Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Archives for June 2021

Gravity and Gladness

Filed Under: Current Thoughts, Village Parson

It must have been about 1991. I was in my garret study in the upstairs of the old farmhouse in Ohio where we lived at the end of a dead-end road. The house is pictured here. My study looked out over a field beyond the house to a valley and a river. Early in the morning I would walk afield and sometimes take my New Testament to quietly meditate on the passage I was going to be preaching in the small but vital church we were starting that met in a Grange Hall we had renovated for our church. I was still a young man, 33 years old and God was forming my soul.
 
I was reading this book, The Supremacy of God in Preaching. God changed my preaching when I read that book. When God changed my preaching, God changed my life, because preaching has been my passion since I was fourteen years old and my calling and profession since I was seventeen years old.
 
When I reached the chapter four, “Gravity and Gladness” I fell to my knees in my study to seek God. I asked Him to help me, for the rest of my life, to have this gladness and gravity in my preaching, to reveal the greatness of God to people every week. I asked him to deliver me from preaching and worship leading that were something less than that, from glibness that comes from not being mindful of the supremacy of God at all times and especially in the preaching hour.
 
People are suffocating under the weight of empty, temporary things and longing to breathe the pure mountain air of the glory of the One Eternal God and I want to point them upward to God every week in my preaching.
 
I called John Piper, the author, to thank him for his book. This was before he had reached the notoriety he now has. His wife answered the phone. I asked her to thank him for the book and tried to express how powerfully it had course-corrected my preaching and given me a vision and greater passion for what God has called me to do. She was very gracious and promised to pass the message along to John.
 
What an amazing privilege I have had to pastor and to preach for over four decades. I do not deserve this great kindness from God and from God’s people but I will never tire of it and God helping me, I will continue faithfully in it as long has I have life and breath.
“The great design . . . of a Christian preacher [is] to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men.” The keynote in the mouth of every prophet-preacher, whether in Isaiah’s day or Jesus’s day or our day, is “Your God reigns!” God is the king of the universe. He has absolute Creator rights over this world and everyone in it. But there is rebellion and mutiny on all sides, and his authority is scorned by millions. So the Lord sends preachers into the world to cry out that God reigns, that he will not suffer his glory to be scorned indefinitely, that he will vindicate his name in great and terrible wrath, but that for now a full and free amnesty is offered to all the rebel subjects who will turn from their rebellion, call on him for mercy, bow before his throne, and swear allegiance and fealty to him forever. The amnesty is signed in the blood of his Son.” Piper, John. The Supremacy of God in Preaching. (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Bittersweet Farm
June 2021

Bittersweet Farm Journal | June 23, 2021 | Camp Patmos

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm, Camp Lessons, Current Thoughts

I always tell young people God did not give us a spirit of adventure just to climb mountains, ride roller-coasters and bungee jump off bridges. He gave us a spirit of adventure to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Last week I spent the week preaching on an island! How cool is that? For over 50 years I have wanted to visit Camp Patmos on Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie just north of Marblehead, Ohio. Well last week I was an invited guest and the camp speaker. I drove Spurgeon (our trusty ministry GMC SUV) out onto the ferry and we churned out to the Island on a day so windy you could not carry on a conversation. The water were pretty choppy. The huge ferry kept rising and falling in the water and wave would splash over the deck. A gospel adventure!

When I was a boy there were three camps in Ohio that were associated with the fellowship of church we had connections with. Scioto Hills deep in southern Ohio, Skyview in Homes County, and Camp Patmos on Kelley’s Island. I was able to attend Scioto Hills one year. In 2017 I preached for a week at Skyview, now I have been to each of them. It was my privilege to preach to Sr. High campers during their first week of camp. 

I was shocked when they showed me to my room. I did not know what to expect. I was not sure how rustic the “camp” experience was going to be. My room must have been the most beautiful room on the Island. The camp occupies a place on a thumb-shaped peninsula and the heart of the camp is an old stone lodge that has been modernized and expanded into a beautiful dining hall with a large veranda facing the lake and modern guest rooms. I was given a room overlooking the lighthouse looking out over Lake Erie to the tower at Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. From my room I could see over shining water into Canadian waters and Pelee Island. 

Dave Sellers directs Camp Patmos his wife Kristi and two of the children, Cardin and Castille  are actively involved in the daily operation of the ministry. They and their staff were a great team. The experience was sweet and it looks like Lois and I will be invited to return to speak at a Family Camp there in the future. 

The campers were very receptive. Some trusted in Christ for salvation. Others had deep, meaningful gospel conversations. Some of their stories were very hard to hear. Some were promising. There were many believers among the campers and most of them carried their Bibles to chapel and took careful notes. Brandon Bennett lead the worship. He did a great job. The singing is still ringing in my heart.

