Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 78) What Will We Wish We Could Do Again?
At the Pace of a Steady Walk
My message to the Bethel folk this morning was called Peepers and Other Spring Things. In the message I mentioned something I read in David Kline’s book; The Round of a Country Year. (David is an Amish farmer and writer from Holmes County, Ohio). He wrote this: “They say peepers will be frozen to silence three times before spring is here to stay.” It reminds me of something an elderly widow in Ohio, Dorothy Hall, taught me: “There will be three more snows after the Forsythia bloom.” (Sorry to those of you who may have heard me say this before).
These old farmer sayings tell me one thing clearly. Human beings long for the return of spring, the last snow, the opening of the redbuds, the sound of peepers on a spring night. We all have ways of counting the days until we can feel the therapy of sunshine on our necks.
Jerry Dennis, a keen observer of nature and skilled Michigan writer, once wrote this: “They say spring advances fifteen miles a day, about the pace of a steady walk.” I’ve read in other places that Spring “walks” north at about two miles an hour, which is a steady pace for guy my age in my physical condition..
I noticed some unusual traffic on my website this evening. A few years ago I wrote an article “Why Are Redbuds Purple?” People must do a Google search with the question; “Why are redbuds purple,” and the search engine drives them to my site. I can always tell where the Redbuds are opening by seeing where the traffic is coming from. From the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, even deep in southern Illinois, I have hits on my article, which quickened my heartbeat with anticipation. I think in our part of Michigan the Redbuds begin to open about a week or ten days before the Dogwoods blossom. And the Dogwoods always seem to open in mid-May, about the time of my father’s birthday.
What Will We Wish We Could Do Again?
Having spent over sixty years on this planet and having paid close attention to my soul during that time, this I know. We will look back on this time with a certain fondness if we and those we love survive it. If we are wise we will ask; What will we wish we could do again when we no longer can? This is a good question to ask your soul regularly during this time when we are forced to slow down and stay home.
Villages Along Route 60
In the Village of Concord, where the North Branch of the Kalamazoo River widens into a mill pond is a little BBQ joint. Hope and I drove there the other night to carry out some Brunswick Stew. Driving into the little village I felt a mild melancholy tug on my soul.
The first Sunday in March my Dad and Mom retired from pastoral ministry at 86 years of age. The next Friday we moved them to Kalamazoo. I didn’t really anticipate the sadness I would feel at the thought of it. For the last ten years they lived in the tidy parsonage on the grounds of the South Litchfield Baptist Church at the corner of Sterling and Hadley Road. Mom and Dad lived in the parsonage for ten years. They lived there in Hillsdale County for most of the last 25 years. Now I would never have a reason to take that trip again.
There were so many times that trip was good for my soul—so many times a return trip from the little parsonage was a personal revival. For most of the time they lived there we lived in the Detroit Downriver and the drive to my parents home would inevitably move me to tears at the simple open beauty of the countryside. All along the last 30 minutes of the trip were field and wood, streams and open sky, wildflowers and trees, birds and grazing cows, deer and turkey vultures. It was peaceful.
Once I drove away and had to pull the car over to the side of the road and weep… One night traveling through a dark betrayal I even believe I received special direction from God for what I was about to pass through.
That night I drove away from the little house at dusk. Wild turkeys crossed the road and I slowed to a respectful speed and had a strong sense of the voice of the Spirit in it. He knows my soul. Within a half hour I would receive a call and pull to the bottom of the ramp off I-94 at Race Road to take it. It would change my life in a dramatic way, which that night seemed nothing but bad, but within a year it would allow us to move into our home in the neighboring county about four quaint villages away from my parent’s home. It was a smiling providence I often imagined but I could never have arranged. But now I will never be able to make that drive again or visit that little parsonage and have my soul restored or be reminded of the things these precious people labored so hard to form in me.
