decoding the disciples

Why non-believers don’t understand Christians (well, one reason).

Worship leaders: the trendiest Christians alive    Phil Wickham

Have you ever noticed that Christians have their own lingo? As soon as you become a believer, all cuss words are replaced with weird metaphorical jargon like “do life with” and “love on”.  It’s like God sends down the Holy Spirit and throws in an Urban Dictionary for Christians while he’s at it.  We also like  to throw some super technical Biblical knowledge into the convo, to show off the one thing we learned in that Religion seminar/ seminary class we took over the summer.  You don’t know what dispensational premillennialism is? Guess you aren’t as smart as meeeeeeee.

Ever have a convo that went like this?

Christian:  So I’m really trying to love on this girl in my Sociology class, because I can tell that she’s a seeker.  But really, I’m much more of a relational evangelism type person, so I’m just gonna ‘do life’ with her.

Non Christian: What?

Christian:  I really just think she’s caught up in this New Age movement, but if we could just sit down together and unpack the meaning of the gospels, she might receive Christ.

Non Christian: I’m going to go hang out with people that speak English.

I’ve gotten super bad about doing stuff like this.  Today during a discipleship meeting, a girl (who is an amazing woman of God) said that she didn’t understand the term “receiving Christ”. 

She’s a believer. I’ve seen amazing fruit of the Spirit in her, and I know for a fact that she is totally surrendered and obedient to God.  The problem wasn’t her; it was me and my weird I-grew-up-in-the-south-work-in-ministry vocab.

So I’m trying to cut out some of the religious mumbo jumbo.  Not the biblical ones, mind you.  Words like grace and redemption are used for a reason.  Howeva, I don’t want my Christian clique lingo to alienate other people instead of presenting the gospel to them in a clear way.

What do you think? Have you noticed yourself picking up “church words”?  Do you have a Christian friend that talks like this?