Subscribe to the Ken Pierpont Storytelling Podcast
Storytelling Podcast RSS Feed
Storytelling Podcast in iTunes
Thinking About the Rest of My Life
I’m in mid-life. I’m not at all in a mid-life crisis, but aging is sobering and thought-provoking. What am I to do with the rest of my life? At mid-life you think every day about how much time you have left to do what God has called you to do this side of the next life.
I’m a Follower of Jesus.
This I know. I am a follower of Jesus and I always will be. Whatever my future holds I will always and eternally be first and foremost a joyful, willing follower of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is my Savior. He is my Lord. He is my Treasure.
I’m a Husband.
September 8th of 1979, 35 years ago, Lois and I began to walk together in the covenant of marriage. As long as God gives us life we will walk together for the glory of God. It is my blessed duty to love her and to cherish her.
I’m a Father of Four Sons and Four Daughters.
God has “graced” us with these children. All but one of whom is now an adult. Within a month half of them will be married. By God’s grace and protection, by the month of October there will be a grand-daughter (Keira Lee Hancock), and four grand-sons; (Kyle, Oliver, and Leland Pierpont-born to Kyle and Elizabeth) and a male child born to Heidi and Austin. I know that a major part of my calling is to be an influence and example to this clan to inspire and instruct and influence them to treasure Christ and make Him known.
I’m a Pastor.
I have been a pastor for 35 years. I am about to complete my seventh year as the Sr. Pastor of Evangel Baptist Church in Taylor, Michigan. It is my duty to shepherd the flock of 600 active members, to teach them, warn them, train them, protect them spiritually, guide them into holy living by my teaching and the example of my life and family. Is it my job to lead the deacons and the staff and hundreds of volunteers in the life of the local church.
What About the Future?
This morning I woke, as I often do, thinking about how I can make the years ahead until the return of Christ or my departure to be with Him faithful and fruitful. Of course I will keep doing what I know I am called to do using the means of grace commended to us in the Scripture to nurture and nourish the body of Christ at Evangel. I will preach and teach. I will counsel, exhort, warn, admonish and rebuke. I will fast and pray. I will study and learn and listen and tell the sweet story of Christ and his love wherever I go every day. I will communicate vision to the people and train men to train others.
But this morning something else became clear to me.
I want to go immediately public with it here at www.kenpierpont.com because the site here will be a kind of record of this new emphasis. Here it is. I am going to use this tool (kenpierpont.com) to encourage, inspire and instruct others in the art of Gospel Conversation. I would like to do this through sharing tools that aid in effective gospel conversation and by telling stories of gospel conversations when I have them or when I can gather them from others.
These tools for gospel conversations and stories of gospel conversations will help you have gospel conversations of your own.
I am the Senior Pastor at Evnagel, but from today on I am going to think of myself as the Pastor for preaching, pastoral care, vision, leadership, outreach, and evangelism.
Gospel Conversations
As soon as I can, I am going to create a special section here at kenpierpont.com for Gospel Conversations. In this section:
Resources. I will point you continually to resources that will help you be more effective in gospel conversations.
Inspiration: I will point you to places to help motivate you to have gospel conversations.
Training: I will share tools so you can become faithful and fruitful in gospel conversation.
Examples: Often, I will tell stories of gospel conversations and the loving acts that lead up to effective gospel conversations.
The Lord made this very clear to my heart this morning. I hope you will visit often and share your experiences in gospel conversation with me.
Pastor Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 22, 2014
Here is a little motivation for gospel conversations
Looking at Pictures Together; Story Podcast #15
Subscribe to the Ken Pierpont Storytelling Podcast
Storytelling Podcast RSS Feed
Storytelling Podcast in iTunes
Is Mitford Real?
Sometimes life can just crush you. It can break your heart. There are seasons disappointment can be so oppressive that you wonder how you can go on. I’ve had a bit of pain and disappointment in my life over the years. Sometimes to buffer the pain of life I have visited the little village of Mayberry (the setting for the old Andy Griffith television series). Sometimes I have visited Walton’s Mountain. In the last twenty years I have returned over and over again to Jan Karon’s village of Mitford in the mountains of North Carolina to try to learn and remember how to see the goodness of God in the badness of the fallen world around me.