 

Snake in the Washer

Late one night while I was soaking at Camp Patmos on Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie, Lois called. She was very, very upset. At first it was difficult to make out what she was saying. 

“Calm down. What is wrong.”

“We just can live here anymore. We have to sell this place.”

Me, “Sell Bittersweet Farm. Are you kidding?”

“That basement. I hate it. I went down to do a load of laundry and there was a black snake in the washing machine!”

“No. Are you sure?”

“Ken, I know a snake when I see one.”

“How big was it?” I ask.

She says, “I don’t know maybe a foot long.”

“Did it have stripes?”

“Yes, I think it did. I didn’t stay around to look at it. It was moving around. I’m petrified. Ken, I don’t know what to do. We have to move. I cannot live in a house with snakes.”

Me: “I don’t think that would be a black snake. It would be a garter snake and they really are harmless. They are not poisonous. There are no poisonous snakes in Michigan except on Bois Blank Island in the Straits of Mackinaw.”

“Ken, I don’t care what kind or color it is. I cannot live in a house with snakes.”

Lois’s grandmother were country people from the mountains of Kentucky. I know here grandma Banks killed chickens with her bare hands and I’m sure she would dispatch quickly of a snake if she encountered it in the berry patch.

“Sweetheart, what would your mamaw do if she saw a snake?”

“I’m not my mama and I don’t like snakes and I never will. We have to move. What am I going to do to get that snake out? Why would this happen when you are not home? What am I going to do?”

We thought for a while and remembered our brother-in-law, Jim Evans. Jim is an outdoorsman, a man’s man and an Eagle Scout. He lives 15 minutes away. I called Jim and talked to Lois on the phone until he got there. She left the phone on “speaker” so I could hear the events as they unfolded. 

“Is it dead. Did you kill it? I don’t want it to come back in here.”

“It’s dead. It’s not coming back in the house.” Jim assured her.

We thanked Jim. He was glad to help. He was on his way back home at about eleven at night. 

I’m home from my speaking on the island and I have had a chance to talk Lois of the ledge a bit. I am not the official laundry man. Lois says she will never enter the basement again so I guess I can turn it into a man-cave now and I will be getting a workout going up and down the stairs washing and drying and avoiding reptiles. 

Lois wanted me to call our realtor friends and have them list the house, but I finally have gotten her to agree to call a contractor and build an upstairs laundry room. 

I kept telling Lois how harmless a little garter snake is, but nothing I said convinced her. It only agitated her more and made her more determined to sell the farm. I made a note of out harmless a garter snake is on Facebook and our youngest daughter, Hope posted: “Yeah well the last time a woman thought a snake was harmless it didn’t end well for humanity…” That is what we get for giving her sound theological training, I suppose.

Leo Cumins has a ready wit and a spiritual perspective on things. He is the long-time former pastor at Bethel and current elder and my friend. He read about out little experience and wrote: “That is the trick to have a house in the country, but not to let the country get into your house.” 

It reminded me of the aphorism often quoted to me in my childhood. “We are in the world but not of the world.” The believer should be in the world but the world should not be in the believer… like the boat is in the water, but when the water should not be in the boat. The house should be in the country, but the country should not be in the house—especially in the washing machine. 

I’m home and we are searching for a good contractor to build a snake-free, first-floor laundry room.

Bittersweet Farm

June 29, 2021

Bittersweet Farm Journal | June 15, 2021 | On Hearing a Plane in the Night

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

The sun set with a beautiful afterglow out on Bittersweet tonight. It was my day off. Other than a few phone calls and working on some details for a wedding this weekend, it was a day of puttering around the place, organizing things, laundry, and other projects.

Last night I enjoyed a ride on Brutus, my bike. Hope stopped over. She and Lois and I went to Horton for ice cream and conversation. We returned at dusk and I saw my first fireflies of the year. My mint is coming up under the bluebird house. I consider it a major victory. Lois said, “Mint grows itself.” Lois has flowers and ferns growing all around the outside of the house. She putters and weeds and waters and they flourish. It’s hard to imagine a more wonderful place to be this time of year than right here on Bittersweet Farm.

Saturday we drove to Muskegon to celebrate our little foster grand-daughter’s first birthday. Dale and Hannah gathered family and friends in a neat lodge over on the Big Lake. It was a sweet time.

Camp Ministry 

Camps are reopening. I will speak first at Camp Patmos on Kelleys Island in Lake Erie, The Springs, Camp Fairwood, and a couple times at Barakel by September. It would be good to pray for God’s work in camps all over the country every night this summer. Hundreds of campers will hear the Story by the side of a lake, or under the stars, or around the fire, or in the mountains… any maybe their lives will be changed forever.

This might be a good time to get copies of my latest book Between the Fires for young people you love. In the book I share fifty of the most important things I have taught campers over the years of speaking at camps.

