Language in Christian Community

“Okay kids, let’s all be like the silent coyote! His mouth is closed, and his ears are attentive!”

That was my favorite way to quiet down rowdy kids when I was a camp counselor, and it worked (almost) all the time. Either the kids cowered in fear, or they made fun of the corny camp counselor making a coyote with his hand. Until that first week I worked with the youngest kids. The ones who stared at me confused, and I stared back, wondering what I had said that was so difficult to understand. Then, a fellow counselor turned to me and whispered, “Erik, they’re eight. They don’t know what ‘attentive’ means.”

Immediately, I apologized. It was foolish to think these kids would have a full vocabulary before reaching the 3^rd grade. How could I be so careless as to use that word around them?! But again, my fellow counselor scolded me: “Don’t apologize! You don’t have to only use words they know! Use “attentive,” and then teach them what it means!”

That day, I learned a very important lesson. Vocabularies are not universal. Some people have larger vocabularies, some have smaller ones, some know technical jargon related to their industry or field, and the teenagers are always up on the freshest slang. And sailors, so I’ve been told, have vocabularies chock-full of swear words. I also learned that vocabulary is never set; we can always expand our vocabulary or help someone else expand theirs.

I’ve noticed that in an increasingly secular culture, the western Christian church has finally discovered that we have our own jargon, a vocabulary that is completely foreign to all but the lifetime, card-carrying members. This is a valuable realization, because there’s nothing worse than a pastor preaching about soteriology to pews full of people who have never even heard the term. And lest we become even less hospitable than we already are, we shouldn’t assume that everyone knows the words to Psalm 23, the Gloria Patri, or even the Lord’s Prayer. (Let’s pause for a moment to absorb that shocking news. Cue the elevator music.)

In light of this reality, it’s time we reconsider language and how we use it in the community of faith. When planning worship, we must assume no prior knowledge, be it well-known liturgy, when to sit or stand, or even the cursory knowledge required to navigate through a hymnal. When leading Bible study or preaching, we must assume that attendees don’t know where to find Hosea, and avoid lines like “As we all know in the story about Ruth and Boaz on the threshing floor,” which instantly alienate the millions of people who don’t know said story. And we might put Tuesday’s SPRC meeting on the calendar, but that first-time visitor looking for a way to connect doesn’t know if that’s a committee in the church or a “Singles Playing Rowdy Croquet” mixer.

All these things are important to remember. We cannot and should not assume prior knowledge. Hence the recent phenomenon in many Christian churches to use the lowest common denominator with regards to language. But we should proceed with caution, or we will lose much of the rich Christian language we currently possess.

Sanctuaries have been renamed worship centers (these are not the same thing). Theology has become “God talk.” The Gloria Patri and Affirmation of Faith have been removed from worship with the explanation, “people don’t even know what we’re saying or why we’re saying it, so what’s the point it doing it anymore?” And for those of us who are United Methodist, we’ve seen our General Rules simplified. John Wesley stated them as: “Do no harm, Do good, and attend upon all the ordinances of God.” Bishop Rueben Job changed the third to simply, “Stay in love with God.”

Let me be clear, I do believe we are called to express our faith and the Gospel message in ways that do not require a college degree. It is time to stop assuming everyone around us knows our churchy jargon, theological terms, and liturgical movements (Why do you have ashes on your forehead???). Such assumptions are intellectually arrogant, and widen rather than bridge the gap between “insiders” and “outsiders.”

But equally arrogant is the assumption that others cannot be taught what we already know. Consider the aforementioned example of the General Rules. We cannot say, for instance, that people don’t know what it means to “attend upon all the ordinances of God,” therefore we should just tell them to stay in love with God. That is as ridiculous as a high school math teacher saying, “My students don’t know calculus, so we just do multiplication tables, and that will help them be great mathematicians.”

After all, I didn’t always know what it meant to attend upon all the ordinances of God. Somewhere along the way, in confirmation class or college or even seminary, I learned that it means showing up to worship, listening to sermons, engaging in study of scripture, receiving communion, praying alone and with my family, and practicing disciplines like abstinence and fasting when the situation calls for it. Bishop Job was on to something, because these ordinances do draw us into a deeper love for God and open us up to God’s love for us. But staying in love with God is the result of attending upon all the ordinances of God, not the equivalent.

In the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), Jesus didn’t say, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything that I have told you. And remember, those people you teach will have the comprehension skills of a 6 year old, so when you teach them, don’t use big words and only talk about basic concepts.” Meaning, we’re not supposed to shy away from asking eight year olds to be attentive. But when they don’t know what that means, it’s not because they’re unable to. It’s because no one ever cared enough to teach them a new word, so like a silent coyote, they had no proper language to fully comprehend the message.