Sometimes Christians say things that require translation.  There is meaning behind the words that if you take at face value you will miss.  Some of these thoughts were sparked at a conference I attended last week.  I hear these phrases from time to time when people swing by Living Stones Church looking for a new church and say things about their former churches…

Things like:

“It’s just not deep enough for me.”  That sounds spiritual and at face value you might think that the one saying it is really longing for some exegetical challenges from the text (preferably in Greek and Hebrew).  But the real translation for this is “I’m looking for something complicated and controversial.”  People who want “deep” really mean they love things that are complicated, hard to understand, confusing, and makes people walk away feeling insecure about the correct interpretation of a biblical doctrine.  So…let’s agree that when you figure out how to love God and neighbor accurately, we’ll move on to something deeper.

“I’m just not being fed.”  Ouch.  They don’t know it, but they just called themselves out.  They just said, “I’m a complete baby in the faith and incapable of feeding myself and thus dependent on my church (or Pastor) to do it for me.”  They didn’t mean to, but they did.  There is an appropriate time for the church to bear the burden of helping spiritually newborn people in regards to nourishment from the Word of God.  But part of that process has to be helping people feed themselves.  Helping your two year old cut his food up to eat is pretty normal.  If he is 27…it is weird. 

“The Lord hasn’t given me a release.”  This means “I really don’t want to do [something].”  It feels weird just saying that, so we lay a spiritual trump card on it.  Who can argue that God hasn’t released them?  Am I going to oppose God?!  In the end, it is just churchy language we adopt to not do something we don’t want to do and aren’t confident enough with our “no” and thus transfer responsibility to God.  Just say “no.”  It’s O.K.

There is always a story behind the story.  These phrases are spoken to give an air of spirituality or vagueness to conceal the real truth.  Often it is that their feelings were hurt, they feel excluded and left out, they don’t care for the church, the preaching style of the pastor, etc.  I get those.  Those sentiments can be legitimate and honest.  But “deep,” “fed,” and “Lord’s release” is code language for something else.  It is church speak.  And someone with the gift of discernment and interpretation of languages is required to give the right translations.