Faith and Family

Last year I spoke at Grace Bible College in Grand Rapids. Monday Hannah and Daniel moved onto campus and joined the class of 2014. We like them being together and we like them being close to the family. It’s sad to see Wes and Dan separated. They have been inseparable buddies for years.

We bought them a few things they would need over their continual objections. They thanked us over and over again for the few simple things we did buy. As the sun set we prayed through happy tears, took a few last pictures, and drove away—commending them to God. They stood and waved until we were out of site. As dusk turned to night, one at a time, memories came of the joy of raising the two of them.

They are both middle children who learned to be happy sharing. They always shared rooms with siblings. Many of their clothes were worn by someone else first. They didn’t expect much and they were grateful for anything they had. They looked up to their older siblings and influenced the younger. Before we knew it they were beautiful young people, making their own way.

They both are sincerely following Christ and training to serve Him more effectively. On the trip home Lois and I felt the embrace of our Father and a warm wave of gratitude for the gift that Hannah and Daniel are to us.

Today is a bitter-sweet day for us. Two of our eight children have married and live in other states. Three more will leave today. Holly and Hannah are leaving this morning for the summer to counsel at Lake Ann. I’ve seen what the girls are taking to camp for the summer. Holly’s little Ford will be full to the sunroof. If they ever need money they can start a Thrift Store with their clothes. My heart rejoices to think of them driving into the beauty of northern Michigan to spend the summer in the service of Christ.

Chuk will stuff his green Pathfinder and move to South Bend this evening. He will have a new ministry with the Jr. High youth at Grace Church where Kyle is the youth pastor and he will work at Lowes in Mishawaka.

This summer there will only be three of our eight children at home. It’s a high emotional price to pay to lower the food bill a little. When they go they never take all their stuff so you see it and it triggers sweet memories. I’m glad we live in the day of electronic communication. We have Skype, and e-mail, Facebook, Gmail, texts, iPods and Blackberries, so we can keep in continual touch with each other. I am deeply grateful that each of the children are serving the Lord. This has been our life-long passion for each of them. Since you are Stonebridge reader, you will be hearing their stories.

In early November 1991 a little baby boy Daniel came into our world. He was born at home in our humble farmhouse in Ohio, where the last few hills of the Appalachians flatten out into farmland stretching all the way to the Rockies. Our home was nestled there in a quiet valley. Ours was the last house on the dead-end road that stretched back to where, seventy years ago, the Kokosing River washed out the bridge. It was November 8th and outside the northern sky was lighting up in a rare display of the Aroura Borealis—the Northern Lights almost never visible as far south as Ohio.

That night all seemed well within. After a reasonable labor Daniel was born. The midwife left. The children slept. The hose grew quiet. The only noise was the furnace blower kicking on every few hours. When the fan would stop you could hear the little sucking and swallowing noises as our newborn nursed. But in the middle of the night fear swept over Lois. It was another sound. His heartbeat. I didn’t sound right. She woke me up. We bundled up our little son and drove to the Emergency Room. An elderly doctor examined him—put him through a series of tests including inserting a long needle through his tiny abdomen and into his bladder. He screamed and we both cried.

Eventually the doctor sent us home. We drove quietly back to our silent home in the country under starlight. Sunday morning I was interrupted while preaching. Daniel was admitted to the hospital. He was put into an incubator for days. His little arms and legs were tied down. Our hearts ached for him. Some friends visited us and prayed with us. After a few days he was declared well and released to go home.

Our baby would be fine. Now I began to worry about the bills. On the way home Lois showed signs of a dangerous infection. We drove from the hospital in Licking County to the hospital in Knox County. Lois was admitted—shaking with fever.

At was a frightening and confusing time. We wanted to have a large family that would bring honor to the Lord. We hoped for a happy, healthy, holy family, but it seemed that things were not going according to plan. That night in the hospital, my heart was heavy with questions and doubts. Finally Lois went to sleep. I stood in the darkened room watching her—my little wife who had brought six children into the world. She would be pregnant three more times and bear another son and another daughter. But in the dark hospital room my spirit was darkened with doubt.

For some reason, in the quiet, I opened the drawer beside her bed. There was nothing in the drawer but a New Testament—a beautiful green Gideon New Testament with Psalms. I picked it up and held it in my hands. The feel of the little Bible in my hands comforted me. I turned to the Psalm that God had used to put a burden for a large family in my heart, Psalm 127. I read it again silently.

I continued reading the next Psalm. I read it with fresh eyes as if I had never savored the poetry of it or experienced the truth of it before. As I read the Psalm in came to my heart with special, personal application. It was as if the Spirit of God had guided another believer to place that testament in that drawer—as if he had gently guided my hand to open it and my heart to read the Psalms.

Lois woke. Her dark eyes held mine and she was silent. Working to keep back tears I read aloud this beautiful Psalm and it was as if it was describing our very own family.

Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. [2] When you eat the labor of your hands, You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. [3] Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants All around your table. [4] Behold, thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD. [5] The LORD bless you out of Zion, And may you see the good of Jerusalem All the days of your life. [6] Yes, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel! (Psalms 128:1-6 NKJV)

Daniel is a strong, athletic, strapping young man now. He is the first of my sons who is my equal in height. In a few weeks he will put his things in his car and drive away to college and I will miss his smile and his easy presence around our house, but for a little while he and all this brothers and sisters were gathered around out table—and around their mother—in the very heart of our house.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 20, 2010

The children have been buzzing with eager excitement all day. It’s an early summer evening. We’re on the way to see the Columbus Clippers play baseball. We stop at Meijer to get a two-liter for the kids to wash down a meal from the Dollar Menu so we would have the will-power to resist the expensive hot-dogs and five-dollar ball-park Cokes.

By the time we were able to get the family all to the park we were a little late. I don’t like being late. I like to get my money’s worth. I wanted to be there to see the players warm up. I wanted to see the opening ceremonies and sing the National Anthem. I wanted to see the team take the field. I wanted to be there for the opening pitch. I wanted to get the best seats possible. We would need to hurry.

We park the van as close as we can to the stadium. You can see it in the distance. Daniel is about three. “Daniel, take my hand, son.” We stride through the crowded parking lot between cars toward the ball park.

You can smell the grilled onions and hear the vendors barking and the crescendo of the organ.

I don’t really care much about the Clippers or baseball. I just want to make a memory with the family and I am in a hurry to do it. I like sports, but it’s not an addiction. I love the game of baseball, but it’s not an obsession. I don’t get tickets often and I want to be there on time. I just know this is an evening that we will remember for a long time—if we can just get to our seats.

I have an odd personality quirk. I just hate the feeling of missing out on things. If there is action I don’t want to hear about it from the next room. I don’t want to read about it next week. I want to be right in the middle of it. When a big cheer comes up from the crowd I don’t want to be out in the parking lot wondering what happened.

“Here, Dan, hold on to my hand. Let’s walk a little faster.”

“Dad, I have to go back. I forgot my glove.”

“Don’t worry about it son. We’re not going to play, we’re just going to watch.”

“But, Dad, I want to catch a foul ball.”

We go back for the glove.

“OK. Let’s go. Give me your hand.”

A roar goes up from within.

“Did the game start, Dad.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Do you think somebody else will get the good seats?”

“Not if we hurry. Can you walk just a little faster?”

“Will I get to catch a fly ball?”

“Maybe, if we get in there before the game’s over.”

“Dad?”

“What, son.”

“Do they have bathrooms in there?”

“Sure. Do you see that long line of men over there? They’re waiting to use the bathroom. Do you need…”

“Well, you better hurry.”

Suddenly a loud crack sounds behind me. Simultaneously a lurch against my hand. Then a sickening silence. A child getting ready to wail in pain. Then the wailing begins and Danny his holding his face and jogging up and down in pain. I have pulled my little boy with a red ball cap and a shock of sun-bleached hair jutting out into the side-view mirror of a parked car. The impact is so hard. It loosens the mirror. I pull his hands away from his face. No blood, but a bright read crescent under his eye on his right cheek.

He smiles up at me through tears and says, “We better hurry, Dad. We don’t want to miss the game.”

Sometimes I get in such a hurry that the memory I make is not the one I hoped for. Danny starts college this fall.

“Danny, have you ever had peanuts at the ball park? They tatste better there than anywhere else in the world. You’re never gonna’ forget this.”

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 10, 2010

If any of you ever happen to run across any storyteller signs, cups, or license plates, let me know. I love to tell stories, collect stories, hear stories, and write stories. Seventy percent of the Bible is in some form of story. The gospel that changes lives is a story. One of the most powerful ways to motivate, convict, convince, and influence people is through stories. The enemy uses them every day. People of God should too.

Have you ever noticed that grandpas are almost always story-tellers? And they usually repeat the same stories over and over again. Every grandpa I know does this. Was your Grandfather like this? Mine was.

One of my sweetest childhood memories is of my Grandparent’s farm. It was a simple farm snug in the foothills of the foothills of the Appalachians in southeast Ohio. We lived a ways away so going to the farm was always an adventure and a pilgrimage.

Sometimes we would arrive long after dark. After eating a bowl of cereal we would go up to bed in the big bedroom directly over the living room. We would try to go to sleep. The old house had no heating ducts running to the upstairs bedrooms. Heat radiated up the stairs and through a register cut in the floor of the bedroom. One night lying in bed I heard happy voices from the room below and I could see light. I got out of bed and looked down through the register. The register was directly over my grandfather’s choir. I felt the smile of heaven.

I lay there on my belly and night and watched and listened. I loved the musical sound of happy voices drifting up from below. All the adults would stay up for hours later than usual catching up on news and talking about old times.

Grandpa was a gifted story-teller. He had a way of painting pictures with words. He told of childhood memories, some of them sad and some of them silly. He told war stories of his time in the South Pacific during World War II. He told stories of his experiences as a diver, a boxer, baseball player. He told of what it was like to live through the Great Depression. He told of his experiences as a country pastor, and he told stories from Fiberglass in Newark where he worked for 37 years. He told stories about things that happened on the farm and colorful interesting tales about characters he knew from the community.

