People are often afraid of finding their purpose because they think it won’t make sense to the rest of the world, said James Spann, chief meteorologist for ABC 33/40. “So what?,” he added. “Everybody’s got different gifts and abilities. There’s something within them that they were called to do in their life. It’s their purpose.”
“I was so lucky to find that when I was 6 years old,” added Spann, who also serves as the children’s worship leader at Double Oak Community Church in Mount Laurel and chair of the board at Grandview Hospital.
Rolling up his sleeves
Spann is most known as the meteorologist who takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves when conditions become hazardous. Starting in his early career, he had to stand under blazingly hot studio lights for hours when reporting threatening weather.
Though today’s LED lights are cooler, he continues the tradition. After a major tornado outbreak in April 2011, he learned from social scientists that people associate body language, eye contact and the way a person is dressed with a topic’s severity.
“So that’s when it kind of went from being a joke to being serious. Now I’m really cognizant of it. I take the jacket off and roll up my sleeves because people read something into it.
“If that’s a way we can send the message of severe weather then great; I’m all for it,” Spann said.
Overcoming ‘greatest lie’
When he was young, Spann noted, he was very selfish. He bought into the “greatest lie you’ll ever hear” — looking out for No. 1. Everything was all about him.
It took an encounter at an Arby’s near the TV station for God to reach him.
“I was running late. I got up to that drive-through window and the lady said, ‘You don’t owe me anything. God loves you.’ And I cried. To this day, I don’t know who did that.
“But that did it. I got so hung up on my problems, I forgot my purpose in life. When you remember that we’re here to help other people, then that’s when you’re blessed,” Spann said.
Some are easy to help, like the children he works with in the children’s worship service each week. This is something he loves to do, something he knows God made him to do.
There are others who weren’t quite as easy for him.
He found that out through another passion of his. Spann’s 19-year role as chair of the board of Baptist Medical Center Montclair, which moved and eventually became known as Grandview Medical Center, was something he never planned to do, but he knows God led him there.
It started by being asked to serve on the board for a couple of months. Since one of his jobs in life is to “mitigate loss of life during tornadoes,” he decided he could use the time to learn about trauma from the emergency room doctors.
He also visited patients — all except those in the behavioral health unit.
“I didn’t want to. … I’m thinking, shame on me. I’m in the hospital once a week, talking to people, listening.
“You know, that’s ridiculous,” he told himself, and then he made a commitment to do the same for the behavior unit.
“Those patients deserve the same clinical outcomes as the surgical intensive care unit, any unit, any service we have,” Spann said.
He began to recognize mental health’s importance.
“If you peel back a layer or two, you’ll find it in every single family. And for those families that say they don’t have any mental health issues, they’re lying through their teeth.
“I do — my family — and you do and everybody does. We just sweep it under a rug like you can’t talk about it or it’s embarrassing or it’s a weakness or whatever. They’re sick and they need help. There shouldn’t be that stigma, so I do anything I can to help.”
Everyone’s role
Spann works from 4 a.m. to midnight, speaking to groups and visiting the hospital between weather reports. He attributes being able to keep that pace to the joy his God-given passions provide.
Spann has advice for those who haven’t found their passion.
“I think the first thing you do as a believer is to ask God, ‘What is it I’m supposed to do here? Show me what it is.’ Be sure that it’s something you love to do — and it will be,” he said.
Sometimes Spann is asked how many ministers were at Hunter Street Baptist Church in Hoover when he served as chairman of the deacons.
He would answer, “About 3,500. How many do you have at your church?”
“Of course, I was indicating those who show up at Hunter Street every Sunday. Everybody’s a minister. Everybody,” he noted. “They might not get paid for it, but that’s what we all do.
“The ones we pay, they just train us to be ministers. … There are so many; every job is a ministry.”
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