Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

On Eating an Apple

Filed Under: Faith and Family, Village Parson

He worked hard but when he arrived home it would still be a few hours before sunset. He got an apple and his pocket knife and sat on the edge of the porch in the sun. The simple pleasures of the warm sun on his head and the sweet taste of the apple took him back in time 50 years to his boyhood in the little village of Logansville.

In his memory he is eating a small apple, a tart Jonathan. He is wearing his Levis and a pull-over tee-shirt with stripes. A red felt ball cap is sitting back on this head, a shock of white-blond hair jutting out from under the bill of the cap. Birds are singing and school is out for the summer. Bright sun is taking the chill off of the morning.

His dad is the pastor of the little white church on the edge of the village. Their home is the modest parsonage across the road. He always has his chores in the morning, but by late morning or early afternoon on those summer days he rides his bike along country roads around the little village where they live. He picks up empty bottles and cashes them in for a cold orange pop and drinks it on the steps of the Sinclair station. He has a red bike with 24 inch balloon-style tires and coaster brakes. (Think Opie Taylor and you will have the picture clearly in mind).

For a dollar a week he push-mowes the church lawn. Pop is fifteen cents and a candy bar is a nickel. They take a trip every week out River Road to the dump and bring along the BB-gun to take turns “plinking” cans. Dad makes 80.00 a week. Every Friday the boy rides up the hill to the treasurer’s house to get the check and a dozen brown eggs. The church provides the parsonage. There always seems to be enough.

One afternoon his Dad built him a small “tree-fort” up in the branches of a Maple. He spent hours there that summer. They have a garden. They even have a chicken for a while. They have a mutt dog, the boy’s companion.

Funny what you think about when you are sitting in the sun munching an apple on a summer evening. What he didn’t know as a boy was that the feeling of warm sun on his head, the tart sweetness of the apple, the sound of the birds, the quietness and sense of well-being in his heart, the thoughtfulness and the thankfulness behind them… each of these were acts of worship to His God and they would follow him through his life and overtake him time and again when driving down a long country road, or hearing the strains of organ music, or singing an old hymn that reminded him of Prayer Meeting night in the little white church across the road in the village of his boyhood.

Now he is grown and has grandchildren. He is a pastor himself, has been for 40 years. On Sundays he stands in the front row and throws back his head and sings along with the praise team with his whole heart…

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”

Bittersweet Farm
June 2019

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 49) When the Tent Collapsed

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

It’s been a wet spring out on Bittersweet Farm, but it was dry enough to mow last night. Bt evening, I enjoyed the solitude of riding the tractor and the satisfaction of a job well done. After dinner Lois and I sat out on the east-facing porch looking out over the lawn feeling grateful to God for our little place and for our life.

We had Laela, Aspen, and Gunnison with us for the evening. They are delightful little people. It is a reminder to us of those sweet, brief years when our house was full of life and noise and laugher and chaos. Last night little Gunnison got in bed with us and started to fuss. I pulled up a video of his Dad, Chuk, playing the guitar and singing. He cooed along and drifted off to sleep. I hope you are sleeping well and you have a few minutes each evening to reflect on what you have accomplish and what God has done for you.

When the Tent Collapsed

Our family attended an annual meeting of our fellowship of churches when I was about 14. Dad was a bi-vocational pastor. At heart he was a pastor. To support his ministry he taught school. Dad was not a school teacher who pastored on the side. Dad was a pastor who taught school to pay the bills. He is still a pastor but he has not taught school for many, many years.

That summer he and mom decided we would attend the national conference in Kansas City. Mom and Dad wanted to strengthen our faith and our resolve to serve the Lord more than anything in the world. They wanted us to have a happy and enriching experience. They wanted to take advantage of the trip to broaden our exposure to our nation’s history and heritage and natural beauty. We did not have a lot but they did not want us to be uncultured.

We would make a vacation of it by seeing some places of historic interest and we would save money and make it a bit of an adventure by camping out in a tent. A family of six, we filled every seat of the Chrysler and packed the truck full with a tent and gas stove and sleeping bags and bibles and suits and dresses and everything you might need for a vacation to the annual meeting and Bible conference.

It must have been humorous to the other families who were vacationing at the crowded campground out along Interstate 70 that week to see the family of six emerge every morning, Dad brothers and I wearing suits and ties, Mom and Melony in dresses, Scofield Bibles tucked under our arms, off to the conference. The meeting was held in a convention center and attended by thousands.

Things went fairly well until the day it rained all day, I mean all day long. By the time we returned to the campsite, the drenching all-day rains had stopped and the the sky had cleared but our tent had collapsed in the storm and lay pitifully under pools of water. I could tell Dad was discouraged. Mom was really trying her best to be a good sport but camping was not an adventure to her, it was an economic necessity. It was difficult for her to sleep on the ground. She had a great spirit and loved the things of the Lord. She longed to enjoy Bible preaching a music so much that she was willing to endure the camping, but now everything we had was rain-soaked except the outfits we were wearing. We did our best to get our things together and we all went to sleep in a soggy tent with wet sleeping bags.

Dad was discouraged. We agreed never to try to camp out and attend a Bible Conference again and made our way home agreeing that it was probably a bad idea. I know Dad felt defeated. He was discouraged that he did not have the means to put us up in a nice hotel and have sit-down meals at restaurants. I happen to know that he felt like a loser and a failure. In unguarded moments he wrestled with feelings of defeat. I’m sure he felt deeply that he failed at all of his objectives for his family that summer, but he did not fail. He succeeded.

At the time dad pastored a new church plant that was small. We had no pipe organ, no large choir. We had simple gospel singing lead by one of the men and accompanied by the piano back home. At the conference the music was moving. Mom and Dad would sing from their hearts. Well-known, respected national leaders preached. We took notes. It was a good conference. There were displays of christian books which always captured my interest. There were many other families. There were displays and presentations from missions organizations and colleges and seminaries.

I remember the evangelism seminary with Robert Sumner. It stirred my heart win people to Christ. I remember the book my Dad bought me from the book table. I remember tears flowing down Mom and Dad’s faces as they sang with thousands of others. I remember the powerful preaching stirring my heart to one day preach the Word with that kind of confidence, conviction and power. I remember the joy of a few simple meals out and treats at night on the way home from the conference. I have joyful memories of getting back to the campgrounds and night and changing into my swimming trunks that week and learning to swim in the little pool. That summer I was able to jump of the high-dive and swim to the side of the pool. I had never been able to two that before.

Today my sister is a pastor’s wife and has been for many, many decades. I have been a pastor serving the Lord with all my heart for forty years, singing and preaching and teaching and writing and doing everything I can to pour my heart into the Lord’s work. My little brother Kevin, who on those long vacation trips sat between me and my sister Melony with his feet on the “hump” is a faithful pastor and serves full-time today at Camp Barakel making fine Bible Conference and Camp experiences possible for hundreds and hundreds of people every year. My little brother Nathan who sat in front between mom and dad in the old Chrysler has also been a pastor for many years, a fine, faithful, passionate musician, teacher, and preacher with a beautiful Christian family.

The tent caved in and we were not rich. We didn’t have a fancy camper or money for a suite in the hotel. Dad was not a nationally-recognized leader with a position in the fellowship of churches. But the man who put together that trip to Kansas City was not at all a failure. He wanted to do something that would encourage his family to love and serve Jesus and, by God’s grace, he succeeded. All of his children are serving the Lord today and each of them have labored in the same way to raise their children to know and love and serve Jesus too.

The tent collapsed and the family looked a little odd emerging from the tent in suits and ties and dresses on their way to the Bible Conference, but God was at work in the hearts of my parents and I will always thank God for them and try to do with my life what they have done with theirs.

Bittersweet Farm
June 18, 2019

Chuck Swindoll on Stories

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

In 1979 Lois and I were newly-married. To pay for our living expenses and try to get to college to continue to prepare for the ministry I drove a lunch wagon affectionately referred to as “The Roach Coach.” I listened to Christian radio continually. New on the radio that year was a young pastor with a fresh approach. His name was Chuck Swindoll. I loved his style. He was a faithful Bible teacher. He was an expositor. He was a story-teller. Recently he wrote on the power of story:

Stories
by Chuck Swindoll

Matthew 13

Stories transport us into another world. They hold our attention. They become remarkable vehicles for the communication of truth and meaningful lessons that cannot be easily forgotten. If a picture is better than a thousand words, a story is better than a million!

Some of the best stories are those spun from everyday life or from our past. Family histories are held together and handed down from generation to generation in stories. And these strong cords of memory actually become the ties that bind.

Biographies drip with interesting accounts worth passing on. For example, Human Options by the late Norman Cousins is a treasure house of his recollections, impressions, and encounters distilled from his dozen or more trips around the world. He calls it an “autobiographical notebook.”

Stories, real and imagined, told with care and color, can say much more than a planned speech. It is probably not surprising, then, that the use of story was Jesus’ favorite method of preaching: “he did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Matt. 13:34, NIV).

In fact, I’ve never heard a great preacher who couldn’t tell a good story. Woven into the tapestry of the strong message is the ability to communicate solid stuff through an attention-getting story.

Had I lived in Spurgeon’s day, I would no doubt have subscribed to his material. He published one sermon per week for every year of his ministry, from 1855 until his death in 1892. So prolific was this prince of the pulpit, that at his death there were still so many unpublished Spurgeon sermons, they continued to be printed at the same rate for twenty-five more years. Many include wonderful, memorable stories.

Are you interested in getting truth to stick in your child’s head? Use a story. Can’t seem to penetrate your teenager’s skull? Try a story. Need a tip for making your devotional or Sunday school lesson interesting? Include a story. Want to add some zest to your letter-writing ministry? A brief story will do the trick. Want to learn how to tell them so folks will stay interested? Listen to Paul Harvey.

Best of all, read your Bible. His Story is one you won’t be able to put down.

Grandparents (and parents, too) need to be reminded that our little ones love to hear about how it was and what it was that brought us to this moment. Tell your stories! Consider recording them or writing them down for future generations.

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