They were stories I would never forget. They were memorable because we all revered and loved Grandpa. They were also memorable because they were well told. And they were memorable because they were usually funny. They were also memorable because he told them over and over again. He always seemed a little irritated if you reminded him that you had already heard a story. The information that he had already told you a story never even mildly discouraged him from telling it again.

Sometimes in the summer we all attended a church conference in southern Ohio together. All the men would sleep in a simple old building built long and low like a barracks. They called the meeting Christian Union Council. At night we would lie still in our cots while one of the old preachers would play his harmonica. He was a meek old bachelor from southern Ohio named Sooter Hoople.

After the last strain of the harmonica music faded to the sound of crickets the men would tell stories. I lay in bed listening, never saying anything, feeling secure and happy, and enjoying the company of these simple Christian people. Grandpa’s stories were always favorites. I could tell that Grandpa was a man people loved and admired like I did.

Maybe it was looking down through the heater grate in the old farmhouse that I first began to feel the power of stories. Maybe it was lying in my cot on the old conference grounds in Greenfield, Ohio. Maybe it was sitting in the pew in the tiny church in Linnville when I would be aroused from my daydream in the middle of a message by the insertion of a personal story. Maybe it was in the after-school Bible clubs that my mother taught or listening to Aunt Bea on Children’s Bible Hour, or listening to Dad’s preaching. (Isn’t it always the stores that we remember most about preaching?).

I believe in the power of stories. I love to listen to them. I love to read them. I love to collect them. I love to write them. I love to tell them. I believe the eternal destiny of a person’s soul turns on the power of a story. That story is called the Gospel. It is the story of Jesus, why he lived, where he came from, why he died and rose again. I believe in the power of stories to change people for the better. I believe in the power of stories to inspire acts of service and sacrifice. I believe in the power of stories to stir men and women to loyalty and love.

A Dad’s Delightful Duty

When my Grandpa told stories it seemed as natural as sunshine. I didn’t realize at the time that what he was doing is actually commanded repeatedly in the Scripture. Here are a few examples.

• Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, (Deuteronomy 4:9)
• Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. (Joel 1:3)
• One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)
• Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. (Psalm 71:18)

God knows we need to remember those stories so he commanded us to repeat them.

What a delightful duty, to take a little one on your lap and tell them a story. What a pleasant responsibility to sit in a tree-stand with your grandson and tell him stories of the working of God through the years. What an easy yoke, to canoe with your daughter across a misty lake in the early morning and with the call of a loon in the background tell her stories of God’s kindness and love in your life. How kind and creative for the Heavenly Father to command earthly fathers to tell stories to their children.

Such a command sounds too good to be true so let me show you proof. Matthew 13:34 records that there was a point in his ministry that Jesus never taught without telling stories. “Without a parable he did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” This is a quote from a Psalm. A careful study of that Psalm will reveal that there are some powerful promises implied in it attached to stories. Among other things stories can help protect our children from defection from the faith when things get tough. Within the Psalm is a delightful truth that can protect the children we love from the epidemic of rebellion that is sweeping our land.

That is the promise implied in verses 7-11.

“That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law; And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them.”

“That they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments…

Above all devout people want their sons and daughters to:
Set their hope in God
Not forget the works of God
Not be stubborn and rebellious
Not turn back when things become difficult but be steadfast with God
Not break covenant with God and reject the law of God
Again… not forget the works of God.

Our children do not generally lack exposure to the salient points of the gospel. They are not unfamiliar with the accounts of scripture or the claims of Christ. But many stray from Christian homes into the way of unrighteousness as if they have no concern that they will stand before God in judgment one day. They seem to have no fear of God. They seem to “forget the works of God,” and disregard his commands.

It would be legitimate to title this Psalm “A Dad’s Delightful Duty.” A careful consideration of the Psalm reveals four clear examples of the kinds of stories Dads can tell that will keep their children’s hearts tender to God and bold for Him. The Psalm is Psalm 78.

Why Are Stories So Important?

Give ear, O my people, [to] my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide [them] from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know [them, even] the children [which] should be born; [who] should arise and declare [them] to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation [that] set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. The children of Ephraim, [being] armed, [and] carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law; And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them. (Psalms 78:1-11 KJV)

You don’t have to read very far into this psalm before you realize some of the reasons stories are so important. Asaph says; “Tell your children and grandchildren stories so they will set their hope in God.” (7) “Tell them stories so they will not rebel.” (8) “Tell them stories so they will not turn back in the day of battle.” (9) Can stories really do all of that?

Something happens when young men and women have first-hand experience with the reality of a Living God in their own life and in their own family history. Do you want your children and grandchildren to set their hope in God and remember the works of God and keep the commandments of God? Do you want them to have a spirit of submission to God with a right heart? Do you want them to have a spirit that is faithful to God? Do you want them to be strong in spiritual warfare? Then it is your duty to tell them sacred stories.