"Passion"

I can't remember when it was that I started hearing the word "passion" in the church. I haven't grown up in the church so maybe this word has been in use since before my time.

My first remembrance of hearing this word was around the time I got saved and began to attend a local church body. I think passion was used in reference to Jesus' sufferings on the cross. The movie, “The Passion of the Christ”, came out a few years ago showing in quite graphic detail the Lord's sufferings as he paid the penalty for the sins of all those who would believe. It was strange to hear this word used to describe His sufferings.

“Finding your spiritual gift” was a big one at the time I began to attend church. In order to do this you needed to find out: What are you passionate about? What's your passion? Whatever your passion was, it somehow related to what your spiritual gift was. I remember being confused by this at the time because I thought a person had more than one spiritual gift. It also felt...weird using the word “passion” and relating