Often I prayed for the Lord to give me a clear, simple, powerful, unique way to express truth in a way that would capture the hearts of campers and help them understand the truth of God. I have shared many of those things in this book. You can order a copy here.

 

 

Thoughts on Hearing a Plane Pass Over in the Night

What do you think of when you see or hear a plane passing overhead in the night? I always wonder where the people on it are going and why. Where did they come from what is their story? I love my simple, mostly local life, but I do sometimes wish I was taking a train or a boat or a plane somewhere. Lately I’ve been preaching about heaven and thinking about the eons of time we will have to explore the new earth.

With unrestricted time in unhindered travel, and a sinless glorified body, where will I go? What will I do? Will I hike the Appalachian Trail? Will I travel the Blue Ridge? Will I fish mountain streams. Will I fly over the top of the earth? Will I kayak gorges of rushing water? Will I climb in the mountains? Will I sail? Will I have an island paradise of my own complete with palm trees, fresh fruit, white sand and blue water? Will we travel up to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem for times of learning and fellowship and worship with thousands upon thousands of others in the presence of the lamb?

Will we visit by the fire for unbroken hours with people I love with no hurts or misunderstandings? Will we gather and tell stories of missional enterprise? Will we rehearse the victories of the gospel, telling stories of how people came to Christ?

There are other whole hemispheres whole countries, whole continents to explore and to enjoy. What will the earth be like with forests and freshwater, but no sea? How much more will there be to explore?

Will we travel back to the places dear to us when we lived on the old broken earth and revisit fond memories of the past?Will we see what these places are like without any brokenness in them or hate or crime or injustice or prejudice or misunderstanding?

On the 27th of June I will complete my journey of preaching through the Revelation, the last book of the Bible. It’s made me think deeply and sweetly about the ultimate world for those who believe.

I have always heard it referred to as the “eternal state” but that sounds so static. It seems like such an inadequate way to refer to something so wonderful. But there is something more…

Where are those people coming from? Where are they going? Who are they going to see?

Sometimes people travel for business. Sometimes they travel to visit places, but maybe the best travel stories come from people who are traveling to be with other people. The New Heaven, New Earth, and the New Jerusalem will be places of shocking beauty, and wonder, and pleasure, and rest, and security, and enterprise, and learning, and worship, there will be something mush greater than all that. After a lifetime of believing without seeing, a lifetime of loving without seeing, we will run into the arms of Jesus and we will see his face and we will be with him and he will be with us forever.

It breaks my heart to part with a loved one not knowing when I will see them again at the airport, but I love to watch lovers or loved ones reunite. I can’t imagine the moment when our faith becomes sight and we see the face of Jesus for the first time and we part no more forever. That’s what I think about sometimes when I hear the train whistle in the night or when I see the lights of a plane passing overhead. I like it right here in my quiet peaceful loft listening to the sounds of the night,  but I am going places someday–places of unimaginable wonder. I am going to be with someone I have loved and worshipped all my life, but never seen.

Bittersweet Farm

June 15, 2021

 

Fasting and BBQ Potato Chips

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

The building used to be called The Professional Center of Agriculture. It was the building where our church met in October of 1990.

Fasting. Does it Matter? Does God Care?

A friend called. He is sailing dark waters right now.

“I’ve been fasting. It is so hard. How do I know God even cares? How do I know it matters at all.”

I told him that fasting is an interesting thing. New Testament Christians are never commanded to fast, but Jesus promised that when we secretly fast—or when we fast, not to be seen, but sincerely—that he will reward us. Jesus promised a reward for those who fast. (Matthew 6:16-18) What is the reward? Is it now? Is that reward in heaven? I think both, but often the reward is not the answer to prayer we were seeking. God is usually up to something deeper as much as he delights to answer our prayers and supply our needs and solve our problems.

We are often motivated to fast by our great need, but fasting is not mostly to move God’s hand to meet our pressing and immediate felt needs. Fasting is a very powerful way to show us how much we delight in the things that God so faithfully gives and not in him. I’m sure there is much for for those who have drunk deeply of God, but for me, that has been the most profound lesson or impression upon my heart from fasting. Maybe the greatest reward has been a humbling reminder that my appetite for food and other things God has given is so great and my appetite for God is so weak.

The BBQ Chip Lesson

One day, many years ago I determined to fast for the day. I would set aside an hour at lunch to pray and to seek the Lord. I would enjoy an hour alone with the Lord. The was the plan. When noon came I was absorbed in my work and forgot that I had decided not to eat, but instead to spend an hour with the Lord.

