Guest Blog: Derrick Henslee
Derrick Henslee is the worship pastor for our Tulsa, Oklahoma campus. This has been one of our fastest growing campuses with tons of salvations. Many of the new believers say that God used the worship to reveal Himself to them. Here is a post written by Derrick:
Is Worship for Believers Only?
Worship in churches has been discussed, and discussed, and just about beaten to death, so I don’t want to beat a dead horse. If you find yourself in a church that is really seeking to reach unchurched people, worship helps shape how they perceive God, and how WE perceive God!
I lead worship for the Tulsa, Oklahoma campus. Before I step on stage, I ask God to put me in the frame of mind that will keep me from creating barriers for the lost.
The biggest problem I have to overcome is in my verbiage. I think through my transitions and the prayers, trying not to speak a language that a non-Christian won’t understand.
There are a ton of “Christianese” (wiki) words and phrases that we use that can create a barrier to God for a lost person. As an example (from the wikipedia source,) a phrase like, “Washed in the blood” in Christianese means “My sins are forgiven because I believe in the terms of salvation as defined by Jesus.” However, without an understanding of Jesus, what He did, or what His actions mean, such statements are not understood by the listener…”
I try to imagine that at least 25% of the attenders are non-believers. If I really believe that, should I inhibit their experience of God by alienating them with the words I use?
My goal on a weekend is to communicate attributes of God that the believer can identify with, and that the lost person will understand. Such as: “Jesus frees us from our guilt…” or, “Because of His sacrifice I have found freedom from my sin…” I am trying to communicate something that resonates within the believer and makes sense to the non-believer. The goal is to point people to God, not inhibit them from getting to Him because of my lame Christian jargon.
How does this apply (or not apply) in your ministry?
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You’re so very, very cool, EZD…your long lost payroll gal :)
Avoiding Christianese is important even for those not on a stage. I am amazed at the number of people at church who put on cheesy grins and bombard guests with phrases such as “washed in the blood”, and even a few misplaced “hallelujahs”.
A few years ago I was the newbie at church and one thing about LifeChurch that really grabbed me was the actual worship set. Songs that were actually good songs on their own and performed by musicians who belong on a stage. For example, I remember hearing you perform “Everything” by Lifehouse and I bought that cd the next day.
While it should be less important to the Christ-followers which songs are done, you are right in seeing the guests in the crowd.
Is it really “jargon?” Or are they fundamental Christian concepts? Are we really being faithful by offering Christianity-Lite? Certainly efforts can and should be made to help people understand (and use) these phrases and terms. But to avoid using them altogether, especially in public worship, is robbing the faith of its richness and depth.
Just a reflection from an old fart. YMMV
Avoiding Christianese is so very important not only when you are speaking in front of a crowd but when you are talking to others in everyday life. Whenever I am around non-Christians or Christians I try to talk in language people can understand and avoid churchy phrases. My question is when people say those Christianese phrases, do they understand what the phrases mean or are they just saying phrases they have heard growing up?
What sets the church apart from the secular world? Part of it is the language we use. “Christianese,” a silly word in itself, is the language of the Christian church. If I move to Germany, I would expect to learn and use the language of Germany. (Ja, ich spreche Deutsch!) If I take my faith and church seriously, I should expect to learn and use the language. Saying phrases we learned growing up is not such a bad thing. Putting the meaning to the phrases is the church’s task of Christian Education.
Wayne,
I have always taken to the verse in Corinthians which tells us to be whatever others are. Become weak for the weak I believe are Paul’s words. The true richness of our past comes out from a good message. More time is needed than a normal conversation allows to explain things such as a historical recount behind Passover.
Carrie,
I think they usually understand them, but many use them so commonly it becomes watered down in their mind. For example, how often do we hear “thank God” in a more casual sense than the phrase should really have.
You’re onto something D. Sometimes as followers of Christ we become lazy in our language. I wouldn’t go to a place where they speak a language I don’t understand. I can speak Spanish and English but I don’t speak Spanish to my English only friends…unless I don’t care if they understand me or not. It takes more work to explain what you are saying than just expecting someone to understand. We should care enough to communicate and define what we mean by our words and actions. Perhaps more people will follow Jesus if we do.
Wayne,
I appreciate the different perspective, but yet completely disagree.
