What Is the Language Hiding? What Is It Revealing?
Language and translation are hugely important to the work of communities of faith, especially in times of change and in doing change work. For instance:
- The difficulties that arise when we make assumptions.
- The potentially disastrous implications of misunderstanding even a single word
- How when we disregard the nuance inherent in many words, we may muddy our intended message.
The idea that language is a constantly-negotiated consensus on the meaning of words, especially for the church in recent times; a process of redefining traditional terms and developing new ones that invites us to explore new directions and ways of looking at the future. “Church” meant something different at its inception than it does now. Similarly with “community of faith”—how does that compare to the original definition and how we live that out? Conversely, how accessible is “social innovation” to communities of faith, given that it’s the same idea as community outreach, and which phrase is best to use? What about “charitable” versus “non-profit?” What about “shared participation,” and the joy of being heard? Translation builds bridges and consensus, and brings possibilities and hope. Watch the whole conversation here. Reflection Questions: - Name a time that you had a massive miscommunication. How did this happen? What was the cause?
- Name a time that a word has triggered you. What language is off-putting for us? Is it business language? Is it secular language? Is it laden with other meanings? Holding power?
- What language do we use that is considered ‘insider’ language?
- How might our role be to translate? What does this look like? Is this more about speaking or listening?
- What might be possible if we could translate better?
[Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash] | 
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