Sometime in the mid-1990s when I was teaching a class for pastors at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I made up a list of suggestions for the conduct of young pastors and distributed them to the students. One item was: “Wear a suit to the office during the week, with a white shirt and a nice tie. It conveys a sense of professionalism.”

If any pastor from that class is now reading this, I’d like to say: “You may ignore that. It’s no longer necessary.” As if you need me to tell you!

The dress code for ministers is one of the most drastic changes my generation has seen. When I began in the Lord’s work in the early 1960s, the minister dressed up for everything.

I recall one afternoon in the mid-1970s, I was on my way home from playing tennis and ran by a downtown restaurant for something. I hesitated, wondering if I should do this, since I was dressed in the traditional tennis uniform: white polo shirt, white short pants, white shoes, white socks. A pastor should not be seen in public dressed this way, I thought. But I decided it was safe, and walked inside.

Immediately, I ran into some of the matrons from our church, having their afternoon tea. I felt naked before them, and as I recall, they looked as shocked as though I were.

How times change.

These days, the only time many pastors take that traditional black suit out of the closet is for funerals or the occasional wedding. All other times, casual is the order of the day.

I understand that’s true for society across the board. Men are wearing fewer ties and suits, period.

Next time you watch an old film clip from the Depression years, notice the men. No matter how poor they were, whether they were striking a factory or standing in a bread line, they’re all wearing hats. Every single one of them. No more.

Fifteen years ago, some pastor somewhere decided one Sunday to wear jeans and sneakers, and because he was bold and confident and effective in his ministry, the church grew and the word got out and pastors all across the land decided the way to grow a great church was to wear blue jeans and old sneakers.

Someone decided we ought to have screens on the walls and projectors pointing at them so the congregation would not be required to–horrors!–reach down and pick up a hymnal and actually look up a page number. Soon, everyone had to have screens and projectors.

A pastor decided he could put his sermon outline on that screen and have everyone take notes, and soon that was the order of the day. What the people did with the notes was not as important as the fact that they took them down. No one asked if members of the congregation were missing an important element by sitting in church with notebooks in their laps, scribbling point after point from the pastor/teacher–missing something like hearing the voice of God because they were too busy trying to find the point they missed.

They quit dressing the choir in robes, brought in drums and keyboards and guitars, gave away the hymnals and subscribed to services that provide entertaining video clips to spice up the worship time, and removed the pulpit.

When they grew tired of no pulpit, they bought a clear plastic one. The pastor insists the congregation must be able to see through the pulpit to know what he’s wearing today. Why they need to see that is beyond me. I wish I had bought stock in the clear-plastic-pulpit company a few years back, though; I’d be wealthy today.

Something about the centerpiece of the Lord’s sanctuary being plastic seems questionable to me.

In the early days, churches got along with no sound systems at all. Two hundred people in an auditorium should be able to hear well enough. Then, Mr. Peavey got into the act, and soon churches of every size installed expensive systems for enlarging the voice of the pastor. Next followed massive, intricate sound boards–and horrendously expensive they were, too–enabling the church to “mix” the audio from the various microphones.

In the early days, the pastor preached from the pulpit with a single microphone before him. A quarter-century ago, someone developed the cordless mike that clipped on his tie and we had to have that. After all, pastors walk around a lot and this freed them up.

Then, some enterprising soul concocted a cordless microphone that basically wraps around the minister’s head and pokes out in front of his mouth, and that became all the rage. Interesting we never see Brian Williams or Katie Couric wearing those, but we preachers seem to like them, so into the budget they go.

I can remember when Vacation Bible School meant the pastor stood in front of the church talking to the children. Someone played the piano and we sang the songs and the kids actually learned them. Then, we got creative. We produced entire VBS packages complete with prerecorded songs and prerecorded children singing them, elaborate sets for the stage area, videos and DVDs and posters and props, all meant to help us connect with the children of this high-tek age. Whether it does or not, I couldn’t say since I’ve not actually led a vacation Bible school in a number of years.

I will tell you this and if I were a betting man, I’d put my retirement income on it: a generation ago the children memorized Scripture better than now, and they learned the songs better then. These days, since the Bible verses are on the screens in front of them, there’s no incentive to memorize them. And since the children on the recordings are already belting out the choruses, the VBS kids feel no need to raise their voices to be heard.

Sounds like I’m griping. Sorry. I set out to comment on some trends in the ministry, some good and some questionable and one thing led to another.

I’m really not a curmudgeon. I like the freedom of not having to dress up, or being able to do so if I choose. I enjoy most of the choruses, but sometimes miss the grand old hymns. I love the full orchestra in our church, just as I thrill at the pipe organ or piano solo the few times I get to hear one played by a master. The screens are okay, but I wouldn’t miss them if they were removed. If they help you, I’m good to keep them.

When Sir Christopher Wren–architect for the rebuilding of London following the great fire of 1666–designed the inside of Windsor’s Town Hall, his ceiling was supported by pillars. The building inspectors decided the pillars were insufficient, however, and Wren should add more. He protested, but to no avail. Therefore, Sir Christopher had the workers install four more pillars inside the hall, identical to the others but with one exception: these did not touch the ceiling. They only looked as though they did. The inspectors were fooled, and the four fake pillars still stand to this day. (Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes; Little, Brown and Company, 2000. p. 583)

Think of that as a parable for the Lord’s church.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is supported by certain pillars–Bible study, prayer, fellowship, missions, ministry–and all of them load-bearing. Remove any of them and the entire structure is endangered.

However, as with the Windsor Town Hall, each church has pillars that are not load-bearing, but cosmetic. They add a certain quality to the appearance and perhaps give comfort to those who enter, but removing them would do nothing to the structural soundness of the institution.

Each generation comes along and does two things: it pushes at the old pillars placed there by their parents, to see what should come down, what is old-fashioned and out of date, what is no longer necessary for this enlightened age. And, then, each new crop of youngsters moves in to build new pillars, to express their own identity, adapt the eternal message to the modern soul, inject new life into old structures.

The older generations watch this process and panic. In some cases, they see the young ones pushing at load-bearing pillars, throwing out Bible study, ignoring prayer, speaking out against spending money on missions, and their heart stops. They know that these are essentials without which the church would die.

Some of us old-timers, however, panic at the wrong things. We see cosmetic pillars being dismantled–the organ taken out, the dress code changing, the formal language loosening up–and we’re tempted to give up on the young folks. Then, we watch as new pillars are erected–screens and projectors installed, choruses brought in, videos becoming integral parts of the worship services–and it scares the daylights out of us.

I wish two things for the members of the Lord’s church. The older generation–that would be my group–must never lose sight of the things that are vital and necessary to the Lord’s work, and not make an issue of lesser matters that mean nothing in light of eternity. Let us support the young folks who want to praise God and teach the Word in their own ways.

And the younger generation–that would be my children and my grandchildren–must hesitate before they begin pushing at pillars and erecting new ones. First, let them learn which are the historic load-bearing columns on which the church of Jesus Christ stands and without which all society would be much the poorer. Then, and only then, let them proceed to dismantle those no longer needed and to erect in their place structures which they find helpful and needed.

But let the youngsters remember this one thing: in a few years–it will seem like a few weeks–you will be the reactionary oldsters shaking your heads at the next generation, wondering how they could be so cavalier about criticizing and tearing down columns and pillars you worked so hard to erect.

What goes around….

Well, you know.

So, loosen up, old-timers. As long as they hold to the essentials of the faith, stand back and applaud the youngsters who love the same Lord you do, but want to say so in their own ways.