I hope what sets us apart is not special set of words that people should learn if they really want to take Christianity seriously.
There is no reason for a language barrier…it is something that we simply made up and if we are not careful, we’ll just create a new set of “cool” church terms that becomes it’s own language barrier.
Jesus asked us to share what He did with this world…It is an implied imperative that we share it in a language that the world can understand (German, French, Japanese, Mandarin, and more importantly our actions/love). If we can’t manage to do that with our native language (in this case English) because we are too stuck on our own special Christian phrases…we are missing something.
It’s our desire to lead people to Christ…we should be the ones that learn/speak the language not the other way around.
The New Testament was written in “koine Greek”, the common language of the day, not “classical Greek”, the language of the elite. Even the Greek word translated “church” was not a “Christian” word but a common word for an assembly of people. In Acts 19 it is used to describe a mob.
Wayne,
This is something that I battle from stage more than in a personal setting. In my lifegroup, I can speak in a manner which that group can identify with. Everyone in my lifegroup are mature believers. Most of them came from similar backgrounds as I have. So it becomes easy to use “jargon” that doesn’t require an explanation. The nature of the post wasn’t saying that every church should do things in this manner, but rather we should be careful not to exclude those who we are actively trying to reach. Especially from stage!
I agree that in Germany we should learn their language in order to communicate to them. To be effective, we may even need to learn some slang. How effective would an English speaking only church in Germany be at reaching Germans? By using your example it would make sense to change our communication in order to reach Germans. This is my point exactly. We need to change our language to not become a barrier so that people can understand the message.
I recently attended a Christian school graduation, and almost every student who spoke recited at least one Bible verse. I was impressed by the school’s attention to an often-neglected part of our walk: “‘writing’ God’s words on our hearts.” Unfortunately, the “official” Bible version they used was King James. As I heard these teenagers spouting words like “whereunto,” I couldn’t help but feel bad for them. It’s my opinion that God will bless their commitment to Him in spite of their churchy talk, not because of it.
The Bible tells us clearly, we’re supposed to be separate from the world (2 Cor 6:17). I know many believers who take a phrase like “peculiar people” literally (1 Pet 2:9), in the context of that word’s contemporary meaning. They think Christians should be different in every way. The truth is, all these verses in context are about behavior and heart conditions, and not about the churchy words we use (or don’t). That’s Jesus .
Jesus never told us to stick a flag in the ground and invite people to come hear His message. He told us to go to them, and reach them where they live (Mark 16:15). Lead them to Christ…concepts like “washed by the water of the Word” will come to them in due time. To someone who doesn’t already know Christ, that sort of phrase is just odd and goofy, and makes little sense.
Derrick,
In your role as a worship pastor, how and how much does a topic like this affect the songs you lead for worship or even how you perform them? Do you have a criteria for avoiding/choosing songs or even the way they are performed?
Brandon
I would argue that reaching the unchurched is almost more important the connecting with God’s believers. As a Christian I shouldn’t need the experience of church to be faithful, it should only help. However, for many, the experience they find in worship may be the only thing that can get them to commit their lives to God initially.
I personally love Christianese, brother Derrick! Ok, THAT’S a lie. I hate that crap and never realized how regular it became in my speech as a follower of Christ.
However, their has been a growing influx of people in my generation (me included) that hate church, but thoroughly love Jesus. We know God changes lives and want other people to know that love too, but not at the price of personal comfort. That’s all Christianese is. It’s a personal comfort designed to communicate to a small group of people who are under the impression that it’s all for the greater good.
If it edifies the body, ok, but is it worth alienating people who don’t know?
Just a thought.
Brandon,
That’s an interesting insight. When choosing a song to use at my campus, I try to pour over the lyrics to make sure that there aren’t any concepts or phrases that will be difficult to understand. There are some great songs that people have written, but again, considering non-believers in the room, I don’t want to isolate them totally.
Pointing back to the original post, I want to choose songs that point non-believers to Jesus, and resonate within the hearts of believers too! It’s very easy as a worship leader to pick the newest songs or the ones from our favorite artists/writers without considering who will be singing these songs. I don’t want a song with theology that doesn’t line up with ours, or raises walls between us and the non-believes just because I like the way it sounds.
