-The Problem of Speaking 'Christianese'

In an article that read many years ago that no longer exists online; Paul D. Watson pointed out the problem of using Christian words and speech when trying to reach out to non-Christians:

“Christians speak a different cultural language than non-Christians.  Unfortunately this language isn’t necessarily spiritual by nature.  One of the hardest tasks of an evangelist (the New Testament term for Church Planter, but that is another post.) is deculturalizing the Gospel so that the lost can hear the Good News without all the white noise of Christian culture.”

I read a bunch of Christian blogs and Facebook postings everyday. Many will not appeal to ‘regular’ folk because they are written in ‘Christianese’—words, terms, and expressions that are commonly used in church and among fellow Christians. The fact is there are increasingly more folk out there that do not share or understand the common ‘churchy’ language than do.

If your social media site or blog is primarily for other Christians to read, then this is not a problem. However, if you are trying to reach out to a general audience that includes non-Christians than Christianese may be something that you need to address.

This is something that I have been aware of for some time. It is also something that Preachers, especially Evangelists deal with all of the time.

I have addressed the situation by reading over my posts several times before publishing–looking for Christian words and phrases that may be a problem for general consumption. This has been an on-going struggle for me and one that I really do not claim to have completely overcome. However, recognizing language barriers is the first step towards improvement and reaching out to a larger and more general audience for your blog.