In the days of Jesus it was the Jewish custom to discuss religious teachings within the context of community. There would be those who would teach from a position of authority but with the coming of the Holy Spirit it was also expected that ALL the brothers and sisters could be taught of and led by God.

Acts said that they met in the temple and from house to house. It appears that those who already attended ‘church’ (the Jews) continued to go to church but that they engaged non-believers in their homes.

This forum of discussing spiritual things with one another was one factor in the great multiplication of Christians and thousands being saved and added to the Early Church.

Our lives are testimonies to who God is and how he has changed our hearts and lives. These testimonies, while good to hear on Sunday, are not to be limited to a church service but are to be literally shouted from the roof tops. Good things are happening to us all the time yet we rarely give God the credit. When bad things happen we immediately ask God why.

Most people have no desire to engage in a religious discussion but almost everyone is eager to partake of a discussion of a spiritual nature. When we discuss God in the context of how he moves within a church service then we are discussing him with religious jargon set in a religious ceremony which is only off-putting and confusing to the non-churched.

Our discussion of God must become more normalized in order to be effective. We must learn, as Jesus modeled, to answer the right questions, discern the deeper questions of the heart, and not be easily offended by arrogance and ignorance.

One great way to learn a new way to describe God is to read the scriptures in a user-friendly text such as The Message. It strips away all the phrases we are so familiar with and almost shocks us with its bluntness and simplicity.

Another excellent way to gain new and fresher words to describe who God is to us is to learn to pray in a way that reflects how we really talk in life. Our prayer life can be one of the most negatively religious practices we hold as we seek to position ourselves in a place of righteousness through the use of the right words that won’t be offensive to God; never realizing that this cover up with our words is exactly what offends God!

One last trick in overcoming our restrictive religious language is to really listen to how we come across in our spiritual conversations with those around us. There is an old saying in education that “it was never really taught if it was not caught” which simply means that just because you said it does not mean anyone learned it. Check out how people are responding to how you describe God. You may be surprised that no one is responding to what you know because they do not understand the language you are speaking.

Let’s keep our language real and our discussions open. Let’s refuse to defend religious positions that do not reflect the Father’s heart of love and grace. Let’s make a decision right now that we will learn the language of the people that do not yet know the goodness of our Father.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 10:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.