Hi SG,

Everyday wear.  Jeans and a T-Shirt.

Clergy shirt or dress shirt.  Slacks.  Genevan Gown and seasonal stole.

No preference.  Be comfortable.

I never pay attention to that sort of thing.  I never check to see if what one is wearing is approved for their situation or not.  So long as it isn't wildly inappropriate (ie., Astronaut's pressure suit and swim fins) I can accept it.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Oh, dear.

Does the wildly inappropriate mean the astronaut suit AND swim fins at the same time?

I am scared.

I once wore a foam fish hat and swim fins, but I think it was ok, because I only wore it during Children's Time and not during the readings or the sermon.

I was raised with the firm understanding that women must wear a dress or skirt to church and men a dress shirt and slacks. To this day I can not bring myself to attend a function at a church (wedding, funeral, going to a service to make a friend happy) in slacks.  I have the horrible feeling that if I ever did every one of my maternal-side female ancestors would rise up to chide me.

It depends on the event. I have a nice three piece suit for Sunday morning worship. I don't always wear all three pieces though. I used to dress more casually. Hey -- I got married wearing a hanbok.

Two piece suit, no tie.

Who? Everybody else in the congregation? I would prefer that they wear their best, whatever that might be.

You mean to preach? Baptist preachers usually wear suits (men) or nice church dresses (women).

I enjoy wearing something really nice to church....

Just a personal preference .... I like dressing up.

Also ..... I do so as a personal sign of respect for what church is to me and what my church family means to me.    I have no problems with how others dress.

Most of the other women in my particular congregation dress quite casual and that is how they are most comfortable.   Many have commented on how I dress and are quite appreciative and supportive of how and why I choose to dress as I do.

Just the way is should be

Regards

Rita

I'm pretty flexible.  Sometimes I wear 'business attire', sometimes jeans & a sweater.  I don't ascribe to the need to 'dress up' for church.  I do like to be comfortable, clean & tidy & appreciate that in others as well.

I don't preach (well, my family might say otherwise )  so can't comment on that.

What do I like a minister to wear?  Something comfortable, clean & tidy too!   To me,  'robes/gowns, clerical collars etc' are not necessary.  I guess they have some historic/traditional/ritualistic meaning, but I don't know what that background is.  If it's important to the minister to wear such, then fine.  If not, that's fine too. 

I do notice that often when I see preachers in 'street clothes' while presiding over a service, they often seem dressed in somber & conservative colours and styles ... what's that about? 

So what consitutes a 'nice church dress'?  Iust curious.

My preference is to wear a nice Wesley gown (in pearl grey) with seasonal stole.

As far as 'rules', I believe that the tradition is that only ordered persons are 'authorized' to wear a stole, but I doubt the roof would collapse if others did.

I wear an Alb to preach. It is blue (Stevie, you and Rita saw it) covered with Noah's Ark and animals. Beautiful. Children and elderley love it.

I have an off white one that I wore for weddings and funerals. No stole.

To sit in congregation, I make ssure I am dressed.

Hi SG,

Yes it does.  It was only an illustration.  Never something I have seen or heard of.

I'd be okay with that.  It has its own theme.

Grace and peace to you.

John

redbaron - is the style of gown just a personal choice of the individual minister?

As far as I know, yes.

The idea is that you stay focused on what is being preached rather than on what the pastor is wearing.

Simple, basic, conservative. Low hemline -- at least below the knee. High neckline. We're talking basic decency here redbaron.

I count myself blessed in my socks match, in church or elsewhere, and the church feels blessed if my shirt covers my belly.

What I wear depends on what I am doing in church. If I am teaching Sunday School and I know the craft might get a little messy, then I'll wear something like jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. I usually go in clothing that I am comfortable in - perhaps a sweater, nicer pair of jeans and comfortable shoes, for example. On special occasions I'll usually get dressed up. I'm not sure what I'll do on Easter Sunday when there'll be a long walk for a sunrise service, followed by a breakfast at the church and then the regular service. It will probably involve bringing a change of shoes, if nothing else.

