(It’s guest post Friday! This one is from Kathleen Leslie! If you’d like to write a guest post, submit one here.)
Christians should have their own dictionaries—not as in a “you can’t look at my cool dictionary with Three Crosses On A Hill or White Jesus With A Lamb emblazoned on the cover of it because you aren’t Christian,” exclusionary kind of dictionary. It would be a dictionary that anyone could have. But only Christians would understand it. It would really be used as a tool for new Christians. Right after we have them stand up to a congregation of 1,000 and point to them as “VISITORS,” clapping wildly and eying them up for signs of recent sin, we can have an usher hand them a handy copy of the Christianary.
What words should be in it?
It should have standards in it, like fruit, defined as the result of Holy Spirit that church friends recognize in you, e.g., “The fruit of Alice’s hard work decorating the church with poinsettias this Christmas is her rosy glow and ability to prune the extraneous food stuck on children’s faces during fellowship time.” It would still contain the other definition (“the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or other plant that contains seed and can be eaten as food”). Naturally, that definition would be secondary.
Other words must have pride of place too, like:
Margin: What Andy Stanley wants us to have and what we claim to need while in church meetings (If I had more margin like Pastor does, I would have been able to alert him that hosting the usher’s appreciation dinner after 5 pm at a place other than Cracker Barrel is a no-go.)
Tithe: Ten percent, when speaking about others, and the amount of money I can part with this week when speaking about ourselves (I got my tithe out of the cup holder in the car this week)
Awesome: What God is when we see the fruit of his Spirit. (It was awesome the way God totally saw that I was in a hurry and convicted that old lady to swerve off the side of the road so I could hightail it to my XTreme Uprising YouthX group).
Epic: What every youth group event is now, if your church hosts it.
Important phrases and Christian slang should also be included, like:
Hands and feet of Christ: Your hands and feet, and mind and money, not mine; mine are on spiritual retreat (see also: sabbatical).
Pearls Before Swine: Important stuff that heathens can’t have or won’t get. (I’m not giving out my fish wristband bracelets to the skaters in the IHOP parking lot so they can use them for rubber band weapons; no point puttin’ pearls before swine.”)
What other awesome, epic words could be included?
(For more great writing from Kathleen, check out her blog and follow her on twitter at @KathLeslie10)
