Individualism: I don't think so

Make no mistake I think that every person that walks into the church ought to be allowed to come exactly as they are. No matter what they look like. Or what they dress like. Jesus cautioned us to be like this and to accepting of all people or we would be judged. I get all this.

But....

This is about accepting people in the church, not about allowing people do whatever they want whenever they want. Let me explain. Suppose you decide to wear an ugly pink hat with an animal on it to church. It's your choice, right? Why do you wear the hat, because its you and you want to express your individualism. During the service, people constantly look and stare at your hat. In fact, after church no one remembers the message, just the hat. No one gets saved, no one get set free, because they are paying too much attention to your terrible hat. Yes, its true you got to express your individualism, but what did you accomplish? Everyone was distracted. This is a pretty extreme example.

I'm not against people expressing their style. I do it all the time. It's not just about what you wear either. It's how you talk, how you act. Is it really worth it for me to express myself at the cost of distracting the gospel? I'm not really talking about people in the church, but people on the platform or the worship team. It seems people get so offended by some small guidelines when their on the platform. But, at the end of the day I want it all to be about people encountering God and hearing the gospel. Well, it's there fault if they get distracted. You think, is it really worth it?

The church is about us depending on people to enhance our life. It's not about us going at it by ourselves. So, really our life is not about individualism, but interdependence. We need other people. And. Shock. Horror. Sometimes we'll change a little bit for the people around us. We're not losing ourselves, we're just becoming a part of the community.

But, that's just what I think