Featured Dressing down

Its one thing not to have the " church" clothes , and its another thing to be too self centered and lazy to even care about how one enters church to worship the Lord. Again, its a matter of respect for the Lord

 

There was a time when people came dressed in their best. Now it seems that many strive to see who can come dressed in their worst.

 

That sums up my feelings quite well!

 

This thread is a great example about worrying about the unimportant. If our eyes are focused on Jesus and the message, I doubt we worrying about the suit and tie. When taking up the offering, I always wear leopard skin speedos, high heels, and a tank top.

Great post. It gets the point across.

 

I always wear a suit and tie to serve the Lord's Supper. Jeans are never worn at any service except maybe an informal Bible study.

I have a few questions for you? How does wearing a "suit and tie" show more "respect for the Lord" than blue jeans and a polo shirt? Where in Scripture does it define what clothing is more acceptable before the Lord than at other times? If you went to a service during Biblical times and wore your suit and tie, you would probably be thrown out for trying to mock the service. What if I wore in a priestly garb today to a service?

It is one thing to go to church looking like a slob and unclean, but when someone walks in wearing jeans, what is your first thought? Is it, God has really blessed me and maybe he is wearing his best, or what a slob? If you want to see a slob, look at the politicians in Washington who always wear suits and ties.

The point is there is no basis of saying what is our "Sunday best" compared to what is "not our Sunday best." To some, a tie is tacky and shows going to church showing off how rich one is. It all is a matter of perception. It is kind of like we as Baptists always condemning drunkedness, gambling, dancing etc, and allowing gossip to run rampant.

Of course, any dress that is revealing of the body is another matter, or inappropriate sayings on a shirt. I have never seen that where I worship. In fact, we have a mix of everything from suit and tie, to dress pants and a polo shirt for Sunday morning. I cannot say I ever looked at either and analyzed which set of clothing was closer to the Lord.

If we worried as much about telling others about the Gospel as we do what people are wearing, maybe our pews would be a lot fuller.

 

Where does the Bible say that the church building is 'God's House?'

 

Why? Why do you always wear a suit and tie to serve the Lord's Supper?

God was often very specific about what should be worn by whom throughout the scriptures. From Genesis where He provided clothing for Adam and Eve to the New Testement where, according to some, Paul taught that women shouldn't wear pants.

For me, personally, the type of fabric chosen for a man's pants doesn't rate high in importance. It's how he or she wears those fabrics is what's important. If a poor man comes to church wearing clean, faded, patched overalls I don't give it a second thought. If a well-off man comes to church wearing a suit and tie, again, I don't give it a second thought. More on this in a minute.

I respectfully disagree with part of this. First, it is a matter of perception. On that point, I agree 100%. IMO, that's why you wear a suit and tie to serve our Lord's supper. Regardless of whether some may consider your choice of clothing to be "tacky" and "showing off", you choose to wear them, as they do indicate to observers that you indeed respect all that's entailed with this act of worship of our Saviour.

If a poor man, wearing those overalls mentioned earlier, were to assist with serving the Lord's supper, since I know he's poor, would not, in any way, show a lack of respect to our Lord.

However.......

If a rich man chose to wear those same overalls to serve communion, the perception that he gives is that he did not care enough to bother to put on either one of his suits or his "business casual" attire. The perception is, indeed, a lack of respect.

It isn't about doing an analysis comparing slacks and a polo shirt with a suit and tie with regards to serving our Lord. IMO, it doesn't matter what we are wearing when we fall on our knees and close our eyes in prayer. The Holy Spirit is conveying what's in our hearts and not what's on our backs.

What matters is the witness we give to others through our mode of dress, both inside the walls of a church and outside. What matters is the preception that we give to others, when our attire, is not intune with our words and deeds. What matters is that our attire conveys to others some sense of what's in our hearts. It's a part of the fruit we bear.

Often, one point is left out in this type of discussion. This thread is about an assembly of believers who are already in the body of Christ. Yes, our commission is to go out into the world and bring in the lost. Whether we like it or not, that lost world has a perception about what they expect to see when they come and sit in a pew.

They expect the members of the body of Christ to show a greater respect for our Saviour, than the world around them. Whether we like it or not, observing the dress "code" (for lack of a better term) is one of the indicators of such respect. Too rigid (the Law in the OT), in that every male should be an a suit and tie can prevent them from returning the next Sunday. Too lax, with an anything goes impression, can do the very same thing. Simply because the latter doesn't draw the perceived line of separation from the world that the lost expect to observe. In Bible, God used clothing of the day, to draw that line of separation. Even at the death of our Saviour, He had a role for clothing to play to fulfill His word.

In closing, why do you wear a suit and tie to help serve the Lord's supper? :flower:

 

500 years ago this would not have been an issue. People wore the same clothes to church that they wore everywhere else. Only with the advent of the ability to manufacture clothing rapidly has that changed.

This horse is dead as far as I am concerned. I dress nicely but I don't dress to show off or make an impression. I dress to fit in.

And I have preached a message in bathing trunks. It was at a water park when we did a special outreach on a Sunday. A coat and tie would have scared people off.

 

Along with politicians, so do bankers, lawyers, actors, etc. Strange that some people expect Christians to dress just like the world. Who wants to look like the world and wear a suit and tie?

