Leading worship in trousers

This was originally intended to be a comment on Beauty Tips for Ministers (please copy and paste, the coding is screwed so every time I put a link in a post it disappears):

http://beautytipsforministers.com/2009/09/14/skirts-pretty-and-hiddy

But it just got longer and longer and we started to get into deeper water, so I've moved it here instead.

Peacebang, fashionista and clergyperson extraordinaire, is dead against wearing trousers when leading worship.

Please note, just when leading worship. Not at the office, not when at church but not leading, Just. When. Leading. Worship.

Ok, now I've attempted to head off the useless discussions engendered when people don't read the whole post, I'll come back.

I always wear trousers when in church and preaching or reading or whatever.

Course, I only own two skirts (1 summery in blue/green, and 1...rather like a black version of the red skirt pictured in Peacebang's post. And mine is rather too "Let's SALSA, baby!" for church, IMO) so I wear trousers, always.

I had a personal reasoning for this: I feel that black trousers are less distracting on me than a skirt.

But I thought for a bit, and then figured out that the justification came after the reality. Why?

I feel very vulnerable in a skirt. Especially in front of an audience. At other times, it's fine, but not leading worship.

Anything that calls attention to my legs in that setting makes me really uncomfortable. Obviously, skirts don't actually call attention to one's legs. Well, not church-appropriate ones anyway. But I have this crazy idea that trousers somehow de-emphasise your legs (you can see they exist, but they're covered, you know?). I know...it doesn't seem to make sense.

But I don't want to wear a skirt to lead worship because I wear skirts...on a date. (Not any date I've had recently, but if the occasion called for dressing up, you know). Thus skirt = relationships and dating in my head. Trousers = serious business, or just everyday life. Smart trousers = this is a job, and I am doing it to the best of my ability, looking as beautiful as I can without looking like I'm trying to be all sexy. I don't wear skirts to preach, just like I wouldn't wear bright fuschia lipstick, or clothes that are too tight, or even clothes that would be fine on a regular office day.

Public worship is worth giving your best to. And for me, that means trousers and a blouse.

Funny, isn't it?