Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Ken

Fishing Off a Boulder

Filed Under: Faith and Family

For some reason my mind goes back the years, I guess a quarter-century now, to a sunny afternoon in the bend of the Kokosing River flowing through field and forest of eastern Knox County, Ohio.

A long bridge passes over a stretch of the River just east of the little berg of Millwood. If you crossed that bridge that afternoon and if you weren’t distracted by hurry you would have seen a young father and two boys about 11 and 7 fishing off the great boulder in the bend of the river.

They are not catching fish but they are burning a joyful memory into their souls.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Independence Day 2018

The photo above is a photo of the boys, Kyle and Charles taken about four hears before the story written above.

The Time of Tiger Lilies

Filed Under: Bethel Church-Jackson, Bittersweet Farm, Circuit-Riding

Sunday evening I returned from camp. One of the Bethel faithful was on his death-bed so before I came home I drove to see him. He lives in the beautiful countryside northeast of the church. On the drive out to his house the road was lined with banks of Tiger Lilies blossoming, bending forward, waving in the breeze—bright orange in the golden hour as the sun angled down the sky. I took a picture that does not do it justice. (The other stunning close-up is a stock photo).

Last summer I lived in a suburb of a major city but I was blessed to travel to Kentucky Mountain Mission to speak. The drive from Michigan to Kentucky follows interstate highway, but an hour and a half from the camp I exit the interstate and travel through some of the quaint small towns and villages of the Bluegrass. Within an hour of the camp I am in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. I drive through the small city of Irvine, the county seat of Estil County which sits in a valley on the Kentucky River. I cross the bridge in George the Red Jeep and make my way along a road that follows Millers Creek and Big Sinking Creek through the valley all the way to camp.

This came to mind when I saw the explosion of Tiger Lilies, because last summer along the Big Sinking Creek thousands of Tiger Lilies brightened the way along the river. There in my Jeep, turning along the roadway following the water running over rocks I gave thanks to my God alound that He would send me on such a mission in such a beautiful place. I did not know that less than a year later I would leave and bland suburbs and live in such a place.

The Year Before

The year before I had spoken to the Kentucky Mountain Mission staff conference. They invited me to speak at camp. I returned in the summer and spoke to the teens. I was so warmly received by the young people. My friend Sam Judd was there and it was a reunion and time of rich fellowship with him. A number of the teens began to follow Christ the week I was there. There were two young ladies who trusted in Christ to be saved my first year who greeted me joyfully when I arrived for my second year of speaking. They reported a year of spiritual growth.

When I left the camp at the end of the week I followed the beautiful way along Big Sinking Creek, but the road over Miller Creek was closed. A detour routed me over a high mountain in the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was a beautiful detour and my heart was full and glad. I prayed grateful prayers driving my faithful red jeep over those mountains.

I had some business in Irvine and then I drove to Richmond to get gas. I always feel melancholy when I have to leave the mountains and join the great stream of traffic on the interstate flowing north. While I was thinking of the sweetness of a week of ministry I checked my phone and found this entry on Facebook posted by one of those girls named Brooklyn:

“So today is my spiritual birthday and I can’t explain how much has changed since then. Before I was saved it was so hard to joy and just be happy. But last year on this day ( which was a Thursday last year ) I was in chapel at Youth Haven Bible Camp listening to Ken Pierpont speak in chapel and it has truly changed my life. Ever since then I have been so happy and continuing to grow in my relationship with God. Being saved is the most important decision any person could make, it is truly life changing. Pastor Pierpont told this story about people who were just so low at life and was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and when they got saved their life got totally flipped around. Pastor Pierpont also made the reference that when you use a paddle boat it’s so hard to get it going and continue to make it move. But when you are a Christian it’s like using a sailboat, all you have to do is put up the sail and God will provide the wind.”

That is what came to my heart on Sunday evening when I saw banks of orange lilies in the ditches bending toward the road along the way. My heart was filled joy at the power of the Story of stories and the great privilege it is to tell it to young hearts.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 9) Twenty Years On

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm, Current Thoughts

Twenty Years on Shear Lake

This week I’m with our two oldest grand-buddies, Kyle Kenneth and Oliver Bruce. We are at Camp Barakel. This week I am speaking here on the shores of Shear Lake for the 20th year in a row. The partnership with the people and ministry of Camp Barakel has been one of the sweetest privileges of my life.

Just outside the speakers quarters on the East Side Camp is a towering pine tree, probably almost 30 feet high. When I first spoke here I took a picture of one of the children standing by the tree. The little child was taller than the tree. When I first came here some of the children were the ages of little Kyle and Oliver. My heart is flooded gratefulness for the goodness of our God when I think of it.

This year my brother Kevin and his family have joined the year-round full-time staff of the camp. Kevin led the chapels and his wife Carolyn played the piano.

Every night when the chapel fills with campers and their songs fill the air my heart is thrilled and I am reminded of what mom and dad would say over and over again when we were growing up: “We just want you to serve the Lord.”

They were right. There is such joy, meaning, and fulfillment in it.

To The Call of the Barred Owl

I month ago I sat down in the evening to make a journal entry. I want to share it with you in this edition of the Bittersweet Farm Journal:

Tonight Hope made dinner. I had worked at the church and worked in the yard. Lois was returning from a trip out of town and we timed dinner for her arrival.

Hope piled the table with BBQ chicken, new red potatoes and butter, slaw and corn-on-the-cob.

The corn was the first of the season, tender and sweet and with real butter and salt and pepper, a delicacy. It’s as if the winter numbs your taste buds and the new corn of early summer awakens them. (Sometimes eating can be idolatry-on this evening it was worship).

After dishes we moved out to the “evening porch” to read while Lois puttered among the flowers.

It is May 29th. A year ago tomorrow I drove into Jackson to meet with the Pulpit Committee for the first time. Now, a year later, we have made our lives among you and live in our little farmhouse right on the border of Summit Township and Spring Arbor Township, were when evening falls we sleep to the sound of the Barred Owl calling from the woods across the road.

Ken Pierpont
Camp Barakel
June 30, 2018

Is Your Eating Worship or Idolatry?

Filed Under: Weight Management

Is My Eating Worship or Idolatry?

Every day, many times a day, I have had to wrestle with my self-indulgent nature to eat what is good and in the amounts that are healthy for me. I have had many days of wise and appropriate eating and I have had seasons of discouraging failure—and it really is a life-and-death matter.

Today I finished preaching at chapel at Camp Barakel and I was walking with two of our grandsons to lunch and a helpful thought occurred to me.

I know that for me over-eating and eating the wrong things is usually an expression of idolatry. The times when I have been able to have self-control in my eating have been times when I consciously saw over-eating as the sin of idolatry—putting food in the place where only God should be.

When I eat the right things in the right portions and receive that food as a gift from God, it is an act of worship to eat. But when I eat the wrong things or even the right things in wrong portions then I am usually trying to get from food what only God can give. I’m looking to food for what only God can be.

As I walked to the dining room it occurred to me to ask of my soul this question through the day: Is this meal going to be worship or an indulgence in idolatry? Is this snack going to be an act of worship or sinful idolatry?

A Suggestion

As you plan your meals and before you eat bow your head and pray; “Lord, I want this meal to be an act of worship not an indulgence in idolatry.”

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4)

Have you found honey, eat only as much as you need. (Proverbs 25:16)

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

Eating can be idolatry, but it was meant to be an act of worship.

Ken Pierpont
Camp Barakel
Fairview, Michgian

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