Paul Poulton takes a humorous look at Christian-ese

Paul Poulton

Last week I was sitting at the bar of a rock club in Devon, my band and I were about to go on stage there. I like to talk to the people who have come to the show; I try to be friendly and spread God's love around. I found myself talking to a guy for about 30 minutes, we had a good chat, but during the last ten minutes of our conversation I found myself in the awkward position of keeping my own conversation going but also listening to another conversation that was taking place nearby. The temptation to listen in on another discussion proved too alluring, although I awarded myself seven out of ten for keeping my own conversation fairly interesting at the same time. The two young men I eavesdropped on were talking about the people they had seen on a Christian TV channel, they didn't know names too well but used I.D. such as "the guy in the white suit" and other identification marks. They seemed to be at a bit of a loss nailing down the exact theme of the preachers, it was hard for them to grasp what was being said and they wondered why people seemed to follow these preachers when the point they were making was so elusive, vague and hard to pin down. They concluded that the preachers and the people who listen to them had lost touch with reality. I didn't butt into their conversation (although I did feel like it) but it left me thinking about the way we present Jesus and His message.

In the past Christians have made some effort to get rid of their tag as jargonauts, the Alpha course has certainly gone some way towards this. We try not to use phrases that mean little to the people we should be communicating to, but it seems as we get rid of one form of Christian jargon another rises to take its place. The old language has been described as Christian-ese or The Language of Zion. I have labelled the new one "Church Speak," with sub divisions of "Pastor Speak", "Prophecy Speak", "Prayer Speak" and "After-Church Speak"

I sometimes take my friends to church events, they don't normally go to church and all have differing beliefs. I have a real good friend named Karl, who is a scientist and likes Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion. He wants me to read it and see what I think. Another friend Stuart, is a drummer and sits stunned in church, he's never been to church before. When I take him he sits there amazed, "Stuart, your mouth is gaping?" I have other friends who are in most ways (near) average and do normal things and have regular jobs, jobs in which they need to communicate clearly and intelligently. They are on the whole a clever bunch of mates and I enjoy laughing and talking with them and I often learn things I didn't know before. I try to remember that I can also give them something that they don't have at the moment; maybe I can share Christ with them. I'm glad that they sometimes do want to come to church-based events with me. I guess it's only fair because I go to places with them. However, when I take them to church I am suddenly conscious of the way we speak in church; it must be because I see things from my friends perspective. I want them to understand the important message of Jesus, but we, (myself included) seem to use English in a way that's unrelated to the general communication we use everyday. Or we take some modern day words or phrases and squeeze them into being relevant at church. So I'm going to take Stuart to the Fictitious (but not far from the mark) Christian Centre. I'm a bit worried but maybe things will go well. Here goes:

Someone who doesn't introduce himself stands up to start the service, his first words are:

"Okay, alright then, here we are then, amen! Is everyone okay, praise God! Shall we make a start then, amen? The weather has been lovely this week, amen? Let's begin with prayer, amen?"

Did he just say, "begin with prayer, amen?" Are my friends thinking, "Oh, I didn't realise you say amen at the beginning of a prayer I thought it was at the end"? It's a dose of pastor speak: it seems the word amen can be used as an affirmation, adjective and a question, especially if the tone goes up on the second syllable along with the eyebrows.

During the time of prayer there is a spontaneous prophecy from a man who is one the group of singers at the front.

"The latter house will be greater than the former house, because the former was before the latter and the latter is later compared to the former when the blessings were not as great as the latter. The things that shall transpire for the latter house will be glorious indeed. Thuth, saith the...Thus saif the... Thus saith the Floord... this is what the Lord says."

What? I think, please talk normally my friends are here and I want them to understand that God is real. Someone else gets up and tells us,

"In the purposes of God, His ways and purposes are not of the purposes of men, for one man will purpose one way and another purpose another way but God's purposes are hard to understand".

I think, "hard to understand?" If that is true then God's followers are doing pretty well in keeping up with Him.

We are told "a new project for outreach is starting and here is someone to tell us about it."

A 30-something lady walks to the microphone and says,

"For sometime I'd been impressed in my heart to do outreach, so I was seeking to serve the Lord in this way. Those who are lost need help to find the way out of their lost state, so in seeking to be a servant to the lost I found a way of outreach that would help me seeking to reach out to the lost using keep-fit, so if you are seeking to seek the lost, talk to me afterwards and let me know if you want to grow your keep-fit to grow the kingdom. Or we could talk about impacting the growing of the Church some other way."

We are invited to move the chairs aside so that we can stand and gather in small groups. The chairs are shuffled around in no particular order, someone is holding my hand and Stuart holds my other hand and grins. Someone prays, the others say "mmmm", in varying volumes of agreement, the more they agree with what's being prayed the louder they "mmmmm". I never thought of this before but it sounds like varying degrees of ecstasy while eating an ice cream, the nicer the ice cream the more intense the "MMMM", and sometimes at a particularly tasty moment like when eating a tutti-frutti and the nice cherry bit hits a taste bud there is a "Yes!". The prayers themselves used the word "just" a lot.

After the circle of prayer, Stuart asked me if he should have talked to God too. "If you want to" I said.

After church we talk to some people, aha, at least this will be normal talking. I am wrong, someone comes up to us and says, "I have a friend who is living with his girlfriend and I felt God wanted me to speak into that situation, and if we don't speak into situations, when prompted to speak into a situation then situations won't be properly spoken into, will they?". I reply, "Er, no I guess not." I wondered if Stuart thought, "Okay, if I ever have any situations that need speaking in to, I know where to come."

Didn't the Apostle Paul say something about being precise when we speak in our meetings otherwise unbelievers who come in among us will think we are out of our minds?