That said, I'm pretty sure God doesn't care what I wear to church!  

There are no rules for what to wear when presiding. For me it depends on the role. In the church? Normally alb and stole for worship, funerals and weddings. Dark suit and clergy shirt at funerals and outdoor weddings. Summer preaching? Clergy shirt and dress pants. beach church? Casual shirt and pants.

What is your church attire?

Depends on day and plans for the day.  I have gone after I have been in the garden, and also gone well dressed. Generally, it is jeans as i do so get bored of business casual.

What is your preaching attire?

i don't, but when i have been doing services i generally wear my business casual clothes.

What do you prefer them wearing?

something that makes them comfortable

What are attire rules? I was told I can wear an alb in ministry-based ordination, but not a stole. Today, I saw a picture of a friend who is a LLWL wearing an alb. I know someone who is a candidate and wears a clerical collar.

don't know.

For going to church, I wear business casual (slacks and sport or golf shirt) to church. That makes me one of the more formal ones at my UU fellowship, but I find even at the United Church I occasionally attend business casual and even everyday casual is displacing suits and dresses.

When I lay preach, I'll sometimes wear a dress shirt and pants (but not a full suit).

Given our relatively loose notion of ordained ministry, I don't think that there any real "rules" around attire. I know I've seen lay chaplains wearing stoles and ministers who don't wear anything to signify their role, even in the pulpit.

Mendalla

There are a lot of people here at wondercafe with preaching experience. Maybe sometime we should hold a symposium. 

Both as a LLWL and as a member of a congregation I try to dress my best.  (As a retired person, it is one of the few things I get dressed up for.)  Until this past year I almost always wore a dress or skirt and blouse, pantihose, dress shoes with medium heels (comfortable to stand in, safe for walking, stairs).   Sometimes now I substitute dress slacks for the skirt.  Because our sanctuary is cold in winter, I often wear a coordinating shawl or blazer.   Little one-room country churches tend to be cold when a person arrives, and quickly warm up quickly when the heat is turned on - with a raised pulpit, it can get hot by the time I start the sermon - I need a jacket or shawl that I can take off - and a pretty blouse underneath.

My daughter usually dresses in business casual.  My grandchildren?- sometimes I just shake my head and remind myself to be glad they are present.

Ok, here I go answering for myself.

Sitting in the pew, one might find me in various attire. It may be jeans and T shirt, dress shirt or sweater. It may be shorts and a shirt, dress pants and a shirt or sweater, a suit and tie, even... My feet may be in dress shoes, runners, or sandals.

Sunday services where I am behind the pulpit- the same applies. (As for the "shorts?" I might get - I have led mid-afternoon services on Muskoka hot summer days in a pioneer church with no hydro and people just drip sweat. If one can keep it out of your eyes to finish the sermon, you are doing well)

I dress up when it is appropriate and dress down when that is appropriate.

It depends on the culture of the congegation.  Alb and stole for weddings, baptisms, communion; suit with appropriate colour of shirt and clerical collar for other worship and funerals; occasionaly wear stole with suit, dress shirt and slacks and warm jacket for sunrise Easter service.  Some congregations expect minister to wear alb or geneva gown for worship.  Shirt with clerical colour for summer services. Casual clothes for informal services if appropriate.

I realize there is probably a solid theological rational for limiting stoles to ordered people, but I see anyone who is leading worship as being entitled to wearing a stole if they wish as a reminder they are the bearer of the Good News.

We insist that everyone must be wearing skin. Anything over top of that is up to you.

No shirt....no shoes.....no service?

LOL gecko!

lol

I'm guessing "Take Off Your Shoes" wouldn't be a popular hymn in your church then? 

I would not feel comfortable in a congregation where everybody comes in their finest clothes on Sunday. I am good at ignoring it, but I think of all the ones that occaisionally drop into church because they ran out of food or need other support. We also have one person attending who doesn't wash his clothes very often, especially in the winter (last time he told me that his washer broke, but it may also be that he can't afford the soap or the laundromat). It sometimes is a challenge to sit next to him, but I would not want a church without him. (He and /or his wife are hoarders).