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

 

The best way to honor God is to obey Him.

He tells us to dress modestly, which is not just covering the no-no's but also not to show off our riches OR our spirituallity.

Some of our younger families have embraced voluntary simplicity in order to minister to the poor.

Maybe we need a thread on motes and beams.

 

This is really the point isn't it?

Considering fashion trends change faster than lightbulbs, I don't put much stock in someone's outward garb. Some of the greatest Pharisees I've met wore suits and dresses. On the other hand some of the humblest servants of Jesus have unkempt hair, grubby and stained clothes.

 

I would say that your My most modest attire? has Biblical support!

1 Timothy 2:9. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

 

The OP was specifically asking why the PASTORS had "dressed down." So, my question is, are the pastors held to a different standard of dress?

If I was the OP, I'd simply ASK the pastors why they dressed down.

 

Bingo. Scarlett and preachin have nailed it.
This thread is dripping with subjectivity.

 

Subjectivity. I looked it up to make sure I understand the meaning in today's terms. Wikipedia is probably the best place to find that.

How can this thread be anything but subjective? God didn't include specifics for pastor's attire in the NT. In this matter, only God is "free from human perception and its influences, human cultural interventons, past experience and expectation of the result."

Scarlet, IMO, did not "nail it". Again, IMO. I was pretty much in agreement until she said this.

I grew up in and still live in the Bible Belt. I was NOT taught that "one's Sunday clothing was the highwater mark of one's spirituality." It wasn't what one wore on Sunday morning, it was what one did on Monday to Saturday night that reflected one's spirituality -- the fruit one bears -- the witness of the Holy Spirit guiding one's life.

Strutting like a "peacock" on Sunday morning had the opposite connotation. By way of example: A pastor, wearing a $1,000 suit and flashing his new Rolex watch before the congregation was a good indicator of what had the most influence in his life.

I'm not saying that Scarlet wasn't taugh what she said. I'm saying that it doesn't necessarily apply to everyone living in the Bible Belt. Thus, both our views are indeed subjective, based on the definition of the word, itself.

FWIW, I grew up on a church where some members, were indeed, strutting peacocks. Usually, some of the ladies who tried to outdo each other in the "finest". The same ladies who would look down their long noses at anyone who didn't meet their dollar "standards" for what was expected to be seen on Sunday morning. My subjective opinion.

Just as it is my subjective opinion that "dressing down" can have negative consequences, if taken too far. Someone else in this thread mentioned doctors. I don't expect a doctor to wear a white lab coat (equivalent to a suit and tie) when making rounds or when I appear at an Urgent Care facility in an emergency. However, I do not expect him to be wearing the trappings of a gang-banger, shade tree mechanic, or the way I looked at the end of a day of harvesting tobacco.

In my subjective opinion, the lost of the world have a subjective opinion, too. Call it a stereotype, if you will. They expect a "conservative"* mode of dress by Christians, whether in the pulpit or on the street corner. A pimp does not expect a pastor to be dressed as the pimp stereotype indicates.

Sometimes getting old is the pits. Memory is shot. What is the term that's used when people try to pass themselves off as what they are not. Rich dressing down to mingle with the po folks? Po folks resent it. With the building of that resentment, it isn't likely that po folks will listen to anything said to them. Wish I could remember the term, as IMSO, the same thing applies to Christian witness.

Oh well, time to crawl off my soapbox before I embrass myself any further this morning.

*conservative: Can vary based on the circumstances in a given area and social climate of that area.

 

I liiked it when FDR fed the royal family hotdogs & watermelons.

 

You know, sometimes you have a way of making someone eat their words. After thinking about your question, and a good question, the only answer I can come up with is that the Lord's Supper is one of those times, for lack of a better term, that is most sacred to me. It is a time to fully focus on our lives and the Lord (which we should always do). It is not a time for the mind to wander. It is a time where we honor and give thanks to the Lord for what He did on the cross. So, in that respect you are correct. I wear a tie because to me, IMO, the occasion is set apart from others. Serving the Lord's Supper all eyes are on those holding the plates.

Also, your point is well taken about wearing overalls if that is all I could afford, but in my case it is not. I can afford a tie and shirt from Walmart if nothing else.

These comments are pretty much related to the Lord's Supper. As far as the pastor, many denominations think all of our pastors dress down because they do not wear the black robe, or in the case of Lutheran pastors, the baker's apron with the iron on patches attached. I do think a pastor should dress his best. (without the robe, of course)

As far as the attire of the church member, I think it should be modest, clean, and appropriate. One of the most distracting things are the inappropriate sayings on T shirts. The ones that irritate me about dress are those who never show up for visitation, never help with any ministry that takes work, but wear their best to the pot lucks, and expect others to. As you said they are Pharisee peacocks.

One poster mentioned that we should wear enough clothing to cover up our no-nos. That is one good thing about being my age, there aren't any no-nos worth showing.

I think each local church sets its own dress standards, whether written or not. Ours is dress pants and polo shirts, or shirt and tie, usually worn by the older members.

 

Google the term "Sports fans 100 years ago" or "Yankees fans 1950s" and you will find pictures after picture of men attending any variety of sporting events wearing a suit, tie and a snappy hat.