My Experience as Youth Pastor

I really love being a Youth Pastor. There aren't many ministry positions where you are not only allowed to shoot the people you are ministering to but they actually want you to do it. Of course I'm speaking of Paint Ball. I'm just now getting into the sport and have discovered a whole new world of causing pain in a good way. If you are female you may not totally understand this statement. Let me give you some insight into guys everywhere. We hate being hurt but love hurting others. In fact the joy we find in hurting others overcomes our distaste for pain. That is why men get into full contact sports.

A typical mother might say, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." The typical male would append, at least in his head, "then it's freaking hilarious."

That is why paintball is so appealing. You get to "kill" people without really hurting them, but you also get to compare bruises. If you have the worst you win which makes it better, if you friend has the worst you get the joy of poking him in the ribs over the next week and remembering how fun it was to put 3 rounds in the exact same spot.

Paintball is a bonding experience and I for one am down with it.

So it is election time. One week and the ads will be off TV so that much is exciting. I find that each election season I get more frustrated with the candidates. The problem is each promises change but I'm finding that no one really wants to change anything. Sure they will make some minor changes, but the major structures are left the same. There are still problems with campaign financing, which they promised they would fix, as well as several other issues. Each side blames the other side for the current economic crisis, and honestly they are both right. I've been voting for a while now and the Republicans have had complete control for some of that time, Democrats have had complete control and things have been split in various shades of purple (blue plus red) in the mix as well. During that time no one ever changed anything.

Sure they moved the daylight savings dates around. That was an amazing waste of time if you ask me. That kind of stuff has plagued the government. This applies to all levels of government as well, but it gets worse the closer to the national offices they get. Every branch is at fault as well, not just the President. At some point we need to force some kind of change.

They are not giving us viable choices. They all promise change but refuse to deliver because it would cost them and their friends too much. Most people in national offices come from significant money, certainly well above the median. They need donations from people with big money if they ever hope to be elected. This is why campaign finance reform hasn't happened.

I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. Look at the number of people that don't vote. If there was a good choice a lot of those people would come out to vote. I have voted in every election, including midterm, as well as many state and local voting days through the years since I have been old enough to vote.

Voting is not just a right it is a duty. I believe that if every disenfranchised citizen would come out to vote then things would change. I'm not saying you should come vote for one of the two parties, I think we should vote for what we think is right, and if neither choice works then vote that. Vote for a third party that probably won't win but supports your actual views, if nothing works for you then write in someone, anyone. Write in Mickey Mouse if you have to.

I know a lot of people say that third parties and write ins are throwing away your vote, or voting for someone you don't want to win, but the truth is, the only vote that doesn't count is the vote that isn't cast, and the only way you are voting for the person you don't want to win is if you literally vote for them.

Imagine if everyone that didn't vote because they didn't like the candidate choices went out to vote but didn't vote for the standard parties. We would have a record voter turn to with the kind of statistical anomaly that would make people look at why voters did what they did. Then next time we might get the kind of candidates that actually care about the people. If we don't get good choices next time we do it again and again until we either get some new parties or the existing parties start listening to the people instead of to the money.

Ok this can be completed many different ways but I'm focusing on worship songs that are totally vague about Who we are worshiping. I was in service yesterday and the second song we sang was new to me. I listened the first time through and then started to sing the second time through when I decided the song must have been from a deleted scene in Lord of The Rings the Two Towers. I assume this is where it was from based on the line that referred to the trees clapping their hands (at which point we did this special clap). The song never mentions God or anything remotely close to God. This got me wondering several things that made it simply impossible to sing along.

Why are we singing songs from Lord of the Rings? I understand that we love Tolkien and the quasi Christianesque sort of story that is being told. He was good friends with CS Lewis and so is the literary equivalent of U2. Still, I read Psalms and I'm pretty sure that we have plenty of material before we have to worry about the Ents clapping their hands.

What does it sound like when the trees clap their hands? We did this faster triple clap thing, but the Ents spoke so slow it could take days to say, "How how's it going?" I'm thinking we should slow way down and be like claaaaaaaaaaaap ……………………………………………………………………… claaaaaaaaaaaaaaap ……………………………………………… haroooooooooom.

And what ever happened to the Ent wives? That always drove me nuts. Tolkien must have had ADD or something because he totally tossed in all this random stuff that he never followed up on. Of course who am I to complain about ADD when I'm laughing to myself in the middle of service wondering about the Ent wives.

In closing this is my train of thought during that song the best that I could transcribe it. Things in my head are significantly more disjointed than this with various trains of thought randomly jumping into the flow of consciousness, but I think the overall point is well represented. The song did not actually mention Ents I just imagine giant clapping trees as Ents because I'm a geek.

I am running out of unique ways to describe the sequels here. Now I know why Hollywood comes up with the same boring thing over and over so very often.

So we have finally reached head wear. Personally I hardly ever wear anything on my head. I, much like the peach, have hair so I don't really need anything on my head. In fact I have more hair than I really need and so wearing hats can be a bit hot, but I do have a few and I love them even if I don't wear them through most of the summer for fear of heat stroke.

