September 2015: Fresh! additional material

2. intro: [talk/slideshow]

ben's story about minister unable to translate 'jesus is lord and worthy to be praised':

New Life Christian Fellowship were a pretty hip and happening Charismatic church down the street and ready to take every second of media exposure they were granted.

This was good as I was desperate for a stand-in church to record the sunday service for BBC Radio Stoke after some dumb-assed Christadelphians stood me up at the last minute.

The New Lifers promised me a script on the morning we were due to record their service and they delivered.

The only problem was, I didn't understand a word of it. And it was 20 minutes to showtime.

The opening line of the service was "Jesus Christ is Lord of all and worthy to be praised"... and that this was the most comprehensible line in the script, you'll see my problem. I needed them to translate themselves… and fast.

So I sat the elder's wife down and looked at that first line. Remembering that a lot of people listening didn't use religious lingo.

What would people think of that word "Lord"? What would they think of? Lord Snooty? A bunch of peers taking their afternoon siesta by the wool sack? That's not what she meant, was it?

And, I suggested, if your daughter got good GCSE's, you wouldn't tell her she was "worthy to be praised?"

So if you were saying "Jesus is Lord of all and worthy to be praised" in plain English, what *would* you say?

I had a glimpse of eternity In those next sixty seconds as she agonized over her answer.

Finally, she declared "Well, that he's Lord of all and worthy to be praised!"

It was then I realised - she didn't really know what it meant either.

Never has one religious producer translated so much Christianese in so little time.

I'm sorry to pick on you Ruth, cos we all do this stuff. Finding real meaningful words for our faith and motivations requires us to have something worth describing.

It's time to translate yourself. Are you ready to enter the tabernacle expectantly. Make sure you're firmly grasping your hyssop as you do.