Buzz Words

You've all heard them... whether it's popular culture or in the church, words and phrases come into use and suddenly everyone's using them. Then overusing them... like a Led Zeppelin song. Kinda makes you wonder if anyone ever thinks at all.

Remember "EXTREME"? I used to get ads from every conceivable quarter of the youth ministry world trying to get me to go to EXTREME SUMMER CAMP or EXTREME BIBLE CONFERENCE or EXTREME JESUS LOVING COMPASSION MINISTRIES. Or how about "In His Grip"? Everyone was signing their e-mails with that one for awhile.

It seems a little shallow to me. We get into cliches and sloganeering and stop thinking about where terms originated from and the theology behind them.

I ran across a pretty funny list from an old issue of Leadership magazine today, and thought I'd share it with you all:

Which buzzword will be the first so overused that it's meaningless?

• Missional
• Formation
• Community
• Journey
• Resonate
• Emerging
• Authentic
• Narrative
• Metanarrative
• Story (your, my, our)
• Visioning
• Revisioning
• Vision Casting
• Christ-Follower

How do you know a buzzword is past its prime?

• When your denomination creates a division promoting it.
• When Chuck Colson writes a column condemning it.
• When your mother gives you a magazine titled that word plus "Today".
• When your board adds it to your job description.
• When Baptist Press uses it in a headline.
• When it gets its own website at ChristianityToday.com

Aren't Christians funny people sometimes?