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Did You Wear 'Sunday Best' for Home Church?


Home Church Attire  

39 members have voted

  1. 1. Did you wear "Sunday Best" for home church?

    • Yes
      10
    • No
      26
    • Other
      3


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9 hours ago, Thinking said:

We went to my daughter's home and her family wore "Sunday Best" to take the sacrament. Just wondering what others wore.

Jeans and a t-shirt - same as what I wear when watching General Conference at home.

I don't remember what everyone else in my family was wearing specifically, so I'll just go with 'modest but casual.' 

Admittedly, part of it was my wife's and my reaction to something the executive secretary said during our virtual bishopric meeting earlier that morning - about how dressing up is necessary for the sacrament.

Only it clearly isn't a necessity; it's a nicety. 

That being said, I have absolutely no problem with families who feel better served by dressing up to participate in the sacrament - even when doing so at home. 

 

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"Sunday best" is a way to signal the approved degree of commitment to others in our community, not to God. The argument could certainly be made that such signaling to our children could help them to better appreciate and internalize those credibility enhancing displays, but I make it a point to help them understand them precisely as credibility enhancing displays.

Edited by Dan McClellan
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4 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

"Sunday best" is a way to signal the approved degree of commitment to others in our community, not to God. The argument could certainly be made that such signaling to our children could help them to better appreciate and internalize those credibility enhancing displays, but I make it a point to help them understand them precisely as credibility enhancing displays.

Just because they are “credibility enhancing displays” to you doesn’t mean dressing nicely is that for everyone though. 

I think we have to be careful not to teach our kids that our personal interpretation of something is a valid standard to judge everyone else with. 

Our beliefs and ideas are not the standards we use to judge what is in other people’s hearts or where their motivation comes from.  

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I wore my usual home Sunday best: sweats and a t-shirt.

Now that I am working remotely at home and I am supposed to avoid going outside I expect this to be a regular wardrobe for the next few weeks though I also anticipate jeans for afternoon book reading on the balcony and the transition to sleep shorts as the weather warms. Also, more wearing of t-shirts with built in zipper pouch so my pet sugar gliders can hopefully keep me from going insane due to isolation.

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We did, but because of the ordinance of the sacrament. We actually discussed how this can vary, such as when camping with authorization to perform the sacrament. Or in a war zone (e.g., Elder Perry's foot locker for sacrament preparation). I don't personally feel that dressing up for the service alone is required, but I do feel that one should dress up to perform and participate in priesthood ordinances, where possible (e.g., going to give someone a blessing or the sacrament). 

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10 hours ago, Thinking said:

We went to my daughter's home and her family wore "Sunday Best" to take the sacrament. Just wondering what others wore.

It was just myself and my wife and we dressed in nice casual.  I'm fine if others want to dress in the church attire as I believe that's a personal matter and choice.  I honestly believe though that it's the respect and reverence you have in your heart and mind rather than what you are wearing that is important.

Edited by ALarson
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2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Just because they are “credibility enhancing displays” to you doesn’t mean dressing nicely is that for everyone though. 

I think we have to be careful not to teach our kids that our personal interpretation of something is a valid standard to judge everyone else with. 

Our beliefs and ideas are not the standards we use to judge what is in other people’s hearts or where their motivation comes from.  

They're credibility enhancing displays to everyone. It's the reason they exist. This isn't a question of what's in people's hearts––which I don't think we ought to waste time pretending is our prerogative to judge––this is a question of the well-established realities of social cognition. We rationalize their meaning to us personally in a variety of ways, but that's reflective reasoning trying to bring meaning to something fundamentally driven by intuition. 

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14 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

They're credibility enhancing displays to everyone. It's the reason they exist. This isn't a question of what's in people's hearts––which I don't think we ought to waste time pretending is our prerogative to judge––this is a question of the well-established realities of social cognition. We rationalize their meaning to us personally in a variety of ways, but that's reflective reasoning trying to bring meaning to something fundamentally driven by intuition. 

