How to Dress for Church

I am reminded of a story. During WWII, the Queen Mother Elizabeth visited the bombed out East End of London. A woman asked her why she was dressed up to walk through the rubble. Her Majesty answered, 'If you were coming to visit me, wouldn't you dress up'?

When we visit the King of Kings, should we not be dressed in our finest?

There’s a prominent current within Christianity that, maybe 20 or 30 years ago would have been seen as innovative, but today is about as common as the Church signs that it’s messaging appears on. It’s what I would call “come as you are” church culture. It’s the idea that you don’t need to make extra effort to dress or act a certain way when you come to church. Just be yourself like this is any other day. And this was the context in which I was introduced to church life as a young adult exploring different denominations. And, in a way, I’m grateful for it because it broke down barriers of intimidation for me. It made me feel comfortable enough to just show up without worrying about what other people would think of me and not because I wasn’t willing to adjust my behaviour, but because I didn’t know what to adjust it to and I was worried that whatever I did would be wrong.

The point, for me, of going to Church was to learn how to be a Christian and while I appreciated being told that I didn’t have to worry about the way I dressed, this emphasis also taught me something – which is that it doesn’t matter how I dress for Church. And now that I’ve been a Christian for a while, my understanding of that has shifted quite a bit and if you’ll bear with me, I want to explain why.