I used to go to a church in Germany, where the drug addicts sat next to the middle class seniors in the pews. I miss that.

Yes, I would feel somewhat uncomfortable in such a congregation as well. For me, there is a certain feeling of inauthenticity to it. Still, I do believe that each person ought to wear that person's own best. For some, that may be expensive dress, for others their newest and best sweatshirt and jeans. I believe that God looks at our hearts, and wants us to do the best that we can, including in how we dress, to serve him. 

Hopefully the drug addicts are no longer drug addicts, but I get what you're saying. A congregation should be united.

Yes, it does sound like it. Are any resources being offered to this individual that he and his wife might be helped?

mrs.anteater - while I respect your position, I beg to differ.  Twice in my own experience, both involving funerals in little rural villages, I dressed down to what I thought most people in those villages would likely have.  I felt embarassed when I arrived at the individual churches (different communities/different times).  Everybody had made an effort to spiff up and wear their best.  Most of the men had dug out their one and only suit.  Women were wearing dresses, or pant suits (or blazers and skirts or slacks to make a suit).  I felt that I was insulting them.  I was probably the only one there who hadn't considered the occasion important enough to dress up for.

I don't mean dressing up to show off.  I couldn't do that anyway on my OAS and my thrift store finds.

I wear a clerical collar. That's it. Well, pants and shirt too. And socks and shoes.

Here's my understanding of the "norms."

Anyone can wear an alb - lay, orgained, commissioned. Anyone. There's no restriction on anyone wearing a clerical collar, although the norm is that it's for ordered or designated ministry personnel. Logically, the stole should be for ordained or commissioned people, since when you're ordained or commissioned the placing of the stole around your shoulders is one of the symbols of your ordination/commissioning. However, many lay ministers do wear stoles. (To be honest, I'm not sure if the stole may have started to be used as a symbol when recognizing DLMs.)

Clerical attire is one of those things the United Church has little control over.

Hi All,

In case you are wondering:

Orgained clergy are those who have been recognized to their office through the ancient ecclesial artform of folding known as Origamidation.

This public service announcement is courtesy the Stuar Lyster chair of Communications for the United Church.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I better start yoga now to get ready for Origamation. I am no where near flexible enough yet.

Origamation allows certain of we ordained folk into the special inner sanctum known only to the select few. The coffee here is pretty good. Don't get your hopes up SG!  But I'll put in a good word for you with the Supreme Beatific One who leads our secret society if you like. No promises, though. 

(I may actually be in trouble for spilling the beans accidentally on this one!)

The first rule of clergy folding club is that there is no clergy folding club.

Rev. Steven Davis, my mom took care of old timers who listened to WXYZ play shows from the Golden Age of Radio. So, I know, Inner Sanctum scares me. It might have been the creaking door. It must not have been the spooky organ music, though.
Could I overcome my fear for good coffee? If there were cookies and bars and tarts I just know I could....

Rev John, who is talking about a club? What club?

Wasn't it Grouch Marx who said something about a club that would accept him as a member?

I get dressed. Given that my wardrobe is generally standard when I step off my property (clean jeans, clean top of some sort), I neither dress up nor down for church. For Easter, or a wedding, if I'm reading the scripture, or just because I feel like it, I might put on a shalwar kameez (an Indian tunic and pant outfit, of which I have several).

I find that older people are more likely to 'dress their best' for church. Many of those of us under 60 are prone to being more casual.

Stop it.  You are making me hungry.

I believe so.  He also had pithy advice on best friend inside of a dog.

Grace and peace to you.

John

It's too dark in there.

Well, of course it is. He has had those mental health issues for likely 50 years or more. So does his wife. Think we can change them?

Are they still going to be welcome? How welcoming would be a church where everybody looks dressed up to the ones that Jesus invited to his table.I am quiet convinced that Jesus wasn't about doing charity to the poor on the street, but then retreating into the middle class temple.

