Language to be thrown in the Discard Bin

Ok, so earlier today a Facebook friend, aka someone I don't really know that well, but know well enough to have them show up on my news-feed [which if I'm honest not every one of my Facebook friends do, because some of them are just plain crazy] posted a link to a blog about "5 churchy phrases that are scaring millennials". If you would like to read it for yourself you may copy and paste the following. [http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2013/11/07/5-churchy-phrases-that-are-scaring-off-millennials/25149]

Now, to be honest I did not actually read the entire blog, what I did do was peruse it in order to find the '5 churchy phrases'. This is my normal operating procedure when I click on a link about the 5 this or the 7 that or the 9 whatever. And in most cases I read the bullet points and then I casually go on my way with a shake of the head or a small chuckle, but this time I was struck by the recurrence of several statements that others have said that we should stop saying. And so, I decided to write my own rebuttals of why we should not be using such language in the church.

As I said, I did not read the blog in its entirety, so some of what I have to say may be a repeat of what the author said, or it may go in their face a bit, I don't know.

Phrase 1: “The Bible clearly says…”
Should we use? NO.

Why? I suppose that I could go a lot of different ways with this. Among them would be that often the Bible says different things within its pages, so all you might be able to say is "The book of Leviticus clearly says..." or "Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, clearly says..."

But even that is a step too far for multiple reasons. The first one falls under the category of issues with translation. Lets look at one word, LOVE, which has quite a few different words in Hebrew and Greek that we all translate into the English word love. Some of these words have varied connotations yet we say one word that has a lot of various meanings, which is the correct definition for the particular verse you are looking at.

In addition most of scripture can be interpreted in various ways. Ask any truth telling pastor and they will tell you that they have preached off of the same verse multiple times in multiple ways. Heck, in just the past two years I have used one verse from Revelation three different ways.

The last point I want to make before I move on in that we should stop using the phrase for the simple fact that people have used it to clearly condemn various people through the centuries. The Bible is often the opposite of clear, because it was written by multiple people in multiple places through a multitude of time. Let us let the Bible be the conundrum that it is, because faith isn't easy and its not meant to be, why should the book that roughly 30,000 different denominations adhere to be so clear?

Phrase 2: “God will never give you more than you can handle”
Should we use? No.

Why? The first reason we should drop this phrase is because not only is it not in the Bible, but it is not even backed up in scripture. The Bible is chock full of people who were at their wits end before things worked out, if the worked out. Life throws a whole heck of a lot at us, and many times it is more than we can handle. If it weren't marriages wouldn't end, people wouldn't resort to various crimes, and no one would ever kill themselves.

Phrase 3: “Love on” (e.g. “As youth group leaders, we’re just here to love on those kids.”
Should we use? No.

Why? The first reasons is because it is a just plain stupid phrase. Sorry to any of you out there that use it, but seriously what does this mean. Just love people, love kids, love youth, love adults, love seniors. It feels like you are exchanging one set of clothes for another set, like if you just put love on them you won't have to do it anymore, love does not work that way [in any of its definitions].

Phrase 4: Black and white quantifiers of faith, such as “Believer, Unbeliever, Backsliding”
Should we use? No.

Why? I suppose the first reason is that everyone believes in something. The second reason is that if we are honest none of us are perfect, so we are all on some sliding scale between belief and doubt, sin and salvation. The third reason is that it tends to create a hierarchy of people, as if believers are somehow better than people who are backsliding who are better than people who are unbelievers, or maybe not depending on your view.

Beyond those three is a question. Why can't we all just be people? People who follow X, Y, or Z. People who are trying, but sometimes fail. People who are on a journey, maybe we started out this morning or 50 years ago, maybe we have our path planned or we're just winging it, or maybe we have some answers or are still looking for them.

Phrase 5: “God is in control . . . has a plan . . . works in mysterious ways”
Should we use? No.

Why? The times we usually use these statements are when people are going through the dirt of life. A marriage ends, and people wonder what their life can be now that what they thought would last did not. A job ends, and people begin to see the money that they need to pay bills, put food on the table, clothe their kids dry up and they want to know why. A life ends, and the relationship that meant to them is now gone and they wonder how they are going to take the next breath, let alone get through the next hour or day or month.

To these situations we say that God is in control, or that God has a plan, or that God works in mysterious ways, when what we should be saying is the truth. We should tell them 'I don't know, but I'm here for you, I'm not leaving, and I'll help you anyway I can.' People have their view on how God works in the world and in their lives, they do not need our theological statements, they need to know they are not alone.

I hope that within all of my answers you noticed that I believe that we need to be cognizant of the people we are dealing with, instead of acting like we are working from within some kind of bubble. The church has, for far too long, used language that normal people had to learn in order to understand what the heck we were trying to say. We need to move away from that, so that those people we haven't impacted yet that we may one day still impact don't get pushed away because of our in-words.


Peace and Love,
Pastor K