I don’t agree. It seems self righteous to even pretend to know what “dressing in our best” means for other people. 

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2 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

"Sunday best" is a way to signal the approved degree of commitment to others in our community, not to God.

It seems evident that there are some here who even while isolated from the rest of the community in their homes, they still wear their Sunday best for the sacrament.  How can you say that is about signaling to the community and not to God?  How can you say that it is not an outward manifestation of an internal devotion and reverence?  People manifest to God in different ways.  I wouldn't rule out that many dress to please God rather than the community. 

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11 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don’t agree. It seems self righteous to even pretend to know what “dressing in our best” means for other people. 

I have quite explicitly made clear that I am not saying what it means for other people. I have stated quite clearly that everyone rationalizes its meaning in their own ways. What I have stated is the underlying intuitive motivation for it (not what it means for people), and there are decades of research on this. 

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I dressed from the waist up (pajama bottoms, people!) for a WebEx ward council but did not shave since I figured it wouldn't show. The I ressed the rest of me for administering the sacrament out of a personal expression of respect to the Lord (but still did not bother shaving that late in the morning). Then I got back into my "play clothes". Since this is the new normal for awhile, from now on I will probably shave and dress for the morning until "church" is over.

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1 minute ago, pogi said:

It seems evident that there are some here who even while isolated from the rest of the community in their homes, they still wear their Sunday best for the sacrament.  How can you say that is about signaling to the community and not to God?  How can you say that it is not an outward manifestation of an internal devotion and reverence?  People manifest to God in different ways.  I wouldn't rule out that many dress to please God rather than the community. 

Yeah, because they rationalize it in one of a number of different ways that makes them feel it's important even when the rest of the community isn't around. Even family can represent that social trigger, too, though. I explained why the notion of "Sunday best" exists in the first place, not the different reasoning that everyone employs when they determine whether or not to engage in it in isolation. 

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1 minute ago, Dan McClellan said:

I have quite explicitly made clear that I am not saying what it means for other people. I have stated quite clearly that everyone rationalizes its meaning in their own ways. What I have stated is the underlying intuitive motivation for it (not what it means for people), and there are decades of research on this. 

I'm not sure if I would want to try to convince God that I am any more committed to Him than I actually am, but rather give Him a token or gesture of appreciation. We both know I didn't shave, and we both know why, but maybe I'll do better next time.

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1 minute ago, CV75 said:

I'm not sure if I would want to try to convince God that I am any more committed to Him than I actually am, but rather give Him a token or gesture of appreciation. We both know I didn't shave, and we both know why, but maybe I'll do better next time.

Who told you it would be better if you shaved?

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1 minute ago, Dan McClellan said:

Yeah, because they rationalize it in one of a number of different ways that makes them feel it's important even when the rest of the community isn't around. Even family can represent that social trigger, too, though. I explained why the notion of "Sunday best" exists in the first place, not the different reasoning that everyone employs when they determine whether or not to engage in it in isolation. 

True, if there were no socialized "Sunday best" there would be other respectful / reverent behaviors. Thinking out loud here, I wonder which ones might be strictly intuitive for the un-churched penitent.

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12 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

I have quite explicitly made clear that I am not saying what it means for other people. I have stated quite clearly that everyone rationalizes its meaning in their own ways. What I have stated is the underlying intuitive motivation for it (not what it means for people), and there are decades of research on this. 

Like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree.

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4 minutes ago, CV75 said:

True, if there were no socialized "Sunday best" there would be other respectful / reverent behaviors. Thinking out loud here, I wonder which ones might be strictly intuitive for the un-churched penitent.

There aren't a ton of universal intuitions about what deity expects of followers, but even unchurched folks are generally aware of the expectations of the traditions around them, and that can be influential. I know as a missionary I saw investigators frequently assume and immediately adopt this or that expected behavior, whether or not it was actually expected of them.  

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