TheDeSocios.com

Ed Stetzer recently posted a little twitter proverb which says: “If you can learn to order at Starbucks, then you can learn theological language at church.”

At first I thought it was insightful and funny but the more I think about it the more I think it reveals some of the problems with Christianity today.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I enjoy Starbucks, but I never say grande, I say medium. I think Starbucks can get away with charging you twice as much because you believe that they are intellectually superior when it comes to coffee. I’d hate for people that visit my church to think that we are superior because we use big words.
• I appreciate what I think Dr. Stetzer is getting at, the fact that when people want to learn something they will. Think about all the information that we use, just when it comes to technology in our daily life. My 50 year old mother knows how to post photographs to facebook, but do most of us know anything about where the Apostle’s creed comes from. I appreciate him bringing this up.
• Words are important, but its not ok for pastors or church members to develop or use jargon for the sake of jargon. In fact we should be seeking to remove all the unneeded church-slang that we can, so that people don’t feel as if they need an advance degree to participate in our churches.
• Id rather go to a Dunkin Donuts than a Starbucks. You can get the same quality coffee at Dunkin Donuts, but with out the meaningless jargon and the self-inflated pretense that is apparent at most Starbucks.