An Unexpected Visitor
Saturday afternoon I was enjoying the luxury of an hour or two reading a thick volume on the life and work of C. S. Lewis. Hope was on the couch next to my chair curled up with her Kindle, Hazzard was sleeping on the rug at my feet, when there came a sharp knock at the door. Dad was there. I didn’t expect him. He wanted to give me his tools. He would not need them anymore. Oddly we carried the tools I had seen him use for years into our Carriage House and leave them. A lump formed in my throat.
I coaxed him into the house and we fell into easy conversation. Lois arrived home and they warmly greeted each other. She sat with us and Dad began to tell us stories of his childhood and the hardships of the Great Depression and World War II. We sat in silence and listened. He told of his family and how they had all come to Christ and how empty things had been before. He spoke of how Christ had so changed his family. We all wept and and prayed. I walked him to his car and stood waving until it disappeared over the hill to the west. I knew then that when this hardship passes and visits are possible, though I cannot sit with them in the old parsonage again, I will set aside other things and savor long conversation in their little apartment in Kalamazoo.
My grandmother Shipley would sometimes sweetly remind us when we were young and didn’t really understand, “Grandpa and I won’t be here forever you know.” And she was right.
As one who loves God, I am of the conviction that when God allows something bad to happen to you He is doing something good. When he calls you to endure something bitter there will be a sweetness in it. And in this great hardship that has forced a busy almost frantic culture to slow down and go home and stay home for a while, maybe that is the good thing, that is the sweetness we will wish for when it is not longer possible. The goodness of time with those we love. The sweetness of unhurried conversation. The deep thanksgiving at the awareness of how Christ can come in and transform a great sadness to joy and a great evil to good and even a killing world-wide plague to life eternal.
I Wonder
Someday this horrible plague will wane but will the acts of warm humanity that have come with it continue?
Will people still say with meaning, looking in your eyes, “Hey, take care of yourself.”
Will they ask their neighbors, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Will people still cheer for nurses at the change of shifts?
Will godly elders till weep and pray and plead with God for a revived church?
Will we still, at home with those we love, sit and listen and laugh and cry and pray and sing when evening falls.
I wonder.
Bittersweet Farm
March 29, 2020
PS; Here are a couple paragraphs from Jerry Dennis to hook you on reading his stuff:
“One morning I stepped from my friend’s cabin on Lake Superior and was met by the first warm wind of the season. A familiar call sounded high overhead and I looked up to see a loon hurtling past, bound for Canada. Then came another, and another, each trailing its ululating warble.
It was the clarion announcement, the emblem of the wild north, a song that stirs primordial urges in many of us who cherish unspoiled places. It’s the music of mist-shrouded lakes deep in the spruce forest, a boreal timelessness that is perhaps best heard from a canoe. Coming from the sky above Superior it was this and more: the sound of wildness in transit, winging north with the lengthening days of this season of hope.” –Jerry Bridges from The North Shore.
please visit often. the door is open
i hope you visit often.
i’ll share my tea or coffee or lemonade with you.
we can sit on the porch.
it’s a small house but there are two of them.
or we can walk in the field.
they don’t belong to me past the north meadow, but i’ve neighbored with those who are willing and i have permission to saunter afield as i wish.
we could walk.
do come visit this site and often.
i try to write new things without charge or obligation and i have done so freely for over twenty years now–for any and all who come to read.
i imagine you will laugh or cry or think or sigh. welcome to this space. i hope you visit often.
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 77) Hard Times
The temperature started at 60 this morning and it will drop below 20 by Saturday night. I just took a stroll with Hazard. The wind has picked up and it is chilly. It may even spit a little snow out here tonight. That’s OK. It won’t last long.
Sunday I will preach at Bethel, and I’m not kidding here, from the roof of my study. We will have drive-in church and we will broadcast the message and music on an FM signal so people can listen from the snug safety and security of their own cars. Check it out and let us know you are coming.
