Why?

That's right. I can't help if I'm that good looking. As for you TinyTim, the verdict is still out. :tongue3:

 

This statement would be silly if it weren't so ridiculous.

 

you've got a great question in the OP, I'm going to truncate your questions a bit to properly answer them all

In a perfect world all a pastoral candidate would need to do is prepare a truthful resume (harder than you think), submit their last sermon, and provide a doctrinal exposition to be hired. The candidate with the strongest credentials in all three areas gets the job.

But we don't live in a perfect world.

A lot of churches ask for this, and I believe this, because they want to put a face with a name. Its nice to have a picture to see when considering a candidate because it helps identify them and personalize the resume. This is the primary reason imho.

There are lots of reasons for a picture. Of course we all know that the annual family picture is a snapshot of created perfection that usually takes all kinds of yelling, hair combing, shirt straightening, ordering, and red faces. Its just a reality. When it comes to pastoral committees I do believe most of their reasons are honest and generous.

That said I've got a friend who is a terrific guy, he has a healthy amount of church experience, seminary degrees, a decent preacher (he's young), and a quality ministerial candidate who is African-American married to a wonderful white young lady. He never gets call backs from churches below a certain geography outside of major metro areas. He understands and accepts it, but my heart breaks for him. By his own accounting he does great until the churches finally ask for a picture then things go sideways.

BTW, he finally found a position in New York and is really making an impact.

I'll toss this out there and see what happens: from my experience, most pastoral search committees are far more concerned with aesthetic than doctrine. In fact so long as you couch your doctrinal beliefs in the proper language you can pretty well hire Presbyterian or Methodist for a Baptist church.

A second point here, most questionnaires that I've seen from search committees ask more about peripheral doctrinal issues than the important ones. When I candidated at a church many years ago (fresh out of seminary) they asked me all kinds of questions about style, approach, and views on unimportant matters. Yet when I asked questions about their specific views big ticket doctrinal issues the committee got really quiet. I later thanked them for their time and moved on.

That makes we weep. Really, we should be better than this.