Here is a message preached at Evangel May 4, 2014 at 11:00 AM. In this message a sure a bit out the mission of our church.
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Why Did She Do It?
Mom is on the left. Her sister, our Aunt Sue is on the right.
Why did she do it?
About fifty years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Clancy Street. My Dad was a seminary student, a student pastor, and he worked at a grocery store in the meat department. Mom had my sister Melony and I make invitations to what she calls a “Five-Day Club.” It was early in the summer. We finished the invitations and went go door-to-door handing out the invitations to our Five-Day Club. The next week for about an hour and a half a day in the morning our back yard was spread with blankets and twelve to fifteen of the neighbor children showed up to hear stories about Jesus and sing Christian songs. Mom used the Wordless Book to explain the gospel. It is one of my earliest memories.
Why did she do that?
Mom had a huge file of visualized Bible and Missionary stories and songs and memory verses. When she visited other churches it was common for people to see her there and ask her to sing. She had an old Avon kit bag she would keep in the car and when asked at the last minute to sing, she was always ready. She would send one of us out to the car for the Avon bag and she would sing with all her heart.
Why did she always do that?
Forty-four years ago, the bus came to a halt in front of Jew Knight’s Sinclair Station on State Route 47 in the tiny village of Logansville, in central Ohio. It was Tuesday evening so instead of crossing the road to our house, my sister Melony and I walked to the little white church. Tuesday night was Good News Club night. Mom and Mrs. Davis gathered the children of the village and we sang songs—eager to take turns holding the flash-cards. We memorized bible verses, and reviewed the books of the Bible. Mom taught a Bible lesson illustrated with flannel graph. Mrs. Davis taught an exciting serialized missionary story with a cliff-hanger at the end so you would want to come back next week to find out what happened to Rangu the Witch-Doctor’s Daughter. There are treats and prizes and friends. Over the years I memorized the stories an irritated my mother by whispering the punch-lines to the kids sitting around me.
Why did she always do these clubs? Why were they so important to her?
She did it because she knew it worked. She knew that that story told from a colorful book without words could completely transform a life and a family forever. It did the Shipley family… a family all broken up back in the late 1940’s. It was at a Vacation Bible School held at Bertrand Bible Church where she and her sister first heard the story of Jesus and believed the Gospel and were saved and forever changed.
But there was another reason. She did it so that we would do it. On Mother’s Day weekend I always talk with my Mom and I say, “What can I get you for Mother’s Day?” She always says something like this: “I just want you to serve the Lord. That’s all I want.”
When I think about it, I do every single day of my life just what Mom showed me how to do years ago. I go invite people to hear about Jesus. I sing songs and teach the Bible and tell exciting cliff-hanger stories to stir-up people’s hearts for Christ and make Him known. I just do all the time what I’ve seen my mother do hundreds and hundreds of times.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 12, 2014
What Are You Good At?
Bob was a quiet man. It was hard to get him to talk. You would ask him a question and he would wait for his wife to bail him out. I figured something out though. There was one thing Bob didn’t let his wife speak for him about: The Cincinnati Reds. He knew every player. He knew every manager. He knew every statistic. He knew Riverfront Stadium. He knew the legends and the lore the history and the future prospects of the Reds. He had a radio by his chair and he listened to Marty Brenneman and the Old Left-hander, Joe Nuxall call every play of every game. He knew the Reds inside and out. If there was a bench-clearing brawl he knew which of the relievers in the bull-pen that was most likely to dive into the pile and come out with someone’s ear in his mouth. He was an expert.
Most of you know that I am the pastor of a church. The church is named Good News! Evangel! I have a dream for this church. I have a dream of a church named Evangel-Good News Baptist—Gospel Baptist—that lives boldly up to her name. A church with 600 members and growing where hundreds of members know the Gospel like Bob knew the Cincinnati Reds.
This year I am preaching through the Epistle to the Romans. One of my main objectives is to use it to train our people to be experts in believing, applying and explaining the gospel. We are going to take a fresh look at the Gospel today and in the weeks to follow an in-depth view… We are going to study the book of the Bible with the clearest and most extended treatment of the gospel. We are going to get our advanced certification in Gospel. I want the members and friends of Evangel to be experts in explaining the gospel.
We have a little strategy at Evangel we call it Operation Evangel. It goes like this: Pray, Love, Invite, Gospel Conversation. It is amazing what can happen in whole families when you simply pray for people, look for ways to love them, invite them to church and into your life, and have natural give-and-take conversations that include clear explanations of the gospel.
Last night two young ladies stood to sing a beautiful song. Before they sang one of them said, “We knew each other before either of us were walking with the Lord. Now here we are in the same church. Because of the diligent love or our members these women and their families came to be followers of Jesus. I baptized all of them right here at Evangel.
What in the world do you know that more important then making the way to heaven clear to people? What in this world is more important than that?
Who are you praying for?
Who are you loving?
Who are you inviting?
Who are you engaging in gospel conversation?
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
March 17, 2014
Grab Them by the Throat
I’m a pastor. Much of what I do involves the thoughtful arrangement of words. I try not to use the first word that comes to mind when trying to deliver the truth of God. Instead I work hard at arranging my words and phrases in such a way that people cannot sleep through them.
I used embellished language… By embellished language I do not mean stretching the truth or distorting the truth for my own purpose. By embellished language I do not mean using impressive or obtuse vocabulary and specialized language that requires a glossary to define. By embellished language I mean arranging or expressing simple words in memorable and evocative ways, like aphorisms or axioms or with a compelling cadence or rhythm.
If words are thoughtfully arranged they can express truths that are often lost in a fog of abstraction and make them as concrete as blood and ice and flowers and life and death.
Often we preachers deal in the most wonderful and eternal truths in such abstract ways that people are completely unmoved. Our words float harmlessly over their heads. Our terms and phrases are so tired and worn and familiar that we are unable to rouse them from their sleep in the face of immanent death. We string together lifeless cliches and wonder why people worship without passion and come and go dutifully from our public services unmoved and unchanged.
Paul used plain language. His language was clear and direct and his message was accompanied by spiritual power. (2 Corinthians 2:4) There is no substitute for the Spirit’s power. We are called to speak for God. We should study the Word of God and pray until we know that what we are saying is faithful to the text and evident in our lives. Then we should express ourselves in plain language and in clear, concrete, fresh, and arresting ways.
Grab them by the throat, I like to say.
Luke Cyrus in Concert at Evangel
I often hear people grieve over young people who have not chosen to embrace the faith of their parents. It always pains me when I hear it, but there are young men and women all around us whose faith is deep, whose love for God is sincere, and whose desire is to live lives of Christian devotion.
After speaking at a Senior High retreat this winter, I sat down with Luke Cyrus and some other young men who lingered after chapel and while the fires burned down to embers, past midnight, we talked about the things of the Lord. Luke was there to help lead the young people in worship. It was rich and fulfilling fellowship. I trudged out into the cold and up the hill over ice and snow to my quarters warmed in my heart by the fellowship and conversation.
Many have somehow missed the beauty of Jesus in their Church experience somehow, but Luke is not one of them.
This afternoon I booked him to come to Evangel the Sunday after Easter to do a full concert. I’m thrilled to have him here. I am going to pray that his faith is infectious.
Here is Luke’s web site.
Five Scriptures for When Life is Hard
John 16:33 in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
2 Cor. 1:8-10 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
Psalm 50:15 call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you will glorify me.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Psalm 27 Look to God for help. Make intimacy with God your chief goal. (4) Seek the face of God. (8)
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