Thank You, Jim Parmalee
Thanks to Jim Evans for snapping this recent photo of the original FBC Wayland building. I helped build this building with my own hands–when I was six.
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Lois and Hope and I are in Oregon visiting Jesse and Holly this week on a vacation. We have seen many of the local sites, Cannon Beech, Haystack Rock, the Astoria Column, Mt. Hood, and Multnomah Falls. There is much, much more to see. Our first morning we had breakfast at a coffee shop built out on an old cannery built on pilings over the Columbia River. We sipped our coffee and ate amazing lemon and blueberry muffins overlooking the vast waterway. Out in the mouth of the Columbia River huge ships were at anchor. It is a place of stunning beauty.
Yesterday we enjoyed a great service at Coastline Christian Fellowship then strolled along the streets of Astoria’s Sunday open-air market among sounds of a folk band and smells of street-vendor food. Today we are spending time with Jesse and Holly and some of their friends, quietly remembering the war dead, and longing for our nation to return to God.
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Thank You, Jim Parmalee
by Ken Pierpont
Jim Parmalee was a Marine ROTC from Wheaton College. He was a farm boy from Michigan. When I was a boy of about 6 years old. He and his family owned the house we lived in. It was the home-place of their family farm. They donated it to the church to use as a parsonage. The lived just down the road and we saw them every day and worshipped with them on Sunday. My Dad was the founding pastor of the church First Baptist Church of Wayland, Michigan.
Jim was a strong, athletic young man. I remember him leaning a ladder against a shed and going up and down the ladder like it was a staircase without using his hands. In my six-year-old eyes he was a young man of heroic qualities. In just a short time he would be a hero to everyone. He went off to Vietnam. He never returned.
One day Dad was walking me through the church building and pointed out the new carpet. He said; “Kenny, when Jim Parmalee died his parents used the insurance money to donate the carpet for the church. That was in 1963. My Dad told me it was anonymous. Jim’s dad, Russell died last year at 102. Today is Memorial Day. I thought it would be O.K. to tell our secret today.
I’m remembering First Baptist Church in Wayland, Michigan and the Parmalee family and the sacrifice Jim made so that we could enjoy a strong, free nation today.
Ken Pierpont
“Seaside Bed and Breakfast”
Seaside, Oregon
May 25, 2015
The Two Peninsulas
My friend Adam has moved to Miami, Florida. He had his devotional time on the beach at sunrise this morning. He grabbed his phone and shot a video of the sand and water and palms bending in the gentle breeze to send to his wife. It was a beautiful scene. He knew I loved nature and beauty and he knew I was praying for him as he tries to get a foothold in Florida and he sent me a copy of the video including a close up of his Bible and a promise underlined there from Proverbs 13:4 “A sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” I will follow his story with interest as he does what he has to do to make his vision for his family come to be. He will have some hard days ahead. I hope he also has time to walk the beach at sunrise and know that his Heavenly Father watches over him and he keeps his promises.
I walk out into an unusually cool May morning here in Michigan—the other Peninsula. As beautiful as his video is—from May to October, Michigan is my favorite peninsula. It’s refreshing and rarely so hot that by evening you cannot stroll out on the street with a glass of tea and chat with neighbors. I will have a few chances this summer to have my devotional time watching the sun come up over a northern lake. If all goes well I may even get to hear the call of the Loon on a summer evening or watch the stars appear in a darkening sky. I will knife through the clear waters in a kayak and in the evening I will aim all my stories at the great story of Christ and his plan to redeem and restore this earth and everything in it and all who believe in Him one day.
This morning, after many years of walking with the Lord and many years of trying to write a beautiful story for my family I especially need the assurance of his presence and a fresh reminder of his promises. I step out onto the porch. It’s a cool, green, refreshing May morning. I turn to the 19th Psalm and to the Proverbs. I drink in his promises. I trust Him to do what only He can do. He is the Author of Life (Acts 3:15) the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) and the faith of each of our children.
When I face hard challenges, when I am wrestling against dark powers that threaten to crush me and those I love, I get up early, I find a quiet spot, I search His word for his promises, and I trust Him to do what only He can do. And it doesn’t hurt if I’m doing all this with a cup of hot black coffee in hand.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 19, 2015
Where Was God When Life Was Dark?