Ball Caps:

This is the only style of hat I own. I only follow NCAA and High school sports so I only have like 3 or 4 hats all Oklahoma University. Ball caps can be worn many different ways, but think before you start wearing your hat all lopsided. Are you cool enough to pull off this look without embarrassing your teens? To be honest most teens wearing their hat like this aren't cool enough to pull it off and that means you have to be some uber cool YP and at that point it doesn't actually matter what you wear, show up in a wife beater and overalls if you want. If I wear my hat it is faced forward and straight or if I need to get up close to what I'm working on I will turn it around backwards.

Berets:

If you are French or Samuel L. Jackson you can work the Barrett, if you are the rest of the world please let this fad die in peace. This goes for all similar hat styles.

Fedora:

I know the new Indy movie has you wanting to rock the leather jacket, whip, and fedora combo, but remember, if you aren't willing to reach back under a giant stone slap as it is crashing down to save your precious hat, you probably shouldn't be wearing one.

Cowboy hat:

These are available is several styles and all are totally appropriate in Texas. In the rest of the world they are only to be worn if you are trying to be ironic. Since most Youth don't completely grasp the concept of dressing ironically you might want to leave the 10 gallon at home.

This week as been fun. If you have been looking at this as actual style tips please understand that you need to dress like who you are. Nothing is worse than trying to be someone else, even if that person is super awesomely cool. Consider Mr. T; this guy is so incredibly cool that he can pity all the fools not as cool as him, but would you really want to sport the 50lbs of gold chains around your neck look? Of course not, first off you aren't tough enough. The weight would only be tolerable compared to the pain of getting mugged. The worst thing about dressing like someone you are not is that everyone will know it isn't you and so they won't listen to what you have to say.

If you are a nerd, geek, jock, gamer, cowboy, metro, … be fully you. You will then attract kids that will look up to you for who you are and hear your message about Christ because you are uniquely you.

I've never been there but a friend of mine married a girl from Deland, Florida. I asked him where it was within Florida and I was told, "It is between the water and the other water." My mother-in-law will call me to ask what that meant if I don't explain. Florida is a peninsula and pretty much and place in Florida is between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Deland is in Florida and so it is between the water and the other water. One might even say "The land" is between the water and the other water. Of course that is what makes this almost funny because "De land" is a funny way of saying "The Land."

This is why I don't tell my MIL many jokes. Explaining it takes all the humor out.

If you don't get the title then you aren't a sci-fi geek, don't feel bad you can learn to love and laugh at all things sci-fi if you really work hard.

So this is the 4^th installment of how to dress like a Youth pastor. I will be talking about accessories, but be warned that I really don't accessorize, so expect just a bit more sarcasm than previous posts.

Belts:

The first line of accessories are belts. If your pants slip and fall then buy a belt. You may be tempted to go with suspenders but trust me, those won't score nearly as many cool points as you might be thinking. Unless you live in Texas the super huge belt buckle won't either. Personally I own 2 belts. One is for work, as in labor, and the other is for all other occasions. I'd like to buy more belts because they have lots of cool choices right now. I just keep spending my belt money on silly things like feeding my family. Sorry.

Carry bags (aka the man purse):

If you are carrying a purse then you might want to consider a career in music. Seriously. Now if it is a laptop bag then you are doing much better. The trick is to keep only laptops and office type equipment in this bag. The second you start keeping your wallet, keys, and other pocket type items in the bag you have escalated to a man purse.

Cell Phone:

Cell phones are rated based on the total number of features with ease of texting being the single biggest feature. If you have a phone with a sliding or flip out qwerty keyboard your youth will think you are cool and the adults will think you are important. That is all you really need to know. Of course if the phone is larger than your hand and isn't a smart phone like the iPhone, then it is time to trade up, even if it has a full-sized keyboard attached. Of course, my phone is a flip phone because I love to pretend I'm on Star Trek. I'm a geek though so it's ok. The only other thing to remember when it comes to your phone is that you can't use the stock ringtones and graphics. Find something that is uniquely you but not overly preachy. You students will walk away the first time they see you in Wal-Mart and hear "Amazing Grace" playing from your hip.

Other accessories:

I really want one of those leather wrist straps (sounds more manly than bracelet), but I'm not sure I can pull off the look. It is very important that you can look cool when wearing cool accessories otherwise you look like a dork that is trying to pull of the cool look. Imagine Steve Urkel trying to dress up like Eddie and you'll have some idea of what you actually look like. This applies to all articles of clothing but accessories amplify this truth.

Here's hoping I'll be able to pull off the leather wrist strap look before they aren't cool. I'm starting with leather strap watches and just going with wider and wider straps until I ditch the watch face all together. Tomorrow I'll be wrapping this up with head wear.

This is not about clothing just so you know. I'll post that later. I wanted to give a shout out to Mustang OK. I was seeing where ppl who visited this blog are at and saw someone from Mustang. I use to live near there. I remember one time as a newly driving teen dropping my dad off at the Airport while running a fever of 104. I somehow missed my turn to get back onto the interstate and ended up in Mustang before I figured out where I was at. Back then I didn't have GPS or a cell phone so I was started to freak out a bit. Not long before that I dated a girl from Mustang so I knew where I was and how to get to I-40 and home.

Sometimes dating lots of different girls is a good thing.