You are looking at posts that were written in the month of October in the year 2008.
Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Quotes.
“Nothing so tends to inflate a person with a sense of his or her own importance as the possession of great gifts of intellect or the enjoyment of special and unusual experiences. And nothing more surely disqualifies someone for spiritual usefulness than pride” (J. Oswald Sanders, Master Work Winter 06-07, taken from A Sufficient Grace, pg. 7).
Posted on October 13th, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Blogs.
This weekend I attended my 10 year high school anniversary. It was an interesting time. I was a little stressed over who was really going to be present but it was really a great time.
But something really was interesting. Here was a group of friends that I have spent 9.5 years with. But there was no LABEL.
Within the last 10 years, I have been surrounded with friends through different churches. Yet within even with these friends lies “the label”. When I get to church there is usually a list of 20 things that must be accomplished before services begin. One of which today was the air conditioner. One older couple asked me to turn it down just minutes before the service began. I couldn’t due to the lack of time that I had. So they left.
I have some other friends that are not members but all they talk about is spiritual stuff and church work. But this weekend it was interesting and refreshing to have non-work related conversations. It was too interesting! This is probably the first time in over 5 years that I have had a real conversation. I had failed to realize how effected I was because of “the label”. I enjoyed not having this label on so much that I almost wouldn’t mind removing it.
As a pastor, I am afraid of going to Walmart unshaved. I fear going to autozone with a greezy shirt on for a car part. I fear getting gas for my lawn mower without taking a shower first. Why? Because members do put on a slight expectation of what ministers should be doing and what they should look like.
But not only that, their conversations should be all spiritual. Football conversations are replaced by questions that begin with, “So what do you think Jesus meant when he said….”
The label is hard. Maybe this is just the cross that I must carry.
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