We spent the weekend at Headquarters in Oak Brook for our Directors meeting.
[Read more…] about This Week ( Feb. 11-17)
No Big Thing
God delights in using things others think are insignificant. The stories of the Bible emphasize this over and over again. He used a ruddy shepherd boy to slay a blasphemous giant with a few stones and a crude sling. He used a donkey to speak a word of rebuke to a wayward prophet. He chartered a big fish to deliver a reluctant missionary to his appropriate mission-field. He called a teenaged mother to nurture the Messiah. I think he is still doing this. Maybe the first qualification to be used of God is a continual conscious awareness of our personal inadequacy. David must have had a sense of this standing out under the stars one night. He said; “When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him…” We are small in the scope of God’s creation, but a small thing can be mighty in the hands of God.
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On the Doorstep of the Church
I like to write happy stories about good things but life isn’t always happy. God is always on the throne but the sun is not always shining here in this broken world. This is my Father’s world but if you look close you see that it has some very ugly sin-scars. I was reminded of this a while back.
It was Thanksgiving Day and were we were in South Haven, Michigan. We played football for a couple hours before our family Thanksgiving feast. We were at my brother-in-law Jim and my sister Melony’s house. Thanksgiving Day football is a long-standing family tradition. Jim and I have sons bigger and stronger and faster than we have ever been who were not even born when we started this tradition. We can both still recount details of games we played on Thanksgiving Day when we were their age.
Jim and Melony live in a nice big parsonage on the church property with a huge field perfect for football. It was a wonderful day to be outdoors, mild and sunny. It may have been our best game ever. The lead toggled back and forth and everyone got involved in a big play or two from the smallest child to Dad (Grandpa), who was sixty-seven years old at the time.
We played all day until finally, mercifully, the ladies called us in for the feast. We all laughed and walked from the field. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed some flowers growing behind a shed used to store lawn equipment. How they got there is a tragic, painful story. My sense of well-being was tempered at the thought of it.
The flowers growing there were a memorial for a fifteen year old boy from Chicago. He and a friend stole a car and led the police on a chase that ended on the property of the church. As the police closed in the boy turned his gun on himself. His blood actually stained the ground within a few feet of the church. A few days after his tragic death his grandmother came and planted flowers on the spot where his spirit departed this earth.
I’ve grown up in churches and I have seen people who would never think of smoking or drinking bicker for hours and months and feud for years over who gets to hold the keys. I’ve seen churches split over who gets to stand up front and say how important it is to be holy and humble. When I think about those flowers growing there it makes me angry.
People who were created by God are dying on the very doorstep of the church. It is inexcusable for those of us who have taken the name of the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves to wallow in pettiness and selfishness while lost people drown in their sin in our sight. How can we waste our lives straining for newer and better toys while the flames of hell lick at the feet of people who live on our block. Why do we have no sense of urgency when children who bear His very image are suffering in the shadow of the steeple. How can we keep an endless schedule of games, gluttony and frivolous religious entertainment while families fracture and fail within the sound of our singing.
When I think of those flowers growing there, that weeping grandmother, and the blood of that boy I know I must approach my work with gravity and urgency. I must stop playing. I must not allow petty bickering and personal power-grabbing to keep me from the work of rescuing souls.
May God help us to work tirelessly together to rescue precious souls from hell while we still can. May God help us remember every morning when we plan our work that we will give an account to God some day for every idle word. God help us every time I look at our watch to remember that we don’t have a minute to spare. Eternity is forever but we have only a few short hours before sunset to work.
Kenneth L. Pierpont
ken@kenpierpont.com
February 10, 2003
The Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
This Week
As I write this it is the Lord’s Day and we are enjoying sunshine here in Flint, Michigan. The older I get the easier it is to understand why older people like to head for sunny places whenever they can. I love Michigan though, and I’m glad to be here in Flint. It is my mission field and when I know I am doing what God called me to do there is sunshine in my heart.
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This Week
This week at the Character Inn we hooked up the television for the evening and gathered the Inn staff and Verity students and staff in the Parkview Restaurant to watch the State of the Union address. We made popcorn and served soft drinks. Nearly everyone in the building assembled. After the address we closed the evening in patriotic singing and prayer for our country.
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Dorothy Hall
In the spring of 1987 we moved to Mt. Vernon, Ohio to pastor a little village church. The church custodian was a widow named Dorothy Hall. Dorothy was a servant like Dorcas in the Bible. (Acts 9:36-42) She was a true friend to me and to my family. She would ask us what foods we liked and fix them for the family. Almost every Wednesday evening of our pastorate she fixed us a full evening meal even though it was hard for her to stand on her feet. She insisted on delivering it personally even though it was difficult for her to walk. The children would run and shout, “Dorothy’s here. Dorothy’s here” when her brown car would pull in. Then they would run out and carry in baskets of food.
She once found out about a sandwich I liked and she would drive all the way into town and bring one back for me. She helped me know when someone needed a pastoral visit. She planted flowers around the church and worked to keep them lush and beautiful. She told me stories to help me understand the people of the community and the heritage of the church. She was the sounding-board for all my messages. She warned me when there was a dark cloud on the horizon. She was a companion to me and a true loyal friend.
She and her husband raised five children on the farm. When I think of Dorothy I remember two things she used to say. She often told me that she noticed especially with her husband and sons that everything went smoother and everyone was happier if she made sure that everyone had a full stomach.
There was another life lesson she repeated to me more than once when she could tell I needed encouragement. It was something she learned from the vet. He had visited because their prize dairy cow was sick. The vet walked up on the back porch and solemnly delivered the news that their prize dairy cow was not going to live. It was a hard blow to the family. They were depending on the cow. They had no insurance and no way to replace the cow. The wise old vet waited for few minutes while Dorothy and her husband adjusted to their loss and then he quietly said, “Remember to thank the Lord that the sickness is out there in the barn and not in here in the house.”
Those were two simple lessons I remember from my many conversations with my friend. When everyone has a full stomach everything goes a lot smoother. When sickness comes to the barn don’t despair. Thank God it’s not in the house.
We moved away from Ohio over six and a half years ago. One sunny afternoon I was cleaning my garage and the phone rang. It was my brother Nathan. Nathan said, “Ken, Dorothy Hall’s funeral is today.”
After I hung up the phone I went back to my sweeping. I smiled when I thought of Dorothy and I cried some. I thought how much I would like to have been there at her funeral. I would have said, “Dorothy Hall was a great cook, a friend to the pastor and a true Christian. She helped me keep things in perspective and she helped keep hunger and discouragement away from our door.” Then I think I would say; “Let’s go to the fellowship hall and get something to eat. We all feel better on a full stomach.”
Kenneth L. Pierpont
ken@kenpierpont.com
February 3, 2003
The Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
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