‘Sunday dress’ doesn’t have age-old definition anymore as attire takes more casual turn

Depending on where you attend services, wearing your “Sunday best” to church today might not have as specific a meaning as it once did.
   
On Sunday mornings, more and more people are passing on dresses or ties and opting for blue jeans and T-shirts instead. A push-pull now exists between the argument that casual clothing makes visitors feel welcome and the desire to dress in finer clothes out of respect for God’s house.
   
Harold Fanning, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church, Decatur, in Morgan Baptist Association, said his church is more “business casual” than anything else. 
   
“Personally I wear a suit on Sunday mornings, but I usually dress casual on Sunday evening — more of a sport jacket, slacks and no tie,” he said.
   
But when Cecil R. Taylor, dean of the school of Christian studies at the University of Mobile, says he’s going casual, he’s going for a slightly different look. Taylor wears jeans to church and said he doesn’t mean any disrespect to God by doing so.
   
After all, Taylor recalled, David was anointed king after working in the fields. 
   
In the biblical story, David’s divine appointment is preceded by the Almighty telling Samuel of other candidates, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
   
“The important thing is to come before the Lord,” Taylor said. “I think whether I wear jeans or a three-piece suit is immaterial before the Lord.”
   
The definition of “casual” and how it’s worn is immaterial — the real battle is against the suggestive clothing creeping into the churches, said Theresa Shadrix, a member of the Association of Image Consultants International and former church and community ministries associate director for Calhoun Baptist Association.
   
“There is so much of the world in church today that we no longer stand out as a group of people by the way that we dress,” Shadrix said.  
   
Shadrix, who is also co-director for Miss Jacksonville State University, has found that over the years, God has used her to help women of all ages find their style and motivate them to dress in a way that is both enjoyable and true to their religious convictions. 
   
The moment that Shadrix gave her life to Christ at the age of 19, not only did her heart change but so did the clothes her closet flaunted.
   
“I was not raised in a Christian home, so when I dedicated my life to Christ and married my Christian husband, I had to clean out my closet — literally,” she said.  
   
Shadrix observed that modest fashion is most difficult for teens because they get mixed signals from society and the church about fashion. There are some, too, that wear modest clothing yet appear too casual to those of the generation before them.
   
Randy Hall, founder and president of Birmingham-based Student Life, said his organization has a dress code to make sure its students dress appropriately. 
   
But he added that Student Life’s aim is not to worry so much about what youth have on as it is to help them stay centered on Christ.
   
“Our goal is to help teenagers understand that the focus of worship services is not on what they wear but on Who we serve. It’s about Him,” Hall said. “It is our experience that most teenagers do a great job choosing what to wear. There will always be a small percentage of students who push the limits publicly.”
   
Like Hall, Fanning said as long as his church’s teenagers aren’t toeing the line with inappropriate clothing, he is thankful to have them in church — however they are dressed.
   
Fanning joked that some of the students have so many hooks, tattoos and pins they look like they got into a fight with a nail gun and lost. 
   
“But I’d rather have a kid looking like the Pink Panther or like he fell headfirst into a tackle box than out somewhere other than church,” he said. (RNS contributed)