Mayberry and Walton’s mountain were television communities. The Village of Mitford is the fictional creation of Jan Karon. Visiting Mitford gives me a hopeful picture of what life can be like where people walk with God and walk in love.
Lately I’ve been dealing with some heartaches–some disappointments that could knock the wind out of my soul and crush my spirit. This morning I was reading an interview with Jan Karon. My eyes clouded with tears and my heart was filled with hope as I read Jan Karon’s answer to the question; “Is Mitford real?”
Is Mitford Real?
People say to me quite plaintively, “Oh, how I wish Mitford could be real.” Well, Mitford can be real. Mitford is real, but we have to do our part. Mitford doesn’t just come to us like some cute little idyllic, cozy Kincaid greeting card. We have to pitch in. We have to keep our eyes and ears and hearts open to others. We have to be willing to put ourselves out there. It doesn’t all come to us. We have to go out to it. If we go out to greet it, we will find it. Do something for somebody else. Give somebody a hug, and do it with a full heart. Listen to the humor. Watch and observe the humor in other people’s lives and in your own. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Just get out there and wade in up to your neck into that sea of humanity, which is so needy. Smile at somebody for goodness sake!
There you are. You don’t live in Mitford and neither do I but you can go out there today and smile at somebody for goodness sake!”
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 15, 2014
Playing When We Should Be Praying
The house is silent in sleep. The world outside still dark. It is the beginning of a fresh, new week. It’s a peaceful and beautiful time of the year where I live. We are in the lush green of late summer. In just a few weeks families will be preparing to send the children back to school. The economy is making a slow come-back. For the most part our lives are stable and prosperous. Things have been a little thin lately but we still have enough extra for our cable and internet and the electronic gadgets that bring them to us. We still have enough extra to get away and enjoy some time “Up-North” in the summer. Not so in much of the world.
In the east it is daytime and I wonder what news we will hear from Israel and from Iraq. Israel and Gaza are at war and Iraq is torn apart by a group of Muslim extremists that make Al-Qaeda seem moderate. They are practicing unspeakable brutality against any religious group but their own.
This morning I’m thinking about the fact that I have known nothing but freedom without fear all my life. I can study and read freely. I can speak and write freely. I can apply myself freely to any work or legal enterprise that I desire. Lois and I were free to have eight children. We were free to teach them at home. Most of all, we have the freedom to worship God publicly with others of like faith. Never once in all my life have I feared for my life or safety because I assembled with other believers to worship God.
That’s not the way it is in many parts of the world today. Every day the news reports another atrocity against Christians somewhere in the world. Here in America we are preoccupied with worship styles and preferences as if church was a religious smorgasbord offering a little something for everyone’s personal taste.
Will there come a time we will regret not taking advantage of the freedoms we have enjoyed all our lives? Will there be a time in America that Christians will repent in tears for their pettiness and for the self-centered consumer attitude we have had concerning church?
While our brothers and sisters in other lands lay down their lives for Christ, let’s gather in groups and faithfully pray for them and while we can. Let’s take advantage of the freedoms we enjoy while we can. Let’s put aside personal preferences and prepare to suffer for Biblical convictions.
There are those who threaten to raise the flag of Allah over the White House. They would love to destroy our churches and snuff out our faith. Professing Christians in America gossip more then we pray. Most of us are playing when we should be praying. If religious persecution comes to a “theatre near you soon,” as many in other parts of the world are warning us, we will live to regret the games we play that we call church.
Let’s not be feasting and playing when we should be fasting and praying.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 11, 2014
Pleasant Paths-Vance Havner
Years ago, while visiting Word of Life in Schroon Lake, New York I discovered a delightful little book by Vance Havner. I had heard Dr. George Sweeting refer to Vance Havner at Moody and the cover of the book looked so appealing to me. I bought a copy and read it in an Adirondack chair over-looking Schroon Lake.
Thank you, people of Loomis Park Baptist Church for funding my trip to Schroon Lake back in 1985. Thank you Dr. George Sweeting for your recommendation. Thank you, Vance Havner for your lifetime of faithful ministry and inspiring me to write.
Most of all, thank you, Lord for all the pleasant paths I have walked with you.
You can read the book on-line here.
During my time at Schroon Lake I discovered the pleasure of reading in an Adirondack Chair. Later I would come across one. Here is the story of how it came to be mine. You can read about what happened to it here.
Recent Comments