how to get twentysomethings to go to church
Religious leaders everywhere, take note. I have discovered one tactic that has been proven to get twentysomethings (well, one twentysomething) into a church.
And that tactic is dress-up days.
No lie.
See, for the past couple weeks, there's been suggested attire at the United Methodist Church of Palm Springs, and I'm not talking about "Sunday best."
Rather, I mean things like Hawaiian Shirt Day, which I missed the memo about. But the next week, I knew to wear my pink shirt for Pink Day. And it was that Sunday that I learned the next week (i.e., this past Sunday) would be Exotic Outfit Sunday.
Now, that's a dangerous charge to give to an SSPer. My summer shopping trips at LA and Sacramento thrift stores have netted me lots of, for lack of a better term, exotic outfits.
For instance, consider my reply to a request from fellow SSPer Kari Neal to wear appropriate attire to her wedding in a couple weeks: "By appropriate attire, you mean a mesh shirt and booty shorts, right?" Sure, it was an idle threat; I'd never wear booty shorts to Kari's wedding. But that's mainly because I'm afraid of how Kari would exact her revenge if I did so and not because of any lack of booty shorts — or mesh shirts, for that matter.
Still, I decided I needed to keep my exotic church outfit SSPG, if not straight-up SS... G. So I decided that I could probably wear my camo pants and some shirt or another and have that be "exotic."
Well, even though I didn't hit the hay until around 4 a.m. Sunday, when my alarm went off at 9:30, I jumped right out of bed because I was not about to squander what may be my one and only chance to wear my ridiculous camo pants (from the epic Mormon thrift store in Sacramento, btw) to a legitimate, all-ages, general-audience, Sunday-morning church service.
And in yesterday's church bulletin, I was glad to see the "strange dress code," as Ashley called it, would continue. In fact, the bulletin listed the suggested attire for the next six weeks.
Next week is Fun Hat Day, so my favorite find from last week's SSP-esque thrifting excursion — Pimp the Chimp himself — will definitely come in handy:
(Fun fact: The shirt I'm wearing in this picture also came from the aforementioned epic Mormon thrift store.)