Mis-shapes or, How i learned to stop worrying and love coded Christian language.

Low-bar, Huddle(v/n), Cluster, D2(adj), A word, The word, Saved, Person of peace, Biblical(adj), Buzz, Prophetic, learning circle, Truth(absolutely), Minister(v), Tool, Apostle (by our definition).

I find myself tempted to place a bet on who would win in a fight between boardroom speak and charismatic, conservative, evangelical, Christian speak. I may not ever find out the answer, but last week i got a pretty good look at what their love-child would look like! It ain't the kind of beast you'd want to have tell your children a bedtime story.

I've been at St.Thomas' Sheffield visitor's week, the intention has been to gain an understanding of 'Life shapes'. This is a system which is about giving Christian lives a balance and focus and it encorporates several geometric shapes intended for use as 'tools' to meet this end. There's loads i could, and probably will, say about this whole thing, for now though, i just want to vent my thoughts on nonsense what was spoked.

People arrive and, following coffee, begin to make their way to their seats upon which time the programme for the week etc will be made clear. As this is going on our host, from the front and with a mic, is welcoming folk and encouraging them to find seats. It's all very jovial and there's a sense of expectancy, he's making Christian Jokes; Jokes about holiness, first being last, the rapture etc. I'm irritated by this, these are cheap (not to mention unfunny) 'in' jokes. Skip forward 10 min or so and this same man is telling a story about when he first came to church and his friend asked what he thought of the sermon. He was confused and didn't know what his friend was saying, then he said "oh, you mean the guy in the frock who gave the speech?" [big laugh] His point was how big a gap there can be between people inside and outside of the Church, without really challenging it, and all the while completely unaware how far he's fallen prey to this cult.

The rest of this week was then spent coaching people in the way of speech and thought at St.Tom's, the end of which phrases like "...but that's where you've got to walk the people of peace in your cluster right around the square, through D2..." were used, and everyone knew what was meant.

I was irritated and scared by the keeness with which all this appeared to be being lapped up; as though people couldn't wait to get home and bemuse their friends with this new way of talking about Christianity.

Is it that difficult to talk easy about Jesus? Does his message and its required response really not lend itself to contempory speech? Is it approprate that Christianity have it's own dialect?

dunno.