Bittersweet Farm
When Hope was about seven I recorded her singing a little Christmas greeting. I like to re-post it at Christmas. We mean it every year. Merry Christmas
Or download this mp3 Merry Christmas
Corner of Eureka and Telegraph. Last Saturday before Christmas. Shoppers bustling. Festive excitement in the air. Busy sidewalks. Heavy traffic. Starbucks is selling Ginger Bread Lattes, Egg Nog Coffees and Peppermint Mochas. There’s line wrapping around the Holiday Ham Store. Shoppers are rushing about in mittens and scarves with their treasures. It’s cold.
A man is standing on the corner where the traffic comes to a stop. He is holding up a Santa doll. He has a sign–“Santa is Satan.” He is scowling at everyone in general. He’s shouting at the traffic. His breath forms a little fog cloud in front of his face. He’s demanding repentance of the shoppers.
“If you tell your children there is a Santa, you are a liar. Hell is for liars. Consider your ways. Repent.”
Watching him my impulse is to roll down the window and encourage him to repent for confusing people about the gospel out there in front of Taco Bell.
A Right Way and a Wrong Way
If we were to compare doctrinal statements, I’m sure they would be similar. It wouldn’t surprise me if the fellow is a fellow Baptist. I’m all for witnessing in public. I admire his courage. I’m not against street-preaching. Open-air public proclamation of the gospel has a rich and honorable history. Jesus did it. Paul and the apostles did it. Faithful preachers down through human history have done it. My hero Charles Spurgeon did it and taught other to do it.
I have a friend, Brian Harmon (pictured above) who is a missionary with a group called “Open-Air Campaigners.” He goes where the people are. He preaches in parks and public places. Though he has opposition and sometimes heckling, his manner is kind and loving. He doesn’t use hateful placards. He doesn’t pelt people with “gospel rocks.”
When I was a student at Moody fellow students had an active Street-Preaching outreach. They were creative and engaging, but they did not verbally abuse and attack the public. They were ernest, but they joyfully proclaimed the gospel as the good news it is.
Google-up some videos of Ray Comfort’s faithful public ministry. He is often able to draw people into sincerely considering the truth of the Gospel with a series of pointed questions. In Greg Laurie’s biography Lost Boy, he tells of how, before he knew the Lord, he would listen to the open-air preachers from out at the edge of the crowd. This was in California during the Jesus Movement. He would gather their pamphlets and take them home and read them in his room. Eventually he came to faith. He now conducts evangelistic meetings with thousands in attendance in public stadiums.
It’s Christmas. That’s Good News!
All that said, I don’t think Jesus would do what the good man with the bad attitude on the corner was doing that last weekend before Christmas.
Don’t kid yourself, Heaven and Hell are Life-and-death matters. Nothing is more serious or sobering, but still folks, keep in mind–the gospel is good news. It’s Christmas folks. This is a happy time. It’s a time for carols and feasts and giving and reunions and love. It’s a Christian time. People go to church, they give gifts. They sing songs about Jesus. Don’t scare them off. Introduce them to the One they are singing about. Be a witness. Be a public witness and when you do, please, be a smiling witness.
Joy is evidence to the world that God can fully satisfy the human heart.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
December 4, 2012
Christmas pressures have a way of bringing out the real you. Have you noticed?
I’m at the mall Christmas shopping. I’m waiting at the curb. A car pulls up. A dear, sweet, old, grandmother-type opens the door and gets out. Her husband is dropping her off so she won’t have to walk far.
What happens next I will never be able to get out of my mind. If I had this scene on YouTube it would go viral. She puts her purse over her shoulder and closes the door. Her husband sees a parking place open up close-by. He is checking his rear-view mirror to see if he can dart over there. He does not look back at his wife, but he hears the door close and assumes it is safe to drive away. He guns his engine to be sure he gets the coveted parking spot before anyone else can. His haste will cost him.
What he does not see is that when the door closes his wife’s purse strap is caught in the door. She has the purse securely over her shoulder. When he races away she is spun around and thrown to the ground. I run out to help her to her feet, but see refuses my hand, ignores me. She scrambles to her feet and begins to vomit out vile profanity. I back away to a safe distance.
He parks the car. She stalks over and gets in. He sits at the wheel staring silently forward. I walk out to my car and drive back carefully to pick up my family. When I pass the car I can still hear her using her bar-room vocabulary on him.
She looked for all the world like a sweet little old lady… until she opened her mouth. Then everyone within a city block knew that her heart was as foul as a sewer.
Jesus said a good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things but an evil person out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things. I want my heart to be a treasure of good things–even when I skin my knee–at Christmas.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
November 26, 2012
Our daughter Holly started a Facebook page for Christian girls who admire Tim Tebow. She has lived all her life in Michigan and Ohio and has become, first a Florida fan and now a Denver fan. What meaneth this? Read on:
Deep in my genetic make-up is a strand of loyalty to The Ohio State University Football Program. It’s almost involuntary. I was born and raised in Ohio listening to Ohio State football on autumn Saturday afternoons, when Woody was King of Ohio. Dad owned an old black Studabaker that he would tweak while listening to the games.
Raising our boys we usually listened to the pregame while sweeping the garage or raking the yard or helping friends on those glorious October mornings in the fall. Once I won tickets to the Ohio State Michigan game in a radio contest and Kyle and I watched the classic rivalry in Historic “Shoe” on the banks of the Olentangy in Columbus.
