What People Really Think

I was with Elijah tonight as he was getting a haircut. The hairdresser was making small talk while I waited, and while she snipped. She asked me what I did for a living. “I’m a pastor,” I said. She stopped snipping, looked up at me and with a puzzled tone asked, “Really?” She obviously thought I was teasing. She quickly caught on that I was not kidding and said, “Not that you couldn’t be, but aren’t they usually old, and not cool? You look too cool to be a pastor.” She brought the conversation back around to that topic at least three times during the haircut. I told her that I was on staff at a “cool” church and that we work hard at being relevant and normal. We talked a bit more about it and I could tell that something in her mind was being challenged. It seemed like for the first time she was considering that it's possible for pastors, believers in Jesus for that matter, to not live with their heads in the sand. They can engage culture and even...enjoy some of it. Did a pastor just write that? As we finished, Melody and I left with the kids and I was glad that I could help to break a stereotype that she had set up in her mind.

Look, I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a flattering thing to hear. I mean, no one really wants to hear that they are “un-cool.” But, I have to say that it also got me thinking…and I didn’t like where my thoughts led. I wonder how many other people have the same perception when it comes to pastors, followers of Jesus, the Church. And if pastors are believed to be un-cool and out of touch, what must so many people think about the One we are supposed to represent? The Church still has a lot of work to do in demonstrating that God is extremely relevant, and that He is many things, but He is not an old man upstairs out of touch with the lives people are living.

I wish I would have followed up her question with a question of my own: “What do you think God is like?” The good thing about hair is that it grows. Next time Elijah gets a haircut I plan on asking that very question.