5. Dress Code Debates

With the Summer Olympics upon us we are filled with a sense of patriotism and excitement for our country to do well. One team that we have high hopes for is our women's beach volleyball team of Misty May and Kerri Walsh. They have won the last two gold medals and have never even lost a set in Olympic play. It is truly amazing. But as a youth pastor and a normal guy I find it a bit easier to root for them this year, because they are playing at night in London and tend to wear more clothes than usual.

This bring up an interesting topic in youth ministry circles that is a big two piece wearing elephant in the room every summer: how do you determine what kind of bathing suit your girls should wear at church functions?

I was asked yesterday why it is that in 2012 our church hasn't changed it's policies to allow bikinis to be worn at church functions. My answer was a very practical answer, while we are making a lot of changes to keep up with a changining culture, these changes are mostly being implemented by men. And I do not plan on being the creepy guy who stands up at a church business meeting to address my concern for the fact that we don't allow teenage girls to wear bikinis at a pool or at the beach.

Here are a couple of issues with this. Every girl in our youth group has a church bathing suit and a regular bathing suit. So are we teaching our students to live a double life?

Is this something we will look back on as one of the silly things we used to "in the olden days"? After all it wasn't long ago when girls and boys weren't even allowed to swim it the same pool together at church functions.

Are we "causing our boys to stumble?" This is often quoted as a reason to not allow girls to wear bikinis. We are talking about teenage boys here... the girls could wear a parka to the beach and it would cause the boys to stumble. Such is the life of a teenage boy. I don't think one or two piece makes a difference on this point.

And finally someone suggested that it is just easier to keep things the way they are because then when we have to get specific about what kind of bikini is permissible. But, what if we just made our own church bikinis that were within regulations, thus creating no further confusion?

What would this look like?

1. While the first inclination would be to make it out of fig leaves, I would vote against that.

2. Maybe it could made of flannel graph to appease the home school moms.

3. We could build in speakers that plays nothing but the pastors message from the previous Sunday.

4. Maybe to clear this idea past the deacons it should have a website address on it to advertise online tithing to the church.

5. But I think my favorite idea would be to have Biblical passages on every bikini bottom, my suggestion: Matthew 5:39 "Turn the other cheek."



Where do you stand on the bikini debate?

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