No More Jargon Or "Personal Relationship with Christ" is the New "Born Again"

"I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue." (1 Corinthians 14:18-19) We all know this passage concerning the gift of tongues, but I think the spirit of the passage applies to jargon as well. We allow the dangers of jargon when sharing with preChristians. Words like justification, sanctification, and even sin need to be defined. This same concern should be foremost in our mind as we explain the faith within the church. Our shorthand is full of assumed knowledge, and assumed knowledge equals missed knowledge for our youth.

Jargon is our shorthand for shared truth, but it is dangerous in Christian education. Christian education is where we share the teachings and conveyors that later become our shorthand. If the long version is not shared and shared regularly, then the jargon loses its meaning. We then think we are sharing significant truth.

There is a second problem when we use jargon. It can easily be misunderstood. When we talk about "not being religious" many people today think we are not into "organized religion." For some us, that would be okay since we define "organized religion" as a bureaucratic institution that has lost track of people and God. Yet, most people would define "organized religion" as going to church, listening to a pastor, tithing, and Sunday school. Without explanation, our statement of "not being religious" could be seen as a recommendation to sleep in on Sundays.

When we speak of having a relationship with God, we confuse many people. The have relationships with their dogs, their spouses, and the IRS. What do we mean by the word? Our students and the preChristian world need these ideas unpacked repeatedly before we can trust our shorthand jargon to be useful.

I want to stress repeatedly. During the middle school and high school years students are beginning to learn how to use abstract thought and how to synthesize knowledge. This development is partially biological as the brain develops. It happens at different rates in different people. The result is that not all your students can understand what you are teaching at the same time or at the same rate. You need to present these ideas for the early bloomers (women tend to develop intellectually before men) so they don't get bored and tune out. Then you need to repeat the same information over time as more students develop. You also need to address the material superficially to build familiarity and then return to the topic to develop depth and breadth of knowledge. The idea that you can cover the subject matter once and go on will not develop faith.

Students tend to gravitate toward a strong, well-developed worldview. God has delivered that to us, but if it not unpacked and explained to the next generation, then the Christian faith appears weak and superficial. Overused slogans and jargon will be of little use when faith is challenged.