a new look

most everybody reading this knows that, historically, i have not been an especially well-dressed guy. i've had some decent suits, but anything other than that was... underwhelming. there are plenty of reasons for this. i am not naturally concerned about wardrobe. i don't have a good sense of what goes well together. and i've never been inclined to spend much money on clothes. over the years, that hasn't been a huge problem. the students i worked with no doubt noticed, but either they didn't care or they were just too polite to say anything.

of course, serving as a pastor alters the equation. i'm in front of people a lot. and i'm the most prominent representative of an entire congregation. i was overdue for a change, but all of the problems listed above still applied -- not a good prognosis for transformation in that area.

enter my bridge small group. i'm sure it felt like a delicate subject to broach. but they found a way to do it kindly and have a little fun with it. so just over a week ago, they e-mailed to tell me that we'd be having a special dinner party and fashion show at our meeting. what i didn't realize was that i would be the model! so after a delicious ribeye dinner, i got to try on some clothes and peacock on the fashion runway. well, i didn't shake it quite that much, but there was a modeling soundtrack provided by host g and flash photography by the all-but-professional y. all we needed was the lights.one thing i had to get used to was clothes that fit; i have worn my shirts and sweaters a bit large for so long that clothes that fit often feel tight. there were also style questions. since i really haven't given much thought to a look, i wasn't always sure what i liked.
even so, we had a blast together. i tried on clothes that they had picked out, and they gave their opinion on what worked and what didn't. the critical moment for each outfit was the voting: should i keep the outfit or not? along the way, i also got some helpful hints on fashion, along with a whole new nice-casual look (technically, i didn't have a nice-casual look before...).i made my fashion debut at a church valentine's dinner last night, and will try a second outfit at church tomorrow. hopefully, the new look won't be so dazzling (or just plain shocking) that people can't remember what i'm teaching from the bible!