Here is my most recent Stories From Bittersweet Farm Podcast
Hard Times
We baled hay for Grandpa in the summers of my youth. After bailing our families gathered in the yard under a huge Maple tree. The aunts and uncles. Our grandparents. The cousins. We picnicked on thick burgers, potato chips, and pork and beans. We washed them down with icy sweet tea. Hungry and hot from your labor we devoured cold watermelon, or sometimes ice cream, and then we settled back to listen to stories.
Usually the stories were about surviving the Great Depression or the enduring the hardships of WWII. There were tales of the far-away and exotic, but mostly they were stories of making-do with home-made toys and rationing.
As a young pastor I often visited with people who had lived through these times of unforgettable hardship and sacrifice. These were good, Christian people and they were good citizens. They were devout and they were patriotic. I was almost always left with the same impression. Looking back on them those times of hardship and sacrifice were good times. They were good times, because people trusted the Lord and they were good times because people helped one another.
My grandparents often told stories of gathering around the radio in those days, eagerly listening for news of the progress of war and praying and hoping for its end.
Now every night we gather around the TV out here on Bittersweet Farm and we listen to the swift-changing details of a plague sweeping across the globe. I am reminded of the good people, now mostly gone on to be with the Lord, who survived hard times before us. They conceived of the world we enjoy today in their hearts and built it with their own hands. I remember their stories and the unforgettable lesson they seemed to hold: Hard times can be good times, if we trust the Lord and stick together.
Bittersweet Farm
March 20, 2020
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 76) Sure As Spring
The sun shone bright and warm yesterday (Sunday) and the moon rose full into a clear sky. Hazard and I took a walk in the warm sun in the afternoon. Lois, Hope and I took a drive last evening to get some ice cream in Horton and watch the sun set over the countryside. We passed a grove of Maple trees where someone was gathering sap and Hope reminded us that this moon was the full-sap moon, also known as the worm moon. It is the moon that reminds us that spring is coming and soon. Praises be unto God. I was grateful for the reminder. By morning the bright moonlight still cast shadows on the lawn now glowing from the western sky.
The winter was mild, for which we are grateful. There was enough snow to blanket the ground most of the winter but it fell politely and didn’t interfere with things too much. It charmed us but never threatened us. Late in the winter we had a couple snow days, but I think they were mostly because we could. They felt more like snow holidays than emergencies.
With the worst of winter behind us we are concerning ourselves these days with viruses and stock-market fluctuations and wondering if spring will be early or late, wet or dry. We are looking forward Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. We are thinking beyond to long evenings on the porch that will start in mid-May and last into golden October. The very thought of it moves me to tears as I write. How thankful I am and will always be for the sacrament of seasons, the warmth of spring, the mellow summer, the gift of autumn, and the cleansing beauty of winter here in Michigan.
In a few short weeks the bulbs Lois buried out in the little stone circle around the Maple will open. I think they are daffodils. One day I hope to have the whole circle filled with them nodding their bright heads in the cool spring breeze. Our flower beds are full of donations from Bethel friends.
I have new birdsongs to learn this year and walks to take. The other night outside the window I heard the call of an owl I have never heard before on Bittersweet. I lifted the window to listen to the owl calling over and over from somewhere up in the huge oak over the rock fence and I could hear coyotes yowling in woods northwest of our place.
As I have done hundreds of times, I breathed a quiet prayer of thanksgiving for a place on the earth and for people to love. It’s almost spring again, sure as the promises of God. As sure as His Son our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again.
Bittersweet Farm
March 9, 2020
How Many Acres Are You Farmin’ ?
I’m a pastor and a preacher but sometimes I like to call myself “The Village Parson” and sometimes I like to call myself “The Keeper of the Story.” If you have a few minutes I’d like you to make a cup of tea and pull up the chair by the fire and have a visit. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. I think it will help you understand why I like to call myself the Keeper of the Story.
