Pentacost Rewind...

In the Bible in the book of Acts chapter 2 we see that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples like tongues of fire as they were waiting according to Jesus’ instructions. When they received this wonderful gift, all of a sudden they were able to speak different languages. They stepped outside and began to preach in the languages that everyone that was there could understand. What a wonderful gift!

Today, the Church finds itself in a kind of rewind Pentacost. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a movement of the Holy Spirit but rather a movement of our own. We have taken the plain language of Jesus and applied some fancy words so we can have our own kind of “Church code”. We talk about baptism and Eucharist/communion. We place people in the sacastry or the narthex of our churches. We have the rapture and the tribulation. We have all kinds of fancy words for things these days. not to mention our weird desire to hang on to the thees, and thous, and begots of 15th century England when we read the Bible to young people. We say all these words of ours with a knowing wink and nod to our fellow Church people and all the time leaving the un-Churched around us in the lurch, scratching their heads, wondering what we are talking about and frankly thinking we are “just nuts.”

Somewhere we decided it was more important to talk to each other than to talk to the ones who do not know Jesus. We do this with worship too. I have attended worship committee meetings in traditional churches where I served and listened to people talk about wanting to keep the service just the way it is. They don't want any of that new fangled modern/contemporary worship stuff, the kids will just have to "get used" to doing church our way. They want it like “High Church” (of course if you don’t know the language you don’t know what that means either), and they want the old hymns (older the better - 200 or 300 years old at least) and you better come dressed right or we promise we will stare at you… But, they still come to me week after week wondering where the young people are.

Each time I try and reach the Church to let them know that going to church is not the end result desired by God, He wanted us to be the Church. If we are to be the Church who should be on the receiving end? Well, to me that’s simple.. the un-Churched!

In all of my modern worship services, studies, gatherings, writings, blogs, webpages, etc… I try real hard to take out the secret code of our churchy language and apply the simple words of Jesus.

So, I challenge you my friends… teach yourself the plain language of Jesus and leave behind the big church words for a while (believe me it is hard for a seminary student like me to do that). Forget atonement and talk about what Jesus did for them in dying on the cross. Forget sanctification and tell them how we find ourselves mysteriously in the midst of what God is doing, and we are carried along in that journey. Forget justification or even salvation and talk about a life forever with God and that only in believing Jesus is Lord and savior can we have that life.. You see, we can talk about the same thing, only we use new words…