1 of 3

When you hear the phrase "old barn," a variety of images may come to mind depending on your experience. The image may be from your childhood when you and a friend explored an abandoned farm. Maybe you have no first-hand knowledge of an old barn, but your recent reading in Architectural Digest on what they are doing with old barns was fascinating. The image may come from TV or the recent movie Cold Mountain. But most people have some reference point for the phrase "old barn."

What is true of "old barn" is true of the language we use in Christianity. Words carry all sorts of definitional freight, and we can't assume our words conjure up the same images in everyone's minds.

Most people know what a barn is, but what about "gospel," "conversion," "church membership," or the myriad other words unique to the church? What are we hoping they think when we say these words in a weekend talk for instance? (Notice I didn't say "sermon.")

We need some dialogue on the Christian lexicon. Many of the words we use are words our people inside the church have only vague understandings of, and worse yet, those outside the church have little, if any, accurate reference point. Their minds will fill the gaps with explanations from People magazine or a rerun of Friends.

For example, at Westwinds we have opted to strike from our vocabulary two of the most foundational words for any church interested in the Great Commission, "evangelism" and "discipleship," because people have such different understandings of them.

For the Baptist migrating into Westwinds, "evangelism" conjures images of altar calls and ushered trips to the counseling room to seal the deal they just made. For the unchurched person, "evangelism" conjures images of mounds of hair and shouting televangelists.

We have replaced the term evangelism with the much more organic "spiritual conversations." Real evangelism is not programmatic, but relational and conversational. When we talk about engaging in spiritual conversations, people almost instantly get it. In our culture people are already conversing about spiritual things—some things Christian, but most things not. We have great opportunity to engage people where they are.

"Spiritual conversation" comes with fewer preconceived definitions and can be shaped for our usage. The same is true for "replication," our replacement for "discipleship."

When the average Christ-follower hears "discipleship," what comes to mind? In most cases the first thought is "program." The second is fill-in-the-blanks booklets and memory verse recitation.

We are trying to replicate or reproduce the way Jesus would live his life in our bodies, not put people through a program.

For us "replication" is about finding someone a couple steps further along and teaming them up with someone who is relatively new in their learning curve with Jesus. That seems to communicate far more to people than asking, "Do you want to be discipled?" So many words like this need our attention.

next page... |  1 of 3

				Try an Issue of Leadership Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Leadership coming, honor your invoice for just $22.00 and receive three more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Leadership as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Sign up for Leadership's e-mail newsletter, Leadership Weekly. You'll receive illustrations, resources, practical advice, and a devotional for the leader's soul every week!    RSS Feed   RSS Help