In the last number of years I have noticed a besetting sin that I struggle with. I have had this struggle as long as I can remember. It’s only been in the last few years that I have really began to see it and realize the damage it has done to my soul and to my ministry. I’ve also begun to notice how it has hurt so many others.
How do you evaluate a church? I’ve struggled all my life with the temptation to measure a church by its attendance. As a boy my dad was a pastor and I wanted his churches to grow. I started pastoring my own church when I was still in high school and I have spent countless hours thinking about what makes churches grow.
When I was young my dad was a bi-vocational pastor. He was a school teacher and pastor. He made his living as a teacher but his passion and his heart were devoted to building a church. He pastored small churches. Most of them drew fewer than 100 a Sunday. One church dad pastored for a few years while I was in high school ran a little over 100. After I was gone from home dad pastored a church that had as many as 200-300 in attendance but it did not last long. There was division in the church even before his came and in his first year they pushed him out.
I grew up during the heart of the church growth movement and Dad was trained in a Baptist group called the GARBC. He regularly read independent Baptists, especially The Sword of the Lord and it publications, which featured articles and books flatly stating that if you did not win at least 200 people to Christ a year and baptize them you were not working hard enough.
Dad just never felt like he measured up to that standard. The little churches he took and tried to help were often small for very good reasons and the people in them did not intend to change the things that kept them small.
Not all big churches are good and not all small churches are bad. Attendance is only one measure of a church, and perhaps not at all the best measure of a church. I want to suggest that a church can be large well-attended or it can be small and it can still be a good church. Over the years I have poured my heart into this and I want to suggest a better way to measure a church, a better way to evaluate the health and vitality of a church.
The measure all my life has been budgets, bodies it the pews, buildings, in some circles the number of busses.
How Many Acres Are Ya’ Farming?
I have a friend who introduced me to the Farm Science Review central Ohio. We left our country early in the morning and left time for breakfast. When we arrived at the fairgrounds it was a sea of hybrid seed-corn hats and John Deere hats and International Harvester hats. There were farmers as far as the eye can see. We had to park and ride a shuttle in. There were hundred of vendors each of them trying to sell things to the farmers. I noticed that the vendors had a question that they would eventually work their way to asking in every conversation. The question was “So, how many acres are you farming?”
My friend loved farming but at the time he was working for a utility company. He was a fine, honest, talented, hard-working man, but he did not have a lot of cash on hand and a the time he didn’t farm any acres. When the men would ask him how many acres he farmed and he told them. “None,” they would quickly abandon their conversation with him and start looking over his shoulder for the next customer.
When I saw that happen a few times my heart was sick and I remembered the feeling of watching my dad with his fellow pastors at pastor conferences and hearing them ask the pastor equivalent of the very same question; “So how many you runnin’ on Sunday morning these days?” It was never an impressive number. It was always little embarrassing. “Oh, we are just a small church,” Dad would say smiling warmly. But standing in the circle of men around my Dad my heart would ache. I did not know a finer man or a more hard-working sincere pastor then my Dad. My little soul often asked the questions, “What makes a church grow? Why do my Dad’s churches not grow more. He is so faithful? I often thought that many of the problems we had in our churches would get better if Dad could just gather more people. It didn’t at the time so much occur to me that the problems endemic to the churches were the main reason we didn’t add more people.
Ecclesiastical Peacock Shows
Dad came home from a pastor’s meeting one day when I was a teen (which he attended in order to be encouraged) and he related a painful incident where an old college acquaintance had leaned back in his chair and shouted across the hall to my dad, “So, Kenny, what little berg are you pastoring in these days?”
Dad laughed but I know he felt he sting of it for years. The man who insulted him was disqualified for ministry because of immorality a few years after that. When I discovered it and eagerly reported it to my dad he immediately fell to his knees and began to weep and pray for the man, his family and his church. That was over 40 years ago and dad has faithfully tended his little flocks in the wilderness all those years, preparing messages, cleaning and repairing the church, raising money, making hospital calls, counseling, witnessing, passing out tracts, loving people, walking the roads of his perish and praying for people he passes their homes.
