Dress Code for Worship Team Members: Guidelines for Appropriate Attire

Speaker 1 Does your worship team dress too sexy, too sloppy, or just right? I’m going to share with you four do’s and three don’ts for your worship team dress code. I’ll also tell you how to handle a worship team member who shows up with inappropriate attire. Plus, I’ll give you the absolute best way to communicate your dress code to your worship team. My name is Alex. I’m the founder of Worship Ministry Training, the number one online training platform for worship leaders who are serious about growth. I’ve also been a worship leader in churches of 100 all the way up to 10,000, and your worship team’s dress can either help or hinder your church’s worship. So let’s dig into how to keep your church’s attention on Jesus and not on your team members distracting clothing. Before we get into the do’s and don’ts, let’s talk for 60 seconds about why your worship team’s dress matters. The primary job of a worship team is to point people to Jesus. And if our attire, what we’re wearing, is pulling attention off of Jesus and onto ourselves, our style, our sexy looks, or our sloppy looks, then we have a problem.

Speaker 1 What we wear or don’t wear can be a distraction. Like if I told you, right now I’m filming this in my underwear, did I just pull your attention off of the content and onto the fact is, is he actually wearing underwear? No, I’m actually wearing pants. Don’t worry. Look, see. Pants. Okay. But do you get my point? What your team wears can be a distraction. Just like your team can be musically excellent without showing off, they can also dress in a way that is sharp and stylish without catching people’s attention. Here are three don’ts and four do’s that you can establish for your worship team dress code. Number one, don’t wear polarising logos or graphics. This is mainly for the guys. I know the girls always get called out when it comes to dress code stuff, so let’s start with the guys this time. Guys, Don’t wear T-shirts or jackets with polarising logos like your favourite sports team or political statements or a pop culture icon or a super expensive luxury brand. All of those logos are eye-catching and noticeable. People are aware of those brands, aware of those teams, aware of those politicians, and those things can be divisive for your church.

Speaker 1 That immediately is going to draw attention to itself. If it will distract or divide, don’t wear it. That’s the first don’t. Number two, don’t wear tight or revealing clothing. Clothes that hug your body or reveal your curves obviously should be avoided. Bra straps shouldn’t show, nor should too much skin, whether it’s your belly or an open neckline or some cleavage. Obviously, we want to avoid all of that. What might be fashionable on the streets or at school or at your place of work might not and probably won’t be appropriate in church. People should focus on Christ, not your curves. Two things to consider about this topic while you’re trying on your outfit, raise your hands above your head like when you’re leading worship, and see if it lifts up your shirt and your tummy or your back show. Also, be aware that some material looks fine in normal light, but in stage light, it becomes sheer or translucent. So make sure the material is not going to show your bra or your whatever. So you can use your imagination, or maybe you shouldn’t use your imagination. Number three, don’t. Don’t wear short skirts or dresses.

Speaker 1 See, you are elevated up on a platform. People’s eyes are at your thighs. Remember that phrase? They’re literally your thigh level with your thighs. Those in the front row are actually looking up at you. One time at my old church, we had this creepy guy who would come early to our Sunday morning rehearsals to stare at the girls. I had to actually confront him and be like, Get out of here, you creep, you’re a freak. I didn’t say it like that, but I did ask him to leave. We want to avoid that tempting situation where you’re wearing a short skirt and you’re elevated above people. Yes, guys shouldn’t be lusting, but let’s do our best to help our brothers not to stumble. We don’t want to wear anything that would draw attention to ourselves, especially that attention. All right, those are our three don’ts. Now, let’s talk about our four do’s. Number one, do. Do check your fly. Guys, check your fly. Nothing is more embarrassing than getting on stage in front of hundreds or maybe thousands of people in the live stream and to know that your fly is down the entire time. To mitigate against this, you can get a full-length mirror backstage in your green room or on the side of the stage and take a good long look into that mirror right before you step on stage.

