Hello, this is Isis Berns, from Toronto Canada.

This past week on July 1st was Canada Day! And July 4th Independence Day for any American friends. Could you all celebrate? I had some maple syrup in my oatmeal. Maple syrup is a famous Canadian treat from Maple trees~

I live in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan now. Through these weekly short stories shard in both English and Japanese on this podcast, we hope you can feel refreshed and encouraged for the whole week~

Welcome to Bless Your Mind.

I work in the media here in Japan, and I also volunteer as a pastor at a local christian church. And as a christian living in Japan, I get asked many questions by my friends. So I thought I’d share one of those questions today, a little bit about Christian culture. Ready?

“What should I wear to church?”

Many of my Japanese friends have never been to church besides on wedding days. So I get asked this a lot. Most people think, you need to wear a suit, dress shirt, or a dress, or a skirt.. maybe you imagine something like that? Well, you don’t need to try and impress God with your clothing!

I saw a church sign once that said, “Jesus loved you before you were cool.” Many people try to look cool or look good to be accepted by others, but Jesus is saying:

“I love you and accept you before you were even born, it doesn’t matter how you look.”

In the Bible, God says in Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I made you, I knew you. Before you were born, I chose you”「わたしがあなたをつくる前から、あなたをよく知っていた。あなたが生まれる前からも、あなたを選んだ。」So what God is saying is, “I already accept you and love you, no matter how you look.”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” ? 「本を表紙で判断してはいけない」。 It means that you shouldn’t judge someone or something based only on what you see on the outside. このフレーズの意味は、誰かや何かを、外見だけで判断してはいけないということなんです。

God doesn’t judge you by what you wear! Phew!
And I hope we don’t judge people but what they wear either…

But that brings up a good question! How should I dress when I go to church? Maybe you’re never been to church and you’re worried, “do I need to wear a suit like for a wedding? Or do I need to wear a skirt?” Short answer: It doesn’t matter what you wear! God loves you anyway.

Listen to the podcast to hear my story of what I wore when I first went to a Christian church here in Sapporo city~ please, don’t judge, haha! 😉

You don’t need to try to dress a certain way to go to church. Some people think they can’t go to church because they don’t fit a certain fashion or a certain lifestyle. Like, at church you can’t wear hats or specific clothes, or you can’t have tattoos. That could be different in different cultures or countries. But the most important thing to understand is:

God doesn’t look at your clothes, he looks at your heart!

But still, practically, what should you wear to church?  実際に何を着てチャーチに行けばいいかな？

Just dress your best. 自分の好きな服装でいいんじゃない？自分のベストな洋服でいいんじゃない？

I like to think of it like this: how would you dress going to someone’s home? Because church is God’s home that we can visit any time. It can be casual, too!

Or how about this… how would you dress meeting someone special? Like a famous person, or someone you love? Because God is someone special to me, and I feel he loves us all very much. So why not dress our best to meet someone special like that? That’s why I personally like to look my best on Sundays.

To me, my best clothes might look like a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

And that’s fine! That’s beautiful, that’s cool. God made us to be creative and cool too, you know? But don’t feel pressure to try too hard. Be you, and come as you are. Because again, Jesus loves us no matter what we look like. The most important thing is, you’re there, you showed up!

If the way you look is somehow stopping you from going to church, then please get rid of that way of thinking. Just try to go anyway, as you are! You’d be surprised to see everyone looks normal, casual.

Each church might look a bit different and has a different atmosphere, so try different churches to find the one that suits you!

Song:

Forever in Blue Jeans by Neil Diamond (You may know this New York singer best for his song Sweet Caroline – good times never seemed so good)

I’ll use his song “Forever in Blue Jeans” today.

The lyrics are:
Money talks
But it can’t sing and dance, And it don’t walk
As long as I can have you Here with me
I’d much rather be forever in blue jeans

“Money talks” If you say that money talks, you mean that if someone has a lot of money, they also have a lot of power.

Money can buy fancy clothes and many gifts, but if there’s no love in it, then there’s no real relationship.

Wouldn’t you rather have a healthy relationship more than a lot of money?

God feels the same.

As long as you’re willing to spend some time together at church, don’t worry about what you wear! Don’t worry about what you look like or how much money you have. God wants to be your friend! He wants to sing and dance together with you. He wants to walk each day with you.

Even outside of church, in any relationship, wouldn’t that be better? To have lasting relationships, have healthy relationships. Not based on how you look or on how much money you have. Let’s base our relationships on love!

So if you come to church in blue jeans, great! It shouldn’t matter.

Let’s have this friendship together, forever in blue jeans!

That’s all for this week!

Come back again next Sunday for another new podcast!

xo love, I.W.Berns

We pray this could bless your heart, and bless your mind!