Church Word Search

January 26, 2009 in Ministry with 6 Comments

Church Word I’ve been in church most all of my life. (Please don’t hold that against me.) Every week I hear words and think that if I hadn’t grown up in church I would have never heard them.  Let’s go ahead and remove “true” Christian and/or Spiritual words like righteousness, holiness, sin, forgiveness, or atonement.  I’m talking about good clean fun church words; the kind of words that we’ve adopted from the King James Version and woven them into the normal church vernacular.  These are words you just NEVER hear outside of a church setting.  Get it?

 

 

 

 

Here are some I’ve come up with:

  1. Appropriation
    1. I understand that this is a theological word; but I’ve been told to appropriate my faith for just about every area of life.  I’m still not totally sure how I appropriate things into my marriage…
  2. Devourer
    1. This is commonly worked into offering sermons.  As a kid I always thought of the Devourer being some sort of villain that would battle Superman.  I get the principle of Malachi 3:11, I just think the word Devourer is a weird overused word.
  3. Condemnation
    1. As a pastor I regularly work Romans 8:1 into counseling meetings, but I’m not sure I would hear this word outside of church.  Isn’t there a more understandable word?
  4. Deliverance
    1. I dare you to suggest deliverance to the next co-worker that complains about their teenager.  Double-dog dare you!
  5. Testify
    1. Anyone want to testify?
  6. Anoint
    1. Usually involves cooking oil; and sometimes requests for a “double-portion.”

 

I have a few others in mind, but I’d love to hear some others…  If my descriptions confused you, then check out this great resource. Church-Speak 101

  • KC

    Church speak really kind of sucks.

  • Tim Gabbard

    Love the post, it really made me laugh. You have most of mine. I don’t enjoy hearing during a sermon “Are ya tracking with me?” or “Come on somebody”.

  • Cash Clan Japan

    HA! HA! Love it! Comfort zone? That’s pretty much churchy, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that except Christians. I’ll be thinking. I’ll be back. I need time to think about this.

  • Sam

    I would like to disagree

    1. House Appropriation committee

    2. My two sons eat quickly they Devourer whatever is in front of them.

    3. America has become a “Condom-Nation”

    4. I thought clint eastwoods worst movie was “Deliverance”

    5. Gov. Blogoiavouauaahauach will not Testify at his Grand Jury hearing

    6. The Kobe era has passed and King James has been Anointed the best player in the game.

    I see your church speak brother and raise you one. How about “it’s under the blood” translation all the bad stuff I did BC (sub translation BC= Before I became a Christian).

    Great post and PTL from a fellow hater of Christianesse.

  • Starr

    Sam’s comment cracked me up!

  • Unknown Nobody

    When I was in Bible college we have this really great teacher and when you asked him how he was going he would answer with, “I’m saved and sanctified brother!” (with a smile on his face)

    So my word would be SANCTIFIED

    Who uses that in the real world?
    I had to go look it up after hearing it.