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The following is a brief excerpt from the concept paper, Language Barrier: Recovery Ministries Search for the Words to Communicate Mission. If you like what you read, you can download the full paper at the end of the excerpt.
Joey Delgado isn't sure who has the most confusing language--community recovery programs of his past, or the church.
"Recovery has its own jargon, and the church has its own jargon," says Joey, of Christ's Church of the Valley (San Dimas, CA)--himself a recent crossover from secular recovery ministry to leadership in his church. "When the two try to talk to each other, it's like they're speaking Chinese."
Joey's assessment hits the nail on the head for many recovery ministry leaders around the country: If they extensively use recovery |
language for their church's ministries to wounded and broken people, those who have experienced healing outside the church will understand the lingo. But people inside the church may be turned off by it.
If they forge a new path with language, and try more "spiritual" or biblical language that church people will relate to, they risk alienating those in the community they desire to attract.
"When I talk to people in our church about recovery and what we do, oftentimes there is just a blank stare," says Richard Desjardins of Seacoast Church. "They have no idea what I'm saying. For them, 'recovery' equals 'addiction' and they think they have nothing in common with those people."
Normalizing Recovery
Rather than focus on changing recovery language, many leaders are directing their energies to normalizing the process for helping the hurting, and giving it a more universally accepted face.
At Watermark Community Church, church leaders are open about their personal struggles from the platform and refer to help they have received at the church's Celebrate Recovery ministry. Every week's worship program features a story of life change--50 to 70% of those stories come out of Celebrate Recovery.
"There is a very strong message that it's OK to be broken," says Watermark's Nate Graybill. "We want people to understand this is a grace-filled community where we are all broken.". . .
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