I take Spanish classes, and in preparation for an upcoming mission in Nicaragua in a few weeks, I’m reviewing the teaching material with my professor. The material is on prayer, and has been translated from English to Spanish.
I’ve spent 4 hours going over the material with my professor, reviewing it for punctuation, grammar, gender agreement (Spanish uses gender forms in their language, like Latin and Greek do).
I got to explain the concept of Christian prayer to someone who not only isn’t Christian, but doesn’t even have the vocabulary we Christians so loosely throw around in church.
Prayer is the vital key to experiencing our relationship with God through Christ. Prayer is a love relationship with God. Prayer can shape the future (we’ll let the theologians figure out how that works with God’s sovereignty).
I faced a few challenges, for example
- Christianese: What is a "prayer burden?"
- Spanish translation: The Spanish word I chose for burden gave my professor the image of me carrying a 20lb sack of potatoes on my shoulder.
So not only was prayer burden a foreign concept, so the mental image my word choice gave my listener.
In trying to explain such terms, I would have the opportunity to tell stories of God’s activity in my life.
I got to describe a prayer burden that I had for a missionary team in China, and then explain how I saw God’s hand in that.
I’ve gotten to explain about my relationship with Christ because I have to explain prayer to someone who doesn’t know how to pray.
In reviewing my material with my professor, I’ve had many opportunities to share stories of God’s activity in my life. The questions that I’m being asked to explain, the concepts all give material for God’s spirit to draw my professor into a relationship with Him.
Let me ask you this?
When you share your faith, what kind of Christianese do you use?
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