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Bad Language
Forget about tradition for a moment. Don’t think ‘but that’s the way we’ve always done it’. Ignore the fact that your Church is probably comfortable with things the way they are.
I want to talk about your bad language.
- You call your kids spaces – Classrooms! – Huh? Do kids really want another day of school?
- Your ministry is called Sunday school! – Wah? Again, why another day of school?
- Kids Church!! – Wha?? Way to reinforce the myth that ministry to kids is separate to the rest of the Church
- Workers! - Man, when I think worker I imagine a coal mine and chimney sweeps.
- What about all the adults in Big Church – I know it’s cute… but seriously, this is not playhouse Disney
- A CRY ROOM?? – For the love of all that is holy!! You know words are powerful right? Why just not call it the unsettled and annoying baby room!
You are not building a Church in the 1950′s, most of us function in a post Christian world where a lot of children have not even heard of Jonah, Moses and all the other stories let alone have any connection to the Christian-speak you use. WOW – take the opportunity and reinvent yourself!!!!
You are also completely missing the cultural impact of branding, by using generic names you mark yourself and your ministry as boring and irrelevant!
Stop it!
A role of the leader is to communicate… sometimes you need to communicate CHANGE… this is one of those times.
In conclusion, corporations spend millions of dollars crafting just the right phrase to communicate their discount generic cialis brand and product – why don’t you sit down and spend a few minutes choosing the words that communicate and reinforce the vision and mission of your Church.
Get rid of your BAD LANGUAGE and replace it with helpful/good/inspiring/innovate/interesting language.
so what do you guys use in place of those “bad words”?
Are there things that are non-negotiable for your staff/volunteers to say or not say? ALA Chik-Fil-A’s my pleasure
JC – didn’t really want to get into what we call them especially since I still say ‘Big Church’ weekly!
I had too look up the ‘my pleasure’ thing, that’s really cool!
JC – To clarify, when I write a quite strongly worded post. I don’t really want to follow it with “So here’s how we do it and we’re awesome!”, if you understand.
I get that. I hope that I didn’t come across as trying to prod you. That was definitely not my intention. I just know growing up in the Southeastern US, that it might be an even bigger issue than in Austrailia (I have no idea about your context though for sure).
But totally understand your heart and what you are saying about “so this is what we do” just wondering if you might have some insight to help me out for our context
JC – No prodding received
Here’s a couple of things we really worked hard to change:
Way back in 2001 we created tee shirts for our volunteers, they said Hillsong Kids Leader on the front. We want everyone serving with our team to understand we are here to lead kids.
You will never hear the phrase ‘kids church’, in fact I will ask you what it is if you do say it. Whatever we are doing is ALWAYS branded Hillsong Kids and then locations are broken down into age groups. So a 3-5 year old will be going to ‘The Ark’ at Hillsong Kids.
There was one other sacred cow I didn’t even mention in the post and that is the ‘sanctuary’… wow, I don’t even think I can put into words how weird that is.
Dave
I totally agree. But I do find myself using those terms – not so much to other leaders in our program but to friends and family who are non christians and I am trying to explain what I am doing. They understand terms like Sunday School and Kids Church. I also wondered, like J.C what terms you would use instead. Thanks for the ideas!
Cha – Yes, there are people around us where it is just easier to roll with a familiar metaphor. But I believe there are far more inspiring metaphors around.
How about describing your services to others by likening it to – Hillsong Kids, It’s kinda like a saturday morning TV show for kids at Church. Or Hillsong Kids, think of an annual ADD convention for kids under 12 that meets each week on a Sunday and talk about Jesus.
Now that’s interesting!
One of the biggest crimes I think we are committing as the Church is being boring. It’s unacceptable in our culture and should be unacceptable as followers of Jesus.
Thank God I belong to a church where they worked through all those issues.
We call the “Sunday School” “KID’S CELEBRATION”
and the “classrooms” have names like “Farm Friends” “Monkey Mania”
“Undersea” and “Surf’s UP!”
Dave,
Totally agree! What we say creates expectation. Our words in many ways define who we are.
We use –
For Classrooms – Environment
For Kids church – Uptown
For workers – Team members
For Big Church – We use Old Peoples church, actually that’s what I call it.
For Cry Room – Family room
Your words paint a picture to guests (visitors) who have yet to come. Lets paint a picture that breaks the stereotype that people may have about what church and who God is. Let’s show them we are christians by our love.