I realize that this may not seem like something a worship pastor considers but my heart is for the lost to be saved. I agree with Mike Jones in that I shouldn’t need the experience of the church to fill my emotional tank. As a believer, I need to be able to worship in private so that when I’m worshiping corporately it’s not about me!
[...] 3. This One. [...]
Derrick,
I love this conversation! I seriously think that this is something that many believers skip over in our minds. Dr. Roy Fish calls it “Jettison the Jargon.”
Moving on—-you mentioned something that really hit me hard. You stated that, “As a believer, I need to be able to worship in private so that…” I’m just going to say it—CRAP that is hard to do. It doesn’t sound hard when sitting in the USA with 1001 Christian influences around us. It can be a whole different world when you leave these borders. It shouldn’t be….but it was. I really had to LEARN how to be alone and worship in private. I dunno—what do you think? Is this something that most in the church naturally know how to do?
Billy,
Well, I don’t think it comes that easy to worship all by yourself. The best way to practice it for me is in the car singing songs to Him. I have to be careful to focus on Him instead of the song!
Personally I believe that we as Christians should obediently worship God first. We should place our obedience before our desire. That means when visiting my grandmother’s church and the style is not my cup of tea, I am still being presented an opportunity to worship God…I HAVE to take that opportunity out of obedience first.
God cares obviously that we desire Him in worship but, He cares more about our obedience. When my mom asked me to clean my room as a kid, she didn’t care if I wanted to or not, all she cared about is that I did it. God commands that we worship Him. So, putting that into practice is sometimes hard and it takes discipline as a mature believer.
Speaking as a very new believer I don’t think sharing Christ always comes through your “christianese” or your “street slang” it comes from your actions. The Holy Spirit takes care of the rest. When I see you lead, it’s not what your singing so much as the way your singing it. If someone truly belives what they are singing to their Savior, they could sing it in any language and anybody would still see their heart. I think there’s a line there that you as a leader have to walk. I wouldn’t avoid these phrases, I would just take a moment to explain them in your transitions. Hearing Christian phrases (that I didn’t understand as a new believer) only intrigued me to go home and look them up and learn. New believers are generally on fire for knowledge. Craig doesn’t omit Christian phrases, he just explains them on a level that we can all understand and apply in our everyday world.
I didn’t realize there is somethink like Christianese. I think I intuitivelly felt it. But yes, I agree: The language we use is very important. It is probably safe to say that we should be able to build a Christian perspective from where a given person is. This includes a lot of adaptation on our part. We’ll need to adapt to language but also to a worldview someone has. I mean we need to TALK in a different way to an intellectual and in a diffrent way to a layperson; in a different way to a Muslim and in a different way to a Jehova’s witness, etc.
[...] The Great Assumption Filed under: evangelism — Ed Jordan @ 7:00 am “I try to imagine that at least 25% of the attenders [at church] are non-believers,” writes Derrick Henslee, a LifeChurch.tv worship pastor. [...]
Was Lost -
You make a good point that I could explain the “ideas” in order to communicate a deeper understanding of God. I have to get really creative on how to do that since my time is very limited during transitions between songs. I will look at that as more of a challenge than an excuse!
Marcin-
I definately agree that we should meet people where they are. Missionaries do this all the time. They meet the people that they are trying to reach where they are. They use the tools around them to reach out. So be it in our language, or the songs we sing…we definately have an opportunity to reach out to those that we are trying to reach!
Derrick, your blog made me stop and think… what words am I using everyday, at school, at work, at home… do my friends, and family, understand my slang…( example.. Woot or Tupos )? One year at Fallscreek, before I was saved one of my friends wrote on a piece of paper ” drink Jesus juice ” and gave it to me, I didn’t understand what they meant because I wasn’t saved, but the phase stemmed from a old cartoon called “Teddy Bears ” I think (sp?)… any who, they would drink this juice and they would get so bouncy, excited, and they would save the forest from the giants… basically my friend was trying to tell me i needed to get excited and share my faith, ill never forget what this friend said to me once she explained it to me. “You’ve gotta have it before you can drink it. “So very true…
Music, words, actions, they are all ways we can share our faith with the lost, and the best way to do that is to leave our comfort zones, and enter theirs,using words that they can grasp.