Ken

Series: Letters from Jesus (Rev. 1-3)

Sermon: More Love to Thee (Rev. 2:1-7)

Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan

Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor

February 23, 2020 AM

I have a “friend” kind of an internet acquaintance, who was a college professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. He name is Keith Drury. He would always go on adventures during school breaks. I love to read about them. Once he section-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Another time he floated the Colorado River. He has hiked the length of the

Southern Upland Way and the West Highland Way in Scotland. He has canoed the Missouri River. Here is the one that captured my attention: one summer he and a friend rode the length of the Blue Ridge Parkway on mopeds.

Lois has always said she want a moped. I’ve never thought a moped would be useful where we live, but today I got to thinking. Some day I would like to ride the length of the Blue Ridge Parkway with Lois on mopeds.

Together we could see the blue mountains roll into the distance. Together we could smell the mountain laurel and feel the fresh breeze in our faces. Together we could sleep in little quaint places along the way and eat outdoors. We could sample the local food together and see the local sights and breathe in the spring mountain air. I think that might be a unique way to keep our love fresh. I have a file with maps and I’m making plans. We will see what happens. I don’t want our love to get stale.

What do you all think? Anybody have any ideas that might help us?

Bittersweet Farm

February 20, 2020

Fred Craddock tells the following story about his family. “My mother took us to church and Sunday school; my father didn’t go. He complained about Sunday dinner being later when she came home. Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, “I know what the church wants. Church doesn’t care about me. Church wants another name, another pledge, another name, and another pledge. Right? Isn’t that the name of the game? Another name, another pledge.” That’s what he always said.

Sometimes we’d have a revival. Pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, “There’s one now, sic him, get him, get him,” and my father would say the same thing. Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt. And always my father said, “The church doesn’t care about me. The church wants another name and another pledge.” I guess I heard it a thousand times.

One time he didn’t say it. He was in the veteran’s hospital, and he was down to 73 pounds. They’d taken out his throat, and he said, “It’s too late.” They put in a metal tube, and X-rays burned him to pieces. I flew in to see him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat. I looked around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches deep beside his bed. And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower. And all the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.

He saw me read a card. He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story. He wrote: “In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.”

I said, “What is your story, Daddy?”

And he wrote, “I was wrong.”

Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds., Chalice Press, 2001, p. 14.