YOUR PASTOR'S HOT

I stayed up later than I wanted to last night writing a pretty good post for the blog today. I finished and actually thought it might be something to send on to one of the magazines I sometimes write for. I was eager to get it posted here and get the discussion started. But I knew that my late night writing is even more full of misspellings than my day time writing, so I hit "save as draft.

Doh! No, that was "delete this post."

Yea, so this is what you get for today's post. A left over thought from a week or more ago, one I hope isn't so out of phase with current events that it bores you to unsubscription. Here goes.

So when all the Ted Haggard stuff was going down, I read a few different blog posts and articles poking fun at the sex appeal of ministers. One in particular, which I won't link to because it was just so crass, sarcastically jabbed at the notion that pastors are sometimes sex symbols of sorts. "...becoming a pastor is a great way to meet women. (And men, I guess.) Apparently, the ladies think pastors are hot," it said.

Well, they are.

Stop laughing.

They are. To some.

As much as I'd love to think my wife was first attracted to my microphone stand physique, my six foot two inch one hundred and thirty pound physique, she wasn't. She swears she thinks I'm cute now, but back then she first liked me because she thought I was confident, smart and funny.

Those aren't words I'd use to describe myself now or at nineteen when we met, but she was left with that impression when I got up to teach group of people or jumped into a conversation with a crowd she was in.

Apparently there are a lot of women like her who don't care so much about what I look like, but come on to me after shows because of what I do on a stage or in a crowd after a show. They think I'm confident, smart and funny, Becky says, and for them that's a huge turn on. Apparently.

A store buyer handed me her room key at a Christian Bookseller's Convention in Orlando years ago, inviting me to come up and have dinner with her. I was flashed by a college student at an in-store event in Tampa. I was propositioned by a female radio personality in the MidWest. And I've had to move more than a few south-wandering hands from my backside while posing for a picture in a church lobby somewhere.

It's OK, you can laugh. It is strange that women would find me attractive - until we realize that some folks are drawn to the kind of confidence and personality that they associate with people able to command attention from a stage. Whether those people are pastors or soft rock stars.

Which is why my father-in-law (a pastor) always keeps his office door open when counseling a female, and makes sure his secretary stays put at her desk right outside. It's why Billy Graham has someone search his hotel room for females before he'll enter and doesn't even go to the bathroom alone. It's why I travel with Brian, never meet with a female alone, always wear my ring and talk about my wife and kids with perhaps annoying frequency.

It only takes one woman to say we did when we didn't and we're done.

All of this of course really has nothing to do with the Haggard situation, but I'm glad it came up in the wake of it anyway. Laugh all you want. Your pastor's hot, to someone. Pastors, be careful. Women, back off. Church, pray.