Pastor Says 'Church Sucks,' Mixes Worship With Katy Perry, Maroon 5; Tells Congregation 'Don't Get Your Panties in a Bunch'
A Eugene, Ore., pastor who thinks churches focus too much on sin and not enough on connecting people to God, is now trying to appeal to people who have been hurt by churches through a campaign called "Church Sucks" featuring shorter services and music by Katy Perry and Maroon 5 at his church, One Love.
"Some churches have become the kind of place where you point the finger, and you condemn and rebuke and you're really quick to do it, and so I think that is definitely lending itself to people not wanting anything to do with church and thinking church sucks!" Tony Crank, senior pastor at the One Love Church in Eugene told KVAL.
Since September, One Love church has been mailing out their Church Sucks message to hundreds of homes in Lane County promising a different kind of church.
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Among the differences, according to the report, are shorter services lasting just over half an hour, the mixing of modern and contemporary music from artists like Maroon 5 and Katie Perry with worship music, and a leader who is a pastor, not a preacher.
"I just like to have a conversation with everyone, just like I do at the coffee shop if we were talking one on one," Crank told KVAL.
"There is a perception that to come into church you've got to be perfect. Sometimes what that allows people to do is to kind of judge people that we might perceive to not be that kind of stereotypical perfect person. It turns a lot of people off to what the ultimate message of Christ is," said Kyle Cunningham, One Love Church's worship pastor.
During his service on Sunday, Crank told his congregation, "don't get your panties in a bunch" and talked about how his dog urinated on his mother during a recent visit to his home. He then connected that discussion to a message about the church being too quick to shame people for perceived sin.
In a discussion about Pastor Crank's campaign, however, Beverly Miller told KVAL that the pastor's complaint might be more about internal church disagreements than reaching people outside the body.
"I've never had a bad experience at church, but I could understand if people are maybe regular attenders and something erupts in the congregation," said Miller.
