Perhaps the pain of rejection is the Lord's own training ground for Christian service to those who will be right out there working in the fields that are white, and ready to harvest. There is a place for formal Christian education, but there is a great need for the ones who receive, and administer that formal education to see that God does not limit Himself to their methods of teaching. He has a purpose for each and every one of His children. He said that there were seven things that He hates. This does not say that he should condone true obvious sin, but so many times people invent sins that are not truly sins according to the Bible.
Worldliness is a broad term that people use to inflict a variety of different taboos.
How a person wears his or her hair is certainly not one of the Lord's criteria for serving Him. It is an attitude of the heart. These two are not one and the same. If they were the same, Martin Luther, and the other reformers were in sin because of rebellion. Jesus was in rebellion against organized religion as well.