I remember when God was propelling me into ministry one of the things he kept telling me was to keep my mouth shut. I like to talk. I'm very social. But what the Spirit was teaching me was that self-control in this area would spare me a lot of heart ache in the long run.
I have not always heeded this instruction and it's always come back to bite me. So I embrace a closed mouth.
The second thing I've learned is that friends don't always make good parishoners. It's hard for them and me to go from girlfriend to spiritual leader. I've had this happen twice and both times the relationships have become akward. For me I think I'd rather keep friends as friends and parishoners as parishoners. I can't spill my heart on church related issues to a friend/parishoner. Trust me it's not a good idea. They usually can't handle it.
