Yesterday I attended my first governors' meeting at my daughter's school, as one of the parent governors. Although I used to be a teacher (ten years ago now) I was struck by just how much jargon and particularly how many abbreviations were used (both spoken and written) without any explanation or clarification. Some of course could be guessed at from the context, others were simply noted down so that I could either google or facebook the answers (facebook has been a great resource - thanks to all my teacher friends). Of course I could simply have asked - but no one wants to do that sort of thing do they.
I was reminded of the importance of keeping our church services jargon free. We were especially conscious of that last week with Back to Church Sunday but all the time we need to be conscious of the fact that we're not here for the 'in-crowd'. And therefore the language that we use has to be everyday. 'In jokes' and witty asides may be funny - but if you ain't got a clue what's going on you're going to feel excluded rather than welcomed.
Of course there are some words that we use, because, for example, they are in the Bible, that are not everyday words. I think it is important to hold on to these words, but to remember to explain what they mean. This is no longer a culture where people grew up in church and learnt the language. And so we need to make the effort to bridge that gap.
