Yesterday, our congregation was introduced to the new Pastor that we have called. He is a young fellow named Justin, and we will be the first parish that he serves as pastor (he has been an associate pastor for the last 5 years at a church in Maryland).
He won't start as our full-time Pastor until January, so this was just sort of a meet and greet day. We got to hear him give his first sermon, though, and this is sort of the subject of this post.
He began with Mark 10: 17-29 which tells the story of the Rich Man that wants to go to heaven. He talked about this for about 4 minutes before he went right to the theme of his sermon: Identity. Justin told us about the nick names that he had in college, and he described himself a bit, and then asked us how we would identify ourselves if given the restriction of using only 5 words.
I thought about it for awhile, and I've been thinking about it ever since (ok, I tend to fixate sometimes... gimme a break).
So, here goes, in no particular order, my five descriptors:
Father
Husband
Warrior
Christian
Helper
These things are the most important things that embody who I am (or at least who I see myself as).
These things are the major parts of my psyche. I figure if I continue to focus on those things, I'll never go far wrong.
If you are reading this and care to share, I'd love to hear about your descriptors. If I may ask you, by way of quoting The Who: "Who Are You?"
6 comments:
I may change my mind about this, but here are the five I think work best.
Friend
Intellectual
Cook
Strong
Enlightened
Hiya JAnet!
Long time, sweets, where've you been?
I've been here, stuck in Flint. I read your blog every day, but I don't always have anything to add. Did you read my song? Mick says he is going to record it, but he's a bit flakey.
That's a tough one. I'm still thinking...
That's really tough; I rarely ever think of myself in terms of categories like that. "Wife" certainly springs to mind as the first label.
I think it would be more interesting to see what your 5 closest friends or family members would say. It would be an interesting way to determine whether your personal sense of identity matches the person you think you're projecting to the world.
Janet,
I think all of those apply to you quite well.
It was great talking to you yesterday. Let's not leave it so long before we talk again.
Hiya Amali,
Thinking is good... I think we just found one of your descriptors.
Kelley,
I think you have a point about how others see you.
If most of my close friends were to answer that question about me, the answers would probably be similar... but perhaps not on all points.
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