2006 was a dream year for the Buckeyes. Our Buckeyes had run the table winning every game. In the final game of the season Ohio State hosted Michigan in Columbus. Ohio State was rated number one in the nation. Michigan, number two. Ohio State sent Michigan home in defeat and Florida leaped over Michigan in the polls. The Buckeyes would play Florida in Arizona for the National Championship on January 8, 2007.
Chuk, Dan, Wes and I drove from Chicago to watch the game with Kyle and his little family in their apartment in South Bend.
The game started with great promise. Ohio State’s Ted Ginn Jr. returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. We were euphoric. That is because we didn’t know at the time the Buckeyes would only score one more time. Ginn injured his foot during the celebration and was never able to return to the game. It would be his last play as a Buckeye.
The rest of the game was dominated by Florida. Into the game came a young freshman quarterback named Tim Tebow. The word was that he was a believer and that he was home-schooled. His family used the same homeschool program we did. We were in the same organization. At the time we thought little of it. We were too busy choking back the taste of defeat. Florida won 42-14. Tebow would be involved in two national championships at Florida. Later that year he would win the Heisman Trophy.
I remember well our great disappointment that the Buckeyes were undefeated going into the Florida game and lost to Florida and their young quarterback. Kyle stood in the doorway and as we drove away I said what I usually say to take the sting out of temporal disappointment: “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name.” The words, though I didn’t know it at the time, were prophetic. We drove home quietly licking our wounds of defeat that night. Little did I know that in the providence of God he would receive great glory from the life of Florida’s young quarterback.
Tim Tebow was born in the Philippines. His parents were Baptist missionaries. When his mother Pam was pregnant she was suffering from a life-threatening illness. The treatment threatened the life of the baby within her. Doctors recommended an abortion. She refused. Tim’s life is a powerful story of the faith of godly parents and a child who was consecrated to the glory of God and as we all know now, he has a national pulpit to proclaim Christ.
Since our bitter defeat in January of 2007, following the career and testimony of Tim Tebow has become a whole-family obsession for the Pierponts. Some of our friends don’t understand our unabashed enthusiasm for the young man. They think it is about sports. It has little to do with sports. It’s all about Jesus Christ our King and his honor on earth. It is about the beauty and winsomeness of a young man playing and living with all his might and making Christ known at every opportunity. Some just don’t understand that. It seems to me that those who are especially jealous for the honor of the name of Christ do. It’s not about sports. It’s not about winning and losing football games. Football games come and go and they mean little. It is about the Eternal honor of the Eternal King. God bless, prosper and protect Tim Tebow as he honors the King!
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory both now and forever Amen. (1 Tim. 1:17)
All Hail the Power of Jesus Name.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
January 16, 2012
P.S. Young Ladies might be interested in my daughter, Holly’s site Christian Girls Love Tim Tebow here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Girls-3-Tim-Tebow/158372467946
It is the 28th of December and I’ve just stepped into my study. I’m hanging my new 2012 calendars today, but my heart is tender when my eye falls on the page that was December.
Never before have I had such sweet sadness after Christmas. Maybe it’s that a couple of our children now live a long way away and it is so hard to work out times to be together.
More and more the family is growing up and they are launching off and that’s as it should be. Kyle and Heidi are married. Neither of them lives nearby. Kyle and his little family are three and a half hours away. Heidi and Austin are over six hours away. Heidi is radiant and with child. They will be parents in late February. We were all together for just a few hours last night. We celebrated Christmas. Soon they had to leave and I stood in the snow in South Bend until they drove out of sight.
Between us lie the vast blue sweetwater ocean of Lake Michigan, the great metropolis of Chicagoland, and over three hundred and forty-three miles of farm and field.
Today I am re-entering the regular, post-Christmas world. Everywhere I look are bittersweet reminders of Christmas. Colorful wrapping paper just a day or two ago adorning gifts of love under the tree, is now crumpled and soiled on the garage floor. I gather it up and walk it to the curb. I have a lump in my throat. I find myself fighting back tears. I’m doing an emotional inventory, an assessment of my soul. It’s sadness at the passing of Christmas, but it is also sweet gratefulness for the outpouring of family love I just experienced.
For the first time in about three weeks the boys will be sleeping in their room instead of camping out in the family room by the tree. Soon we will have to bring ourselves to remove the lights and the decorations. Daniel will pack his things in his car and return to college in Grand Rapids.
I’ve always planned a number of things to look forward to after Christmas. I’ve never been blue. There is always a New Year full of plans just ahead. I’ve always told others to keep doing Christmas things after Christmas is past. I know the secret to joy is communion with the Spirit of God dwelling within us and obedience to his quiet voice. Today I need to preach that truth from my head into my heart.
Thank you, Lord for the love that was expressed at Christmas—for the month that was December. It was sweet. May the ring of it reverberate in my heart throughout the New Year that lies ahead.
Ken Pierpont
The Pastor’s Study
Evangel Baptist Church—Taylor, Michigan
December 28, 2011
Christmas Day my daughter Hannah added a treasure to my library. Jerry Dennis has written another wonderful new book. This one is about the Great Lakes in winter. It is called “The Windward Shore.” Jerry is a skilled writer who lives in Northern Michigan. If you love good writing and nature and Michigan you will love his books.
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