Lingo

February 23, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

On Sunday nights I am teaching a series called Huh? It’s a practical set of talks geared to help us all increase our level of effective communication.

One huge hurdle to effective communication is the lingo into which we so easily slide. The dictionary defines lingo: a characteristic language of a particular group that is unfamiliar to those outside that group.

Last night—even as I am teaching on effective communication—I discovered how guilty I am of using Church Lingo. After our service was over, my daughter Samantha handed me an offering envelope on which she had written a Church Lingo lexicon.

Street Word           Church Lingo
Yes                          Amen
Mr. & Mrs.                Brother & Sister
Goodbye                  God bless
Ticked off                 Grieved
Sing                         Worship together

Ouch! A good reminder that I can so easily slip into Church Lingo and leave people all around me saying, “Huh?” I’m trying to get better.

What Church Lingo have you heard (or adopted yourself) that needs to be changed?

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Rethinking The Master’s Master Plan

December 1, 2008 — Craig T. Owens

master-planBetsy and my kids had a snow day today, so I took the opportunity to work from home too. I spent some time this afternoon reading some more of Robert Coleman’s excellent book The Master Plan Of Evangelism. Here’s a quote from this book which has stuck with me all day:

“If Sunday services and membership training classes are all that a church has to develop young converts into mature disciples, then they are defeating their own purpose by contributing to a false security, and if the new convert follows the same lazy example, it may ultimately do more harm than good. There is simply no substitute for getting with people, and it is ridiculous to imagine that anything less, short of a miracle, can develop strong Christian leadership.” [emphasis mine]

I need to prioritize my schedule so that my time is focused around people. I’m looking forward to Coffee With The Pastor tomorrow, where I’ll be able to spend some quality time with Barney, Dave, Elias, Jerry, and some of my other Starbucks friends who will be there. What about you? What are you doing to make sure you are “getting with people”?

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Planned Spontaneity

November 16, 2008 — Craig T. Owens

Is that an oxymoron, or what? How can something be planned and spontaneous?

But we experienced planned spontaneity in our service this morning. Our worship team planned and practiced songs which would flow with each other and which would prepare people’s hearts for the Word today. At the end of the planned set of songs God showed up spontaneously with a powerful, unscripted, right-on-the-mark prophetic word for our congregation.

I did my very best to plan and prepare a message for this morning which would be timely, relevant, and applicable. At the end of my planned message God showed up spontaneously. A guest who had never been with us in a service before sang a song that God had given her two days earlier. The song contained the exact same words and phrases that were in my prepared message.

We planned. God showed up spontaneously.

I truly believe that if we had not done our very best planning, God would not have shown up so spontaneously. What do you think?

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