Over at Church Marketing Sucks, guest blogger David Zimmerman has written a series of posts about how the church looks to first time visitors. It is not clear from his posts whether his view of these visitors is that they are believers or unbelievers, so I am assuming that he is referring to both.

In his most recent post, Zimmerman talks about the need to avoid what he calls Verbose Nomenclature. In short, his post is about the necessity of avoiding what some call “Christianese,” those theological or church language terms that are foreign to those outside the church. He talks about the expression “Have a blessed day,” being a turn off to someone who is not a believer. He also suggests in a comment that words like “fellowship” are simply not good to make people feel included.

I generally agree. At Christ Community Church, we are trying to think about the words that we use. We try to avoid calling social gatherings with food potlucks, for example. We want our language to not turn people away. Where I disagree with Zimmerman however, is when he says:

Especially excluding are words that we use to describe our attempts to introduce others to Christ. When we use words such as “missions” and “evangelism” around our visitors, we are creating an “us vs. them” dichotomy since visitors aren’t engaged in the outreach. I once saw a church that admirably started serving people in their neighborhood. To identify themselves, and their church, they got T-shirts made which read, “This Church has left the building.” I think that’s an attractive message to non-Christians–saying that they aren’t a cloistered group of people only interested in themselves.

Unfortunately their message was undermined by a cute note on their shirt that read, “Gone Outreachin’.” As Christians we know that outreach is an important part of our walk with Christ, and we do it out of love and concern for those that don’t know Jesus. However, when a non-Christian is told that they have been “outreached” it only reinforces their feeling of exclusion.

I think that I understand his point. Calling someone an heathen to their face is likely to turn them off. They may be offended and leave. However, I think it is important not to go too far with trying to make people feel welcome and accepted. Wait, that probably didn’t come out quite right. I want everyone to feel welcome, and accepted. However, I also want those who don’t know Jesus to feel as if they are missing out on something. I also want those who do know Jesus to remember that there are those who are in church, or in our neighborhoods and jobs who do not know him.

I really like the vision of the church to be a training ground for missionaries. I think that the primary way people should be introduced to Christ is through Christians who have been equiped and taught to go out and engage them in life, develop friendships, help them with real life problems, and along the way introduce them to the Lord.

Unbelievers who come to church should see it like I first saw my wife’s family, back when we were dating. The family was incredibly warm and friendly. The clearly loved each other. They laughed together and cried together. I felt accepted and welcome. I laughed and cried with them. But, I was not part of the family. It was clear that I was not part of the family. People in church for the first time should see us as a family. They should be welcomed in our midst. But, if they don’t have a longing to be truly part of the family and not just a friend over for a visit, then something is missing.