Ok, so a lot has been going on since I last blogged ...or posted... or got my blizog on (choose which everyone you like best). I am sure most of you are aware Rachel and I welcomed our baby boy Justus Eugene into the world on March 6. He was 8 ponds 15 ounces and 20 inches long, he was however 5 weeks early and we spent a week in the NICU. But now he has been home for almost two weeks and the sleep is few and far between, I call him Benjamin Button because he looks and acts like a little old man. All night he grumps and groans, not crying just making this grumble sound. So that is a personal little tidbit and an explanation for the few weeks I took off.
Now, back to the blizog or whatever, I had a conversation with some folks this week and it was based on the old "Sunday Best" argument. Let me go ahead and stop here and say if you are an occasional reader of this blog you are aware that I have had moments were I gazed upon the outward appearance and tried to make a statement about someone in a church setting. I am not proud of this but I being a product of the church all my life have certain thought processes I am trying to overcome myself.
So we began discussing this church dress code unwritten law thing that seems in place in most churches today. Their answers were not anything I hadn't heard before, they said "We should give our best to God" and "It is a sign of respect". We discussed on and if I am being honest they made some valid points along the way. In theory I don't know that it is really wrong, like most things men touch it can be made wrong but the act of looking nice at church is not sinful, neither is going in your pajamas (that is unless it would cause others to lust, which is why I don't wear pajamas to church).
Ok now my take... Dressing nice to attend church while not wrong is not right either, it is simply what you have got on. I am pretty sure the bible is explicitly clear about God's take on the outward appearance of man... HE DON'T CARE, He is concerned with your heart (I Peter 3:3). Dressing up as a show of respect is not a spiritual act of worship but a cultural idea. We put on our best to go on dates and to dinner, to go to a business meeting, To meet important people and of course to go to church. What is the common thread amongst all these scenarios (besides church hopefully). Well we dress up to go out so that when we get home we can get a little smoochy smoochy (at least the guys do), we dress up for our business meeting to impress our peers and potential clients to further our careers and we dress up to meet famous people because we want to look impressive to people who impress us. It is all about impressing someone, so the question is who are we trying to impress at church? In most cases I truly believe it is not to impress others but in a weird way impress God. The problem like we stated earlier is our fashion sense and freshly pressed suits doesn't even catch his eye.
I have personally lived on both sides of this argument and while I realize the flaw in the "Best Dressed" mentality I still find myself having to overcome this mindset at times. I do believe that many make their attire a spiritual statement on both ends of the spectrum. Sometimes we put on our best to show people how well we have it together and give off this vibe of "Check me out". On the other end sometimes people dress so down to basically say "hey check me out, I get it". Both of these scenarios are attempts to bring the attention to ourselves which is a disservice to God. Overall I say we be who we are and wear what we wear, this Sunday let's spend less time on our attire and focus more on being on fire (yeah that was cheesy!). So tell me what you think, why I am I wrong?...or maybe even right.... but probably wrong.
Question of the Week
In your church...Altar or no Altar? Which do you prefer?
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