I’ve been a youth pastor for nine years. I’ve led mission trips, organized lock-ins, and baptized teenagers in inflatable pools. I have given everything I have to this calling. And I will not — I cannot — give up my cargo shorts.

The senior pastor brought it up during a staff meeting last Tuesday. He called it a “presentation issue.” He said the elders have “concerns.” He suggested I consider “a slim-fit chino, something from Target.” I told him, respectfully, that I have eleven pockets across two legs and every single one of them is in active ministry use.

Left thigh: phone and keys. Right thigh: a pocket New Testament and a backup charging cable. Left calf: three granola bars for the kid who always shows up hungry. Right calf: a first-aid kit and a whistle, because I learned the hard way at camp in 2019. Back right: my wallet. Back left: a folded permission slip I’ve been meaning to turn in since October.

“You want me to fit all of that into a slim-fit chino? You want me to choose between a granola bar and a band-aid? That’s not a fashion decision. That’s a moral one.”

My wife says she supports me but has asked that I not wear them to her sister’s wedding. I told her I would pray about it. I have prayed about it. The answer was cargo shorts.

The teenagers don’t care. They have never once commented on my shorts. They have, however, commented when I didn’t have a phone charger, a snack, or a bandage. You know where those things were? In my cargo pockets. Every time.

I am not a fashionable man. I am a prepared man. And preparation is next to godliness, or at least it should be.

At press time, I had discovered a $5 bill in a pocket I forgot existed and tithed it immediately.