4 Rules for a Youth Pastor's Blog Photo...

For this post I'm not going to incorporate a picture...

For all of we blogging youth pastors there's an MO or mode of operation (I can't spell the Latin off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment) that is particular to each of us . It has to do with that of our blog's pic for ourselves. Here's the breakdown:

1. A picture of us and our wife/girlfriend...
2. A picture of ourselves with a gaggle of our own children...
   
3. A picture of ourselves that doesn't show how fat we are getting...
4. A picture of ourselves doing something that only we think is funny...

Now by itself #1 is the most popular followed in second place by rule #2. If you don't believe me, click on my profile (Rule #4), and then click on "occupation - youth pastor". Go through each of these and see if a picture of the youth pastor of any given blog profile isn't posing with his girlfriend/wife. If you combine rules #3 and #4 then it will be by far the most popular, but standing alone I think rule#1 is king.

What these rules say about us as youth pastors...

Rule #1 says I'm cool enough to hook up with a chick so you should definitely hang out at the student group where I'm the youth pastor. That's the basic point. This especially applies to the youth pastors who post pictures of themselves with their girlfriend. Those of us fortunate enough to be married only post this type of picture b/c either we married up (which is 95% of us... the other 5% happen to be female youth pastors in which this rule would apply to their husbands) or we are afraid of our wives and don't want to catch grief.

Rule #2 is self explanatory. It's for the youth pastors who have discovered the joy of life in having children. We then become that annoying person who always wants to show off pictures of ourbaby's first drool, first doo doo, first anything... and yes, I am that guy now (x4 - but not all at once).

Rule #3 is also self explanatory. That's why you will see youth pastors who are 31 and are still using that picture of themselves when they went to their Sr. Prom and were somewhat good looking back in the day. This explains to the students we pastor that I wasn't always this fat dude who's married up and now has four children. I would have loved to use this type of pic for my blog profile, however I'm over being fat now and just want to be funny.

Which leads us to rule #4... After we are over the fact that we are married to a beautiful woman and that somehow we pulled that off before having gotten fat after having babies and gaining weight that my wife didn't gain while she was growing a human being inside her stomach (my 7 year old's words) we post the picture that we think encapsulates our God given ability to be funny which is why God called us to youth ministry in the first place. Being funny is all we have now! Being funny is what makes anything we would have to say in a pulpit anywhere ever matter. Being funny is our excuse to incorporate two forces of nature into our sermons, God's ability to love us unconditionally and saying the word fart in front of a group of teenagers who still think fart is a funny word (and, yes, I giggled while I typed fart... oops I'm doing it again... giggling not farting).

It is an amazing thing to get to be a youth pastor and requires the 4 rules for a youth pastor's blog photo as a requirement to be able to do our job. It's probably why so many youth pastors are guys. Check the profiles we are all 25 to 35 and all think we are funnier than we actually are. I guess that's why I type this blog thinking it's so funny that somehow it's going to make its way into the hands of the Pulitzer prize board people and that they are actually going to award the prize to me. Being a youth pastor is a great and awesome thing so I applaud you all! Especially the dude that has the picture of himself looking like the incredible hulk doing a push up. Believe me if you don't make the connection on that one, then you can't be told!

God bless the youth pastors!