orlando phillips.

LITTLE ROCK, AR-2021.

growing up i was the church boy. my grandfather was a pastor and my dad was a preacher, and people immediately placed expectations and assumptions on me — i had to be like them. in my early teenage years, i shied away from being the “church boy”. i wanted more edge, to be more of a bad boy of some sort for people’s approval. but then i realized that i have to be who God wants, not who other people want. i was told that i was “different”, that God had placed something on my life that made me especially unique. and i even knew for myself that i was different. from the way i carried myself, to the way I went about certain situations, i knew i was different than a lot of my peers. better than them? no. but different? yes. at some point in time i decided to just embrace being different. i wasn’t a recluse by any means, but i embraced being the odd man out at times cause people thought i wasn’t cool enough. i embraced more of who i was. and the culmination of embracing all of who i am lead to my call to preach. for the past year or so, i’ve had this back and forth with God, where i was telling him that i didn’t wanna do what he called me to do because i didn’t feel qualified. i wasn’t perfect. and God had to continually remind me that he only has flawed people to use, and that perfection was not a requirement to be what he called me to be. now, i’m a saved 23-year-old man who loves God with all his heart, and i’m a 3rd generation preacher, UNAPOLOGETICALLY. this is who i am, without compromise.