You're listening to the Hard Men Podcast, reclaiming biblical masculinity in a world of softness.

Well, welcome to the Hard Men Podcast. My name is Eric Kahn, and today we have a very special guest.

We have Pastor Jared Sparks.

Jared is good to have you with us today.

Hey, thanks for having me.

We're looking forward to it.

And Jared, just so readers kind of get to know you a little bit or listeners that is.

Tell us a little bit about your ministry, you're a pastor at Christchurch in

Carbondale, Illinois, but you also have a ministry to pastors.

So tell us just a little bit about that where people can find more information.

Yeah, thanks man. Well, like you said, my name is Jared. I'm a pastor, one of the

pastors at Christchurch Carbondale, and we've've been in Carbondale for about five years, and my wife and I are from Southern Illinois, so that the region is familiar to us, but we've been at our local church for about five years. We planted that church and we've got a great group,

great plurality of elders,

and it's just been a lot of fun.

And out of that, as I've been doing bivocational

and tri-vocational work, really was just thinking

through what I could do on the side.

And I thought I would formalize what I'd already been doing, which is working with pastors, helping

pastors, and I just had so many guys that had been coming to me and talking with me older and younger and so I'd been working as a biblical counselor and a counseling center and I was just talking to my wife and I thought what I want to just formalize this and go on my own and I started the Shepherds Creek which is not that I'm a

professional health caregiver I'm not a mental health professional or anything but I provide care

coaching resources and events for pastors and part of that is the

podcast which is the Shepherds Creek Podcast and then we do events a spring event and a fall

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