Across the street from my study was a little convenience store. They served hot deli sandwiches and sold really good BBQ potato chips. I got to thinking about those chips, wrapped up my current work and started to lock up the office and head to the store for lunch when I remembered my promise to God

Inwardly I groaned. Those BBQ chips were on my mind. I was craving those chips. A wave of melancholy swept over me and I walked back to my study and slumped into my chair.

Suddenly it occurred to me—the sharp irony of it. I was more excited about BBQ chips than I was about spending time with the Lord. I know that there are times to seek the Lord with feasting. I know that is it worshipful to enjoy God good gifts like food, but I believe he expected that his children would sometimes set aside other things—set aside indulgence in some of his gifts—to seek him, the Giver and the Gift.

To come face to face with our weak appetite for God is humbling and it may be “first grade” in seeking to know God. When we realize how little we delight in God and how much we delight in other things, it humbles us. When we long for the things God gives more than we long for God, it exposes a need in our souls. If fasting shows us that—there is a great reward in it.

I don’t think fasting is intended to be joyful. It is like lament. It is especially designed as an aid to humility, to contrition, to time of mourning and perhaps increased self-examination. In Matthew 9:14-15 Jesus answered a question about fasting. He told those who questioned him that when he went away his followers would fast. While he was with them they would rejoice and feast. When he went away they would mourn and fast.

We seek God through fasting, but in my experience the fasting has shown me how weak my hunger, my appetite, my thirst for God is. Later, I believe, it has helped me seek God and have deeper experiences and delights in God that may not happen during the time of humbling and fasting. These, for me have come later.

It is sweet to contemplate the simple promise of Jesus that he will reward those who fast. What greater reward than in increased hunger, longing, thirst and ultimate satisfied in Him?

Bittersweet Farm
June 11, 2021

Is Your Church Really Friendly? Are You Sure?

Filed Under: Village Parson

Mrs. Anderson was feeble and afraid to meet new people but she made herself get dressed and she drove out to our little church in Ohio years ago. People were kind to her. She felt at home. Later she was saved and baptized. Her daughter and son-in-law and grandson were eventually saved and baptized. She grew to love our church and never missed a service. She had her own little place just inside the back door. She came to every service morning and evening. She grew ill and had to be treated for cancer. We loved her and we prayed for her. When she went to be with the Lord her funeral tent was filled with her friends from the church. She told me she was afraid the first time she visited, but because she received a warm welcome in our little church she is with the Lord today, her family knows the Lord today. I’m so glad someone greeted her warmly that first time she visited our church.

Is Your Church A Welcoming Church?

I have an important question for you. Is your church a friendly church? Careful. Think a little before you answer. In most churches people are friendly with their friends, they are friendly with people they know, but is that the measure of a friendly church?

If a new person came to your church, let’s say a person who was struggling with alcohol abuse or drug addiction, or depression and anxiety, or a difficult marriage, or shame and guilt, or troubled kids, if a person came to Bethel with any of these problems it is unlikely you could tell just by looking at them. I wonder, would they find a friendly welcome or would they see people talking with other people they already know?

Follow Jesus. Help Others Follow Jesus.

Here at Bethel we have a saying; “Follow Jesus and Help Others Follow Jesus.” We are “Jesus People.” We are Christ-followers. But Jesus said something I think we need to think about. It was in his famous Sermon on the Mount:

Jesus spoke to the heart of this: “If you love those who love you what reward o you have. Do not even tax collectors do teh same. And if you free only your brothers what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47)

A Few Other Important Questions:

Why do you go to church? Do you go to get a blessing, or do you go to get and blessing and be a blessing to others? Do you go to church praying for an opportunity to serve and help others, or are you tempted to just go for what you get out of it? Do you go because you want things for your family? Jesus said he came, not to be served but to serve and to give. If we are following Him we should do the same.

A Friendly Suggestion About Friendliness.

I have a simple suggestion. Here are a couple things you can to help strengthen the culture of Bethel church in the area of warmth and friendliness.

Pray before you leave home for God to give you an opportunity to show warmth to someone you don’t already know. Agree as a family that you want to be a blessing to others every time you attend a service. Set a personal goal to pick out at least one new person a week and learn their name. Sometimes I will walk up to someone I don’t know and will say, “Hey, I’m Ken. I’m sorry but I don’t know your name….” Try this. Ask them a question or two to show kindness and warmth. You might even want to invite them to join you at Culvers or One North.

Let’s be a truly welcoming, truly friendly, loving church. Let’s go out of our way to make new-comers right at home. You never know what people are going through and how important it is to welcome them. Let’s keep working on keeping a culture of warmth and genuine love at Bethel.

It doesn’t take much. You don’t have to meet everybody, but if a number of us would meet at least a few every week, it would go a long way to making Bethel even friendlier and more welcoming than we already are. Who knows what would happen. I’m sure there would be wonderful stories to tell. …and there are many “Mrs. Andersons” out there.

Follow Ken Here