Years ago, when I was going through a season of reaction and resistance to my leadership in a church, my brother Nathan was helping with music. He was living at home and attending college. Nathan came to church one particularly difficult evening and he had a note for me from Dad. It was a simple passage of Scripture to read: Ezekiel 2:4-5. Dad quickly jotted it on the back of his business card and sent it my way.
Before I went out to preach that night I looked up the …

I try to pray daily that God will bring people across my path, or that I will find people who are open to the truth of God. If they are not I try to sow seeds of truth wherever I go but I am always praying that God will bring people into my life who are ready to listen and I am always ready to tell them the good news.
When that is your great love the people around you know it. They tend to send people your way.
On Wednesday …

This was the sign we made for the Pine Street Parsonage in Fremont, Michigan. I believe the graphic was made by my brother, Kevin, for our original web-site. Larry Barber created the sign for us. I still have it in my study where it reminds me to pray for the good folk at First Baptist Church in Fremont and remember the kindness of the people, the good had of God and the memories of Fremont we will always treasure. Hope America was born in Fremont at the Gerber Hospital.
While …

This morning I came upon this thoughtful article about young people who are raised in the church, leaving the church during their post-high school years. It’s worth your time.
Somehow I have a feeling that young people are not leaving the church because we didn’t have enough rules. They are not leaving the church because we didn’t try to schedule enough “fun.” That is all much of youth ministry has been for the last 30 years. It’s been the Christian “Party Plan.” Now thousands don’t take the church or the …

A classic from 2003
When we moved to Flint to assume the direction of the ministry here at the Character Inn we discarded or gave away many, many things. We now live in an apartment on the sixth floor in six rooms. We have a storage room in the basement. In preparation for our move we hauled away six truckloads of things at one point and gave many things to Goodwill or just threw them away.
There was one thing I could never throw away because it was too …

Lately I have been wearing a “costume” sometimes when I tell stories of my grandfather Pierpont’s farm. I’m working on publishing a collection of these stories soon. It may be an eBook. Grandpa, who died in October of 1980 would never have believed the stories of his humble farm would be told all over the country and published “electronically.”

Jess was born in a little house back in a remote “holler” in Kentucky. The nearest town was the county seat of Wolfe County–the little mountain town in Eastern Kentucky where my wife Lois was born. Jess married Lois’ grandmother. They met at the Senior Citizens Center there in Campton. It’s a small town with it’s own humble charm where there are no strangers.
One summer afternoon Lois and I drove out to visit the old newly-weds. Lois cherished her grandmother, Carlie. They puttered around the kitchen talking and …

I have to admit to some quaint ideas. I still feel an inner warmth and get a little misty-eyed when I see a picture of a family walking to church on a spring morning. In these warm fantasies the sun is always shining, birds sing, and the walk is lined with daffodils. The trees are in the tender bud of spring and church bells ring in the distance.
Dad is wearing a suit. Mom is in a beautiful Easter dress, her hair “just so”. The boys …

My Grandfather named things. He named his cows. He named his tractors. He even gave my Grandmother a nickname. She had a perfectly good name when he met her. It was a beautiful, appropriate, honorable name that fit her perfectly. Her name is Grace but grandpa always called her Tiny.
My Dad acquired the habit of naming things from him. His names have never been literary masterpieces. They are more playful and descriptive. Examples include names like “Tricky Little Copper” and “the Cardboard Bank.”
I’ve named a few things myself. (Ask me …

I was just finishing some yard work when I saw a Hispanic man drive up in a pick-up truck. A young man was with him, later I found out it was his son. I smiled and waved, he smiled a waved back. They unloaded some equipment and went to work. I finished packing my things away.
They had not been there five minutes when suddenly there was a load bang. The young began to scream over the noise of the power equipment, “Father, father! My …