Confessions of a Church Snob #2

One of my (seemingly endless) church pet peeves seems to happen most often in what many would understand as "contemporary" churches. Any time that a pastor/ church leader/ worship person says any phrase similar to "this isn't like any church you've ever been in" (this is troubling for the too-be-mentioned reasons as well as the fact that it is bad form to end sentences with prepositions) or "this ain't your momma's church" (punctuation added for my own sanity... "Confessions of a Punctuation Snob" to follow), it makes my jaw clench. I have this reaction for two reason: 1) I have spent the last twenty years of my life in churches just like those and 2) those statements imply that the church is focused on being different for difference's sake and not on being different to engage the culture.

I was listening to a podcast from a pastor tonight who used one of the aforementioned statements and as always it led to cringing. While reflecting on how distasteful I find the whole mentality I realized that I may be guilty of the very same thing. See, in seminary I feel like I am constantly having to apologize for my church background and what I understand the mission of the church to be. I often feel that my view of the church is radical by comparison to that of some of my instructors or peers but I think that the impression that apologizing gives is that I believe my views are somehow sub-par, or that I feel that way about their perspectives. That certainly is not the case. I, like any pastor-in-training, simply aspire to plant a church that is going to have the greatest impact in my community and like every church planter ever, I believe that one model is better suited for where and when I am. If that ever changes I hope I will have the strength and the foresight to change direction to a model that works better.

Another pet peeve of mine is poor vision-casting. That same podcast was given the weekend after Thanksgiving and the pastor thought that was the best time to share the vision for the upcoming year. During the message he pointedly admits that only the hardcore church members are there. What I cannot understand is why those are the only people he feels need to hear the vision. The vision for the church is the driving force: it is what defines where the church is going and to what end. Many pastors talk at length about the importance of the vision, that the vision needs to be presented to the people every week in some dynamic way. The Bible even says that where there is no vision the people will perish. I do not understand why a pastor would think to hide such an important element on a Sunday when he knows not many people will show up. If the only people seeking the vision are the twenty who showed up that Sunday your whole church body will not be moving in unison. I just don't get it.