I love this little story by Clovis Chappell that I heard second-hand from Haddon Robinson. Here is how I remember it:
Once a man married a woman from Kentucky. They were young and very deeply in love. Early in their marriage because of illness she lost her mind. Sometimes she would not even recognize him. She couldn’t sleep and sometimes in the night she would cry out so loud the neighbors would complain. They lived in Chicago. He moved her to the western suburbs of Chicago where people would not be disturbed by her cries but he refused to institutionalize her.
She rarely talked coherently but just cried out with horrifying cries of deranged fear. One of the doctors suggested that if she returned to her childhood home-place in Kentucky for a visit maybe something there would snap her back into reality… He got her in a car and made the trip—to her childhood home in Kentucky.
He walked with her through the meadows among flowers and birdsong. He climbed hills and sat with her and listened to the burbling stream. The visited the town where she grew up and the home where she lived. Nothing seemed to help. Defeated, he helped her into the car and started home. Then something unusual happened. She fell into a deep sleep. All the way home she slept. When he arrived home it was near evening. She did not awaken. He tenderly carried her into the house and laid her in the bed. He sat down in a chair in the room and watched her quiet sleep hour after hour.
After many hours the light of morning began to stream though the window and she woke up. When she sat up in bed and her eyes were clear. Her mind was sharp. She said; “I feel like I’ve just returned from a very long and difficult journey. …Where were you?”
He moved to her and took her in his arms and tenderly said; “I never left your side. I was right here with you all the time.”
Sometimes, for all of us, things seem very dark and confusing and we feel deeply sad or frightened, but one day the light of eternity will stream though the window and then we will know that our Heavenly Father was there all the time. Even in our darkest nights He never left our side.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 11, 2015
The Smell of Spring in Your Soul
I was about thirteen when I started saving money from my paper route for a new bike. I rose at five in the morning six days a week from about 11 to 17 years old to deliver the Dayton Journal Herald. I’ve been an early-riser since. Dad saw that I was a high-energy kid and knew the discipline would be good for me and contribute to keeping me out of trouble.
I made about fifteen dollars a week. Dad had me open a passbook savings account and save most of what I made. After my tithe and a little spending money the rest was to go in the bank to save for college.
My bikes were always nice, reliable, used bikes pieced together from here and there—but now that I was making regular money I started thinking about a new bike—a brand new bike with speeds and skinny tires and hand brakes. I watched other kids ride past the house on bikes like that. Now that I was making my own money I could see myself on such a bike.
One Saturday morning running errands with Dad I found a bike at Western Auto. It was a 26 inch 3-speed. It was metallic yellow with bright, polished, chrome fenders. It was not a ten-speed English racing bike but we were common folk who did not squander money on such luxuries. Three speeds were more than enough to get me around town and it was a major up-grade from the red balloon-tired 24 inch Schwinn with side-baskets that I used to deliver papers and the little spray-painted, brown, fender-less Stingray that I bought for sixteen dollars.
I laid the bike away and arranged to pay around three dollars a week for it. If I remember it was sixty-nine dollars new. I think I put twenty dollars down to lay it away. Toward the spring of the year I sat down and did the math. I would have the bike paid off toward the end of August—after the summer had gone.
Then something wonderful happened. One Saturday morning just after the last day of school Dad said; “Son, I want you to walk to the bank this morning and withdraw some money from your savings account. I want you to pay off your bike and ride it home so you can enjoy it this summer.”
My heart began to pound. I ran to the bank, waited for it to open, and rode home with the wind in my hair fast as lightning. It was an embarrassment of riches. It was a think of beauty. It smelled new. I shifted. I braked. It was smooth and sleek and fast. That morning will live in my heart forever. You don’t forget something like that.
Today I’m a pastor and my bikes spend most of the year hanging up-side down from the ceiling of the garage. I rarely ride them. Mostly I drive wherever I go in my Jeep or a simple, utilitarian, Chrysler four-door sedan. I preach and I call and I witness and I counsel. One of my most important jobs is to show people how they can live free of guilt and shame, no matter how dark or troubled their past has been. Sometimes I tell them this: “When your sins are confessed and forsaken and they are under the blood of Jesus you are living under the mercy, free as a boy with a new bike on the first day of summer riding with the wind in your face not a care in the world.”
That’s what I tell them. And I can smell spring somewhere down deep in my very own soul.
Ken Pierpont
Parson-Storyteller
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 9, 2015
Are You Serious? (Sermon)
Series: Barn Raising: Becoming an Irresistible Community of Love
Title: Are You Serious?
Text: Matthew 5:21-24
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Date: May 3, 2015 AM
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
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