I work for NASA; my job focuses on public outreach for Earth science.  I am part of a team whose job is to communicate to a wide variety of different audiences the story of NASA Earth science and why this story matters to them.  A lot of people don’t even know that NASA has a substantial investment in studying our home planet, but we do, and I work for this lesser known part of NASA. 
 
One of the things we work to do in our outreach efforts is to communicate technical scientific concepts to a broad (and often non-technical, non-scientific) audience. As with any specialized field there are lots of acronyms and technical terms that we use frequently in NASA Earth science.  I have worked for NASA for about 10 years; and I went to school and studied Physical Science and Meteorology for nine years prior to that, so I pretty much know those terms by now. I don’t have to stop and look them up when I encounter them. I am a NASA insider and I am thoroughly immersed in the language of NASA Earth science on a daily basis.  So when someone uses scientific jargon—language only used by scientists that other people don’t understand—I don’t flinch because I’m familiar with the nuances of the language.

But, what if—like most of you reading this article—you are not a NASA insider?  Then your perspective changes dramatically.  If an acronym or jargon term is used without it first being defined, you are likely to be completely lost!  You’ll get frustrated and lose interest pretty quickly and there’s a good chance that you won’t continue reading the publication (or listening to the person speaking.) Since the publication or speaker makes no effort to define the terms to help an outsider like you connect, you will probably assume that the publication (or the presentation) is not for you and you rapidly lose interest.

On the other hand, if the terms used are clearly defined the first time they are used, then an outsider like you at least has a better chance of connecting and not losing interest. When you work in outreach, you quickly learn that you have to define your terms.  You can’t assume that everyone reading your publication is an insider; in fact, the whole point of what we do is to reach out to outsiders and invite them in—to help them connect with NASA Earth science if you will.

My primary task at work is to serve as Executive Editor for a publication called The Earth Observer, a newsletter for NASA Earth science. Our publication frequently prints summaries of various science meetings and workshops.  Inevitably people who submit the summaries do not do a very good job defining the acronyms and jargon terms they use. I don’t think this happens because these authors are intentionally trying to make it difficult for people to understand their articles.  Rather, I think that when you have been an insider for a while in a particular area, you quickly forget how much of the language you use on a routine basis when talking amongst your peers (as often happens at a professional meeting or workshop) is unintelligible to a broader audience that often includes people outside your field of specialty.

As Editor of the Earth Observer, it’s my job to make sure that as many as possible can read and benefit from our publication—whether they be insiders or outsiders. Again, we want to invite outsiders in to learn about NASA Earth science, so we make an intentional effort to painstakingly define all acronyms and other scientific jargon used in our publication—thank God for Google and acronym finders.

Like scientists at NASA, the Church uses lots of jargon without ever defining our terms… and we hardly give it a second thought. Many of us are so thoroughly immersed in the nuances of the language of our particular church that it never occurs to us that we should stop and define our terms for outsiders.   After all, we the Church insiders already know what all the jargon that routinely appears in the church bulletin means—terms such as Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession, Words of Assurance, Gloria Patri, Hymn of Preparation, Call to Discipleship, etc.  Likewise, we’ve been around for a while and so we know what to do when during the service—when to sit, when to stand, when to kneel, what to say, etc. We’ve got the prayers, hymns, and even the praise songs we say or sing routinely memorized, and we know where to look for those we don’t know—whether it be the hymnal or the screen. Outsiders are certainly welcome to come to our church… but we expect them to learn to speak our language just the way we speak it.
But I have to wonder: Is what we do routinely almost without thinking in our churches becoming increasingly unintelligible to Church outsiders?  It's been well documented that we have a growing number of people in our culture who are growing up far removed from church.  We have many in our culture several generations removed from active participation in church.  We have others who have grown up immersed in other faith traditions or no faith tradition at all.  These people don’t know the language that we use routinely amongst ourselves and take for granted. As a result, if they actually summon the courage to set foot in our churches, they rapidly find themselves lost, they get frustrated and lose interest, and there’s a good chance they won’t visit again next Sunday. Since the Church insiders make no effort to explain things in a way that they can understand, the Church outsiders quickly come to the conclusion that they are not welcome here and that this church is not a place where they can connect with others or with God. 

Like NASA Earth science, as people of God, we have a great Story to tell but it seems that many people are not aware of it—or the version of the Story they think they know is far from the truth! I think that we (the Church) need to see ourselves as both outreach people for God and content editors for our churches.  Our job is to tell the Story of God to the world and explain to the world why they should care.  We should be inviting outsiders in—into our church and into God’s story. We want to make sure that whatever message we speak to the world allows as many as possible to connect with our church and with God. In order to do that, we’ll have to do a better job defining our terms in ways that allow more Church outsiders to understand the language we speak.

The fact is: living languages must continue to evolve in order to survive. The Old English of the Middle Ages is dramatically different from the English we speak today.  And as any parent who has watched a Thomas the Tank Engine video repeatedly with his two-year old can tell you, there are slight differences in English depending on exactly where you live.  British English and American English are similar, but have their differences in terminology. 

I know that many of us in the Church are working hard to keep our Christian language alive and vibrant.  We want to see our language evolve and do a better job speaking to the post-Christian culture in which we now live, and move, and have our being.  We want to share God’s Story with as many people as possible in ways that they understand and connect with.  We’re willing to consider new and innovative approaches in order to see that dream realized.

I fear that if we don’t continue to let our Christian language evolve so we can more effectively speak to the outside world, we run the risk of suffering the same fate as Latin and other dead languages of the past.  Latin is the root of a whole group of languages that are still spoken today, but no one actually speaks Latin anymore.  It no longer exists as a separate distinct entity by itself; it has been relegated to a quaint, archaic dialect suitable for academic study but no longer alive and relevant to our culture.  Once we stop speaking a language to the world, it dies rapidly. In order to avoid that fate we must continue to find new and innovative ways to tell the old, old, Story of God’s love for the world and for all of humanity.  We have a wonderful Story to share about a God who creates and a God who redeems, and we need to keep speaking that Story to the world in ways that they can understand!