Pastor Says ‘Church Sucks,’ Mixes Worship With Katy Perry, Maroon 5

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.
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.
[ChristianPost]