Wearing your "Sunday best"

So I'm a member at a Reformed forum also. I was reading a closed thread from a few years ago about what we wear to church. Never seen that discussed here or at BF.

Thoughts?

 

I don't believe church meetings should be clothing optional...



I think "What clothing we wear to church gatherings" is a wholly cultural issue, determined by the mores and norms of a given church culture. Scripture is absolutely silent on the issue, as far as I can see.

 

I don't go out of my way to wear anything I wouldn't normally wear.

 

Knickers, ruffled pirate shirt, spiked shoes, tam. Check.

 

But I don't wanna be pirate!!!!

 

That was in reference to Kirk's preferred attire!

 

Lately I've been wearing my black clerical collar shirt. Mostly because it is handy and easy to put on.

 

But I can't pass an opportunity to reference Seinfeld.

 

I'm Mr. Casual. So I go to Church most of the time in a T-Shirt and denim shorts.

 

I've seen it discussed over at BF, with a few folks thinking that if people weren't willing to conform to the "church dress code" they should leave and find another church. One guy went as far as to say that if someone was homeless the church should buy him an outfit that met with their approval so he could continue to attend.

As far as I'm concerned the dress code at church is little more than "be dressed", where "be dressed" can be interpreted as liberally as needed depending on the circumstances of the individual. If a "working girl" were out plying her trade all night Saturday and then on Sunday morning showed up at church wondering if there was anything in all this God stuff the Christians talk about, would she be welcomed or ostracized?

I'll dress up a little if I'm going to have a higher profile in a service. When I preached I wore a plain T-shirt and a nicer pair of shorts, which was as much about not wanting people to be distracted by a busy T-shirt design than anything else. Some would say I should have worn a three-piece suit to preach but in this kind of heat that's not going to happen.

 

The problem with that is that they are HOMELESS. Which means that they don't really have any place to store it. If they wear it all the time (as a lot do) soon it will not conform to the "code." If they try and store it some place it will get ripped off. If they carry it will them all the time it won't take long before it doesn't look any better than if they wore it all the time. I work in our church's homeless ministry and can attest to this.

 

Truth be told, even if they weren't homeless it seems to make more sense to meet their actual needs rather than spending money to help them meet an arbitrary standard that doesn't actually help them in any useful way.

I remember the times Jesus sent someone away to change into something more respectable before he would meet with them. It was in, er, oh, it must have been in there somewhere or people wouldn't enforce the rule, surely?

 

We generally dress what I would suppose is business casual attire. I have, on occasion, worn a suit and tie. We don't let the kids wear any old thing they want. I suppose it's more traditional than anything else. The bigger point though is that I don't really care what others might wear.

I can attest that it is not a strictly North American thing to dress well. It certainly stems from the European strand of Christianity. But even in parts of Africa I've been too, the people almost always dress in their "Sunday best" attire. For women and girls, that is the brightly coloured dresses. For men and boys, it's usually slacks and a button up shirt. Men in Ghana also may wear the traditional kente cloth robe which is considered quite formal (I got to wear one to a funeral/wake).

 

To clarify, nobody who I've read proposing dressing up for church is about what others will think. Their motivation is pleasing God. Their mindset is alo these lines: you don't wear any ole clothes to court to appear before the judge. You wouldn't wear any ole thing if you were meeting the governor. If you dress better for the judge and the governor, then how much more so should you honor the King of kings?

That's how they are thinking. It has nothing to do with what you or I would think about how they dress. It's about honoring God.

Where I think it breaks down and doesn't make sense to me is Sunday morning people will dress up and then Sunday evening (still worship service but with a few less elements - no communion- no recital of creeds - and a few other items) people wear shorts and whatnot.

Is God absent on Sunday evening? Obviously not. Doesn't make sense to me. So I dress down all the time. It's who I am. Dressing up is not the real me. It's me being fake.

I do wear a collared polo type shirt on Sundays instead of a t-shirt and that's so that I'm not so dressed down as to draw unnecessary attention to myself. I don't want to be so out of place as to draw attention to myself. I'm not the only one in jeans. But probably everyone else in jeans is wearing a button down shirt.

 

Just as long as you phalactyre and fringes are wide...

 

The only difference between what I wear to work and church are jeans.