In Kansas I expected cold, and weather, I expected cultural differences, I expected bad ethnic food, and good ol\u2019 boys in pick up trucks. I mentally prepared myself to adjust to these changes, but I never predicted that I would need to adjust to being taken as a spiritual leader.
\n\u2026After all I was already a pastor in California, that sounds pretty impressive even compared to CSM for InterVarsity. And even before that I\u2019d been in professional ministry since 2005 with extensive volunteer experience but always in and around people who knew me when I wasn\u2019t.
\nIn Kansas that sounds impressive. In California nobody even really knows that about me, and those that do don\u2019t think of it that way, They knew me in high school, and I was a Jesus Freak then, and I\u2019m a Jesus Freak now, apparently at some point along the line somebody started paying me for it.
\nNow I\u2019m Ryan The InterVarsity Guy. And that\u2019s it, nobody knows me outside of a professional ministry context. It\u2019s crazy!
\nPastors want to meet with me, and they do so as peers, people want to get to know me as a missionary, and everybody who meets me in this entire state is meeting a minister first, and any modifier of \u201cstrange\u201d, or \u201cintelligent\u201d, or \u201chandsome\u201d, or \u201cneurotic\u201d or \u201cheretical\u201d gets added onto that base noun \u201cminister\u201d
\nWhereas in California \u201cminister\u201d was typically an adjective modifying something or somebody else people knew me as \u201chandsome guy, who is also a minister\u201d
\nI don\u2019t have a point to make. That\u2019s the story, I just thought I\u2019d share. It\u2019s an interesting contraposotive of Mark 6:4 of course, but you got that from the title.
\nPlease be in prayer for me as I strive to be deserving of this reputation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Kansas I expected cold, and weather, I expected cultural differences, I expected bad ethnic food, and good ol\u2019 boys in pick up trucks. I mentally prepared myself to adjust to these changes, but I never predicted that I would need to adjust to being taken as a spiritual leader. \u2026After all I was already…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n