Music, ehh make that Ministry Monday

Why I don't like ties!

Pastors these days have a variety of fashion choices when they prepare to preach. Some stick with the traditional sport coat, tie, and dress pants. Others ditch the coat, but wear the tie. While still others go way to the opposite extreme and dress super casual with a nice t-shirt, with shorts or jeans. Whereas a previous generation of pastors had to wear a super formal outfit, today it's basically whatever you feel like. 

For me, I typically wear a dress shirt and dress pants on Sundays. Our church is not a super-formal dressing bunch and I've yet to hear a complaint about my attire. That said, about once a month I'll wear a tie and maybe even one of my two sport coats. Yesterday was one of those days. I wore khaki dress pants with light green shirt and matching tie. 

I realized early on in my sermon that the tie was rubbing up against my throat causing me some irritation that caused some mucus in my throat to trigger some coughing and nasal issues. I really haven't been able to shake what I believe to be allergy-related flem ever since my last job when I work in the basement of a hundred year old building. 
It's not uncommon for me to have to pause and clear my throat at some point during my message. But yesterday as I was desperately trying to avoid coughing through important points about 'working out our salvation', it hit me that the tie definitely makes it worse.

I like to dress up, I really do. Every once in a while it's nice to look my best. But it's at the point where I am going to be ditching the tie because it aggravates my throat stuff.  Eventually I just need to get my allergies identified and addressed - Claritin ain't fixing it - but for now it's both simpler and less expensive to reduce my wardrobe by one item.

And so ends the story of why I dislike ties. Sorry for no 'Music Monday', this ministry issue amused me enough to write it in lieu of a music post.