How Fashion Is Helping Megachurch Pastors Reach A New Demographic

We’ll begin with a quote from a celebrity pastor:

“I don’t see myself as an influencer in fashion at all,” says [Chad] Veach. “I’ve been just really blessed to have guys that are close friends in the [fashion] industry.” Still, he acknowledges that dressing a certain way can provide a quick “in” with people who might otherwise write him off. “If I walk into a place and I’m wearing something that makes people go, ‘that’s a cool outfit,’ I am working with an advantage, rather than a disadvantage of like, ‘man, those are really whack sneakers.'”

Whitney Bauck of Fashionista tells us how “pastors” who are into fashion are winning back millennials who are leaving the Church in droves. According to Bauck, “there’s no doubt that fashion plays at least a supporting role” in bringing them back to what is considered a church these days.

Megachurch pastor Chad Veach

Hailey Baldwin considers “church wife” to be an aspirational look, according to her Twitter and her stylist’s Instagram.

If you mostly know Baldwin through social media, which features myriad images of the model wearing scanty lingerie or revealing dresses, that may seem incongruous. But if you know the churches she’s referencing — and the ministers that lead them — it’s less surprising.

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