Dad once told me, “I don’t know, Ken, some of those meetings a like peacock shows sometimes.”
There Has to Be a Better Way
I think there is another way to measure the success of your ministry. I would like to set aside the old metrics of measure that we have used so long and suggest another way. Instead of size, what if we were to measure a church by its stories? Stories of people who are following Jesus afresh. Stories of reunited families. Stories of people gettin off drugs or starting family devotions. What if we measured a church by its stories of God’s grace, restored homes, deeds done in love, sacrifices made, people who listened to others when the hurt, elderly people visited.
A tree can reach maturity and it will stop growing but it can still bring forth fruit and display full flower and foliage. Some churches are in small places. Some are served with people of modest gifts. Some churches pastors are gifted a tend a little flock in the wilderness. Some are gifted to preach to large crowds and lead complex organizations and build impressive building or cathedrals. Some are gifted by God to gently shepherd a few in a wayside chapel.
Do you have fresh stories of God’s people doing what God asked of them? Do you have stories of young people serving God? Can your church tell a story of a faithful pastor, Sunday School teacher, deacon, elder or Awana leader? Can you tell stories of people you have prayed for and loved and engaged in Gospel conversation? Can you tell stories of children and youth going to camp? Can you tell stories of children who grew up in the church and still walk with the Lord? Are there stories you can tell of people who humbly joined their voices with the others in the church choir for decades without demanding a solo? Are there elderly ladies that have given themselves to visitation for years and received no money and little praise for it. Are their srories of faithful givers and men who have use their own hands and gifts and tools to repair things around the church quietly for years—men who would be embarrassed to be mentioned publicly?
A church with testimonies of God’s faithfulness is a good healthy church regardless of their size or budget or the speaking or leadership gifts of their pastor.
When someone whispers in your ear “How many acres are you farmin,’” here is now to answer; “Let me tell you a story. Last fall some of us were out raking the leaves from the churchyard and we noticed the elderly lady across the street had gotten behind on her leaves. A coupe of the men and their sons walked over their and just started raking her yard. It was a beautiful October afternoon. In thirty minutes they had raked and gathers all her leaves. One of the men loaded the into a pickup truck. As they loaded the last of the leaves the door opened and the old woman stepped out onto the porch and tearfully thanks them.
“My son has diabetes. This year they tool off is leg and he can’t help me with the leaves anymore. I didn’t know what I was going to do. How much do I owe you?”
“We won’t take any money. We just wanted to be good neighbors.” They found our where her son lives and went over to rake his leaves too. At Christmas time she made her way over with a tea ring on for the pastor and his family and said, “Thanks for being such good neighbors. What time is the Candlelight Service my son and I are going to come this year.”
I don’t know what the total attendance was really but we love to tell that story. When we were singing Silent Night I noticed that the boys who raked her leaves had tears on their faces.
In a couple weeks my dad will retire after 60 years of ministry. He just does not have the strength to do what needs to be done anymore. Dad pastored his last church for about 11 years. 9? One fall afternoon were in the back yard of his parsonage and we were taking some pictures in the leaves over against the picket fence that once stood there. I asked about the neighbors. Dad said; “They go the our church.” He went on to tell that they were far from God when God led mom and dad to pastor the little church. Mom befriended her. Dad called on him in the hospital. There are a sweet German couple. Now both of them a saved and baptized and attend the church. The super-star pastors of the big churches in far away places don’t now them but Dad and Mom will move away in a couple weeks, but they will tell the story until they die of the sweet German couple who live next door to the church and will spend eternity with the Lord.
I say let’s stop making numbers the main measure of the church and let’s use stories to measure its faithfulness, not the way of the high-powered city businessman, but the simple way of the Village Parson.
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