Speaker 1 Do check fly. Number two, do avoid overly busy patterns and bright colours. Busy patterns are actually really, really distracting on camera. Again, we don’t want to distract or pull attention, so avoid bright colours and busy patterns. Aim to wear solid, darker, more neutral colours. That’s going to look good on stage and on camera. Number three, do iron your clothes. You want to look clean, sharp, and presentable. You want to look You don’t want to look like a slob or like you just rolled out of bed or you rushed from the gym and you’re in your joggers. You want to bring your best to God, and that includes how you dress. If you think I’m being overly strict, the Levites had to wear special fancy clothes when they ministered to God in his temple. We should do the same. Iron your clothes, look sharp, look presentable, bring your best. The last do, and then we’ll talk about how to address when someone comes in inappropriate clothing. The last do is to be sensitive to your church’s culture. If you’re at a cool, hip, young church, which whatever we can say what we want about that, fine, dress cool, dress hip, but again, dress appropriate.

Speaker 1 Don’t draw attention to yourself. But most of us are not at a cool, young, hip church. If you’re at an older and more traditional church, then take that into account as well. Avoid holy jeans that are going to show your knees, your hairy knees like mine, or baseball caps are probably a no-no, or anything else that might be deemed offensive by those that we’re serving. A good rule of thumb is that those of us on stage should dress slightly fancier than the average of our congregation. You should look slightly better than the average of your congregation. That is a safe and healthy rule of thumb. Now, let’s talk about what to do when one of your team members shows up and they are dressed inappropriately. First of all, did they even know the dress code? Because it’s your job to communicate the dress code, and you should communicate the dress code during your onboarding process with your new team members. If you don’t have an onboarding process, you need one. If you need help creating one, you can use our template that you can grab in the academy at worshipministrytraining. Com. But yes, communicate the dress code to your team members in your onboarding.

Speaker 1 Communicate it at your annual team meeting. Are you doing one of those? I hope you’re doing one of those, too. And also periodically bring it up at rehearsals. But if you’ve communicated it, and I have a really great way to communicate super clearly, I’ll tell you in a second. But if you’ve communicated it and someone shows up with inappropriate attire, what do you do? How do you handle that situation? Well, you want to be kind. Don’t make a big deal out of it. They come in Sunday morning and you say, Oh, hey, Hey, so glad to see you. Hey, how far do you live from here? Oh, 10 minutes. Do you think you have time? We’ll start without you, but do you have time to just run home and grab a different top? That top is a little bit revealing. If you don’t feel comfortable as a guy, like if you’re a guy worship leader and you don’t feel comfortable saying that to one of the females, then you can grab another female on your team to ask them to head home and change. Or another way to deal with this is for you to have a series of clothes backstage in your office or in the green room, maybe a jacket or a couple of jackets or a couple of sizes of T-shirts for the guys, a couple of polo button-up shirts or a nice flannel shirt for the guys to put over whatever they’re wearing that’s not appropriate.

Speaker 1 Have a couple of changes of clothes in the back that you can loan to team members who show up unprepared. Don’t make a big deal out of it. That’s the first way. The second way is to have some changes of clothes for them in the back or a couple of layers that they can throw on top of whatever is deemed inappropriate. Now, let me tell you about my absolute favourite way to communicate my dress code to my team, and that is called a lookbook. What is a lookbook? Well, in photography, a lookbook is actual images that the other photographers can look at and say that’s the style that they want. Well, you can create a lookbook for dress. Have one of the females on your team, go on Pinterest, and find all the appropriate attire, styles that are good for your church, and make a lookbook, put it into a Google Doc or whatever, something online where all of the various styles of what’s appropriate can be seen by your team. You make one for the girls, you make one for the guys, and when they come on to your team, you send them this link to this Google Doc or a website that has actual images of what you want them to wear on Sundays.

Speaker 1 That will give them a very clear target and a very clear picture of what is appropriate for your team. I wouldn’t make a dress code lookbook for the negative side. You could just type that out. You don’t need to show anybody what not to wear. Make a lookbook that is super helpful. If you want some examples, I have three of my favourite churches lookbooks in an email that I will send you. You can just put your email below this video. Click that link, put your email in, and I will send you my three favourite church lookbooks lookbooks that you can use as an example for how to create your own lookbook, so you can grab that below. But it’s your job to lead your team. The more clear you can be, the more they can succeed. Have a worship team dress code, create a lookbook, and make sure you’re onboarding your team members properly. Again, if you need help with onboarding your team and you want a template, you can try the Worship Minister Training Academy where we have a template done for you. It’s free to try for 15 days. Go to worshipministertraining. Com, and you’ll get all of our courses and all of our templates done for you, plus our awesome community of over 1400 worship leaders now growing and encouraging one another.

Speaker 1 Hope to see you inside the academy. Otherwise, I will see you in the next video. God bless.