushing, Michigan about ten minutes from where we live.