Current Thoughts

Bob called me a couple years ago and told me a story that reminded me of how powerful and important the church can be in the lives of people.

He had just returned from a men’s retreat in Michigan sponsored by his church. There was an outdoor bonfire and testimony time on Saturday night at the close of the retreat. During the bonfire a man stood and began to weep. He said; “I can’t believe I even came to this retreat.”

He was invited by a friend on Friday and was at the retreat on Friday night. Through tears the man told how he had discovered that his wife had been involved in an adulterous relationship behind his back for two years. He had obtained a gun and intended to take her life. That very day a friend invited him to the retreat.

Behind him another man stood and embraced him and shared that he had gone through the same thing. The men of the church gathered around and prayed for him.

You may not think you need church or people, but don’t forget that there are people there who need you. People need you much, much, more than you realize. Your presence, your listening, your touch, and your time are much more powerful than you may ever know.

Joe Aldrich said; “Bake bread, pies, cookies, or muffins. Fix garbage disposals or toilets, help people with their homes or projects, celebrate with them, grieve with them. Done in the name of Christ such actions become spirit-empowered weapons which are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”

They say it will be a beautiful weekend, warming and sunny. I hope you are able to take advantage of the long, holiday weekend to strengthen your relationships with those you love. And I hope you will join us and keep your eyes and your heart open to those around you who need you more than you know.

Pastor Ken Pierpont
The Study – Evangel Baptist Church
May 23, 2008

“Bake bread, pies, cookies, or muffins. Fix garbage disposals or toilets, help people with their homes or projects, celebrate with them, grieve with them. Done in the name of Christ such actions become spirit-empowered weapons which are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”

I like the solitude of distance running. When I run I have time to think about things without distraction or interruption. I have time to pray and think and meditate on Scripture. Often I listen to lively worship music on my iPod or birdsongs along the way.

A few years ago we were Kentucky to attend Lois’ grandmother’s funeral. I was training to run a marathon. The day after the funeral, early in the morning, it was foggy and cold in the mountains. I would put in almost fourteen miles on my run that day.

Before I left I gave Kyle money to treat the rest of the family to breakfast and asked him to drive out to the turnaround point with some water in about an hour. I said good-bye to the kids and then ran out of the village into the mountains. I ran on the wide margin of the road up and down grades longer than a mile at some points. At the mid-point in my run, just before the turnaround I began to think about the kids and wondered if they remembered my water.

I once read a book called The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. With a little experience in distance running it occurred to me that distance running is not an exercise in loneliness but an experience of solitude. It was the solitude of long-distance running that I enjoyed.

I was six and a half miles out on my run when I heard a horn beeping in the distance. It was our van full of my children. They had remembered my water. As they approached they were cheering wildly as if I had just broken the tape for first place in the Boston Marathon. The cold water was good but the encouragement was like a shot of adrenalin my veins.

I ran on for another half mile and then turned around to start back toward the village with a new spring in my step. I was alone again. Kyle reminded me that when I turned around I was in for a long grade over a mile and a half long.

On I ran. A few miles later I saw someone running toward me which shocked me because a runner in the rural mountain village of my wife’s childhood was as rare as a grass skirt on an Eskimo. It was Kyle. He had dropped of the rest of the family and then ran out to join me. We would run the last few miles back together. Having him along made the hills a little easier. A mile or two further another runner rounded the bend in the road. It was Chuck. This was love. Chuk is a biker – not particularly a runner. We all ran together back to town.

Out on the road in the heat and the hills it is tempting to walk off and give up the race but I didn’t quit. I finished and I finished strong, a half-marathon distance, not just because of the training or the strength in my legs and lungs, but because I had people to love me and encourage me.

It’s amazing what people can do with a little encouragement and a little cold water along the way.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 19, 2008

Before summer ends you might want to consider reading The Shaping of A Christian Home by Elizabeth Elliot. She writes beautifully of her family summer cottage in Franconia, Maine. She mentions, as I recall, that every family should have a place to get away together.

The summer of my fourteenth year Dad and Mom planned a wonderful family vacation that I will never forget. We loaded up our 1969 Chrysler and took a road trip. We tented through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and back home by way of Washington D. C. and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. To save money we stayed in a tent and cooked our own meals on a camp stove. That stove was a real life saver and it fit in our backpack, which made the trip so much more enjoyable, it really pays off to invest in the top tactical backpack for the money. It was a wonderful vacation. Whenever we could we talked Dad into staying at a campground with a swimming pool.

We tented in a large canvass cabin tent big enough to sleep eight average-sized people who didn’t mind sleeping close enough to hear one another breathe. I remember the night we bought it. It wasn’t a cottage in Franconia, but served a similar purpose for our family.

We got so we could get that cabin tent set up in minutes after we arrived at our campsite so we could cool off in the pool before supper. Most nights I slept in my own small pup tent, a tent I earned in a newspaper sales contest. It had no floor but I improvised one from thick plastic. Each night I inflated an air mattress, unrolled my sleeping bag on it, positioned my AM radio near my pillow and went to sleep listening to baseball when I was in range of AM 700 out of Cincinnati. If we were out of range or the Reds were having an off night I went to sleep to the sound of crickets and frogs.

One memorable night in Tennessee we camped at a State Park. We set up our cabin tent under a big white pine. I went to work readying my personal tent. I lay the plastic down first then set my tent up over it. I rolled the extra plastic up in a roll and used clothes pins to clip the rolls to the side of the tent. I tried my cool gel mattress, unrolled my sleeping bag, put my radio under my pillow and tied back the tent flaps so the breeze would blow thorough.

The breeze that made music in the pine branches crescendoed into a strong wind and blew in a storm. I unrolled the tent flaps and lay back down to listen to the rain on my tent. The rain ran down the sides of my tent and the plastic rolls created a gutter which caught the rain. The water was over an inch deep on the floor of the tent and I didn’t have any idea until one of my shoes floated past my head.

My family had the happy experience of my company in the big tent that night. It must have been like having a big, wet dog sleeping on the foot of your bed. I don’t think they were very happy about it. I don’t know how they feel about it today but it is a happy memory to me.

We didn’t have a cottage in Maine. We visited my grandparents farm in Ohio on special days and for a week or so in the summer but our family doesn’t own a cabin in the mountains or a house on the lake. I doubt if we ever will. I do speak and do ministry in some beautiful places – places with water and forest, kayaks and mountain bikes, great food, hot showers, comfortable quarters and rich Christian fellowship. And I have happy memories of a family vacation in the Smokys, food outdoors, gazing into a campfire, swimming and diving with my brothers and my sister. I have memories of walking under the stars, sleeping on a picnic table, even treading water in my tent one night.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 12, 2008