Seeler,

A funeral or a wedding might have a dress code. A church shouldn't have, or we didn't quiet get to whom Jesus actually came. This refers to the congregation.

Ministers might have a dress code, too- because they are on the job and have to go along with the expectations of their employers to a certain degree. I have a dress code at work as well.

Privately- if I was invited for something  I would have to dress up for or even buy clothes I am never going to wear again, I'd probably decide not to go.

I had no idea that these posts could actually be humourous as well as informative. Now I want to rush out and buy an alb (I had to look that up in the dictionary) and wear it with a stole which I already own but which has no resemblance to the stoles worn by most clergy.  I love the ministers stoles.  A former minister had a collection of them, mostly from a friend who designed them.  I liked to figure them out, although I attached no significance to whether it was "correct or not" for him to wear.

By the way, that minister was only in his early 30's, and wore both an alb and stole every service.  He now guides a very large Methodist church in the U.S.  Do you suppose they hired him because they liked his stoles?  We have two "unwashed" who come to our church mainly for the coffee we serve before service.  Now it seems they stay a few minutes longer each week until currently they sit for about 20 minutes.  I often wonder if Jesus came today, would he be clean?  After all, I don't recall reading anything about someone washing his garments while he travelled about the countryside.  People may have thought Christ was a mental case too.

Casual here for church-actually casual for everything in town.( work is a step or 2 less dressy than the big city) So sundress and flip flops or shorts  in the summer, pants and top in winter. More dressy for easter-because I like to.

I tend to wear a navy or black dress for funerals.

Haven't been to a wedding for ages-but then I'd wear a pretty dress!

[quote=mrs.anteater]

Seeler,

A funeral or a wedding might have a dress code. A church shouldn't have, or we didn't quiet get to whom Jesus actually came. This refers to the congregation.

Ministers might have a dress code, too- because they are on the job and have to go along with the expectations of their employers to a certain degree. I have a dress code at work as well.

Privately- if I was invited for something  I would have to dress up for or even buy clothes I am never going to wear again, I'd probably decide not to go.

/quote]

I have never heard of a church having a dress code.  None I've ever attended have had one since the 1940s when women wore hats.  In the two communities I was referring to, people would wear their 'Sunday best' for funerals, weddings, and regular worship, although if they had a choice (more than one good outfit) they would probably wear dark colours for a funeral and light for a wedding and either one for worship.

No one would be excluded because of their dress.   If spiffed up meant a clean shirt, pants and runners - as opposed to sweats, or overalls and workboots, that would be fine.  If Debbie wears her work smock, and leaves early because she has to be at work by 12:30, that is fine too. 

No one would expect a person to buy clothes that they never will wear again to attend church.  I'm thinking more of the person who would dress up for the dance Saturday night and just throw something on for Sunday service.  That seems to me to be disrespectful.   Or the person who deliberately dresses down, when the people from the community will be dressing up.  I think that is insulting.

I dress in causal dress when I sit in the pew.

However, when I preside I always wear an alb - which tradition is white- and a stole that is season determined.  At weddings and funerals I wear a white stole.  Of course there are exceptions for weddings, but mostly it is an alb and stole.

I am bothered by those who are not ordained or commissioned wearing stoles.  Clerical collar is more difficult issue - tradition has it for ordained but in the UCC we are much looser, given we let none ordained be called rev.

The alb is for me a good thing for all leaders of worship as it takes away the suits of the coroprate world or dressess of the coroprate world.  As well, one can get away of keeping up ones clothing budget low.  All I have to do buy causal pants and shirts.  No one has to judge ones clothing.  It also depersonalizes and points to the role of presider - highly symbolic.  This is why I limit the stole to those who have had hand laid upon them.  It comes symbolically with the eurcharist.

Where does one buy an alb? Maybe I will try wearing one next time I preach. Is there a store -- Albs 'R' Us?

You can likely order them online at any mainstream denominational supply house. Or check for an ad in most denominational magazines, there are usually a few of them in the U C Observer.

Pan, the reason you gave for wearing an alb is why i like choir gowns.  matters not what you wear.