Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Joy on the Road

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

Red Jeep Journal
May 16, 2017

Last week I preached at Bailey Road Baptist and then attended a conference at Parkside Church in Cleveland, where Alistair Begg is the pastor. It was a great time of fellowship, singing, preaching, laughter and good food. My little brother Nathan and brother-in-law Jim Evans were with me.

George the Red Jeep

George the Red Jeep is a very important part of our new traveling ministry. He is seventeen years old, but he runs well, looks good, and gets me where I need to go. I feel a special joy when I check my fluids, pray, turn the key, and start off down the road to wherever God has assigned me. Today I will replace his windshield glass the better to see the beauty of God’s creation on the way to speak to God’s people.

Last Sunday I preached at the Open Door Bible Church in Hudson, Michigan. It is in beautiful Hillsdale County. Saturday I will preach at a men’s retreat in Rose City, sponsored by Oakwood Community Church pastored by my friend Don Jackson. I will travel to South Litchfield Baptist Church on the Lord’s Day. (Mom and Dad’s church). Next Sunday I will head north to St. Clare, Michigan to speak at Crossroads Community Church.

Thanks to the “Fellowship of the Red Jeep”

Jesus’ ministry was sustained by the gifts and hospitality of people who believed in Him. He went about teaching and doing good. In a similar way, the Pierpont Family has been sustained financially by the gifts of God’s people who believed in what we were doing. It’s still that way. Thanks so much for all of you who have been a part of our team. Visit Ripe for Harvest to share a monthly amount for our support.

Full Travel Schedule

Many of you have asked where George the Red Jeep will be taking us. You can now follow us on-line. Check it out. Click this link to see our travel schedule. We will be on the road preaching the gospel and telling stories of Jesus and His love almost non-stop from now to September 10 and beyond as the schedule fills out into the fall and winter of 2018.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
May 16, 2017

Bad Hair Day?

Filed Under: Videos

Do you have a minute for an encouraging story? I was on the road in Ohio and took a minute to share a story. Here it is. Hope is puts a spring in your step today…

Four Facts About Church

Filed Under: Current Thoughts, Village Parson

1. If you go to church you are going to be amazingly blessed by church people.

2. If you go to church you are also going to be deeply hurt by church people.

3. Sometimes the people who bless you are the same people who will hurt you.

4. Sometimes you will be both the one who blessed and the one who hurt.

Don’t doubt that God will work through imperfect church people. Jesus died for the church. Jesus loves the church–she is His bride.. The local church is the hope of the world… Don’t doubt it.

I want to be faithful to Jesus’ church. It’s the least I can do after all He has done for me.

The Fellowship of the Red Jeep

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

Those who join our support team through regular monthly giving are a part of “Fellowship of the Red Jeep.” As you can imagine, this is a very special group to us.

To join our monthly support team or send a gift that is tax-deductible follow this link.

Keeper of the Story

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

Red Jeep Journal
April 28, 2017

Keeper of the Story

God’s truth is life-transforming and powerful. I love to teach the story of God and apply it and illustrate it with memorable stories. Because of that sometimes I call myself a “keeper of the story.” A few weeks ago our son Chuk passed this little nugget of a story along to me. Let me pass it along to you.

Flying and Fishing

“The pilot always looked down intently on a certain valley in the Appalachians when the plane passed overhead.

One day his co-pilot asked, “What’s so interesting about that spot?”

The pilot replied, “See that stream? Well, when I was a kid I used to sit down there on a log and fish. Every time an airplane flew over, I would look up and wish I were flying… Now I look down and wish I were fishing.”

See what I mean about stories? A story is a gift you can give away to others and treasure it still yourself.


Adventures with George the Red Jeep

Sunday April 23rd I was invited to be the guest speaker at Gilead Baptist in Taylor where Tom Downs is pastor. It was a delightful morning. The worship was meaningful and the people were very receptive. It was good to connect with new friends and old. I will include the video at the end of this post if you would like to watch it. We even got treated to some BBQ on Sunday, so it was a real good day.

This week I spent some time building our support team. I drove to St. Clair to meet some new friends. (Figured out that St. Clair and St. Clair Shores are not the same city). We are grateful to the growing group of friends who believe in what we are doing and are helping and encouraging us.

Next week “George” will take me to Ohio so I can preach at Bailey Road Baptist Church then I will spend a few days with my brother Nathan and brother-in-law Jim at a pastor’s conference.

Stay in touch. Let us know if there is any way we can help you.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
April 28, 2017

Ripe for Harvest
Our Mission Agency

We are now have a missionary sending agency that we are working with called Ripe for Harvest. They are handling our donations and helping us with building a team of supporters. Ripe for Harvest is also a 501c3 tax-exempt organization so our donations are now tax-deductible. Click here to visit our support page.

A Life-Altering Epiphany

Filed Under: Faith and Family

Monday used to be my day off. On Monday morning I liked to golf. I had beautiful golf clubs and early in the morning on Monday I had the quiet golf course to myself. I’d usually go nine holes, but sometimes eighteen. It was so early that I would tee-off before the clubhouse would open and pay on my way home. The greens would be wet with dew and when you putt the ball would spin a rooster-tail of water. That would have been in the spring of 1988 almost 30 years ago.

One Monday I came home from a round of golf and I had a powerful epiphany–nothing short of a spiritual enlightenment. I realized that I was giving a few of the best hours of my best day of the week to the game of golf. I liked being outdoors in the spring. I liked the fellowship with my friends. I liked the solitude and quiet of early morning golf. But I realized that I would never really be all that good at it and when I got home the children were up and I had missed the first precious hours of their day… In a moment nothing short of spiritual enlightenment I made a decision.

I listed my gold clubs for sale, sold them, gave the money to Lois and launched the most beautiful, fruitful, fulfilling practice of my life–spending all of every single day off with my family. The next Monday morning the kids woke up to the smell of pancakes on the griddle. I made them what I liked to call “ranch-hand breakfast.” We spent the whole day together in the yard, playing, gardening, or taking day-trips, often to the Ohio Amish Country.

We played football in the yard. We played on the trampoline. We rode bikes. I coached baseball and we went as a family to the boys baseball games. I hit the boys fly-balls. I pushed the girls on the swing. I taught them to ride bikes. We worked with the girls on projects. We took hikes. We even fished a few times. We often had little money so we found fun, free things to do. We made hundreds of trips together to the library.

Many years later, when Kyle was hired to work at a golf-course, we golfed a little. Chuk came along. We got a sawn-off five-iron for Danny. We golfed free because of Kyle’s job. Wes sometimes tagged along… a little too small to golf at the time. …but it really was never about golf, it was about boys.

O the sweet memories I have of those days off when the children were small. It was a wise investment. It was a good decision. It was my best use of time. Those days were rich and fulfilling–irreplaceable, unrepeatable treasures of time and of memory. I never really would have gotten very good a golf, but I was the very best dad those four boys and four girls would ever have.

I have always thanked God for the life-altering epiphany I had that morning to spend the best part of the best day of the week with the people who mean the very most to me in the world. I have never regretted it. I only regret I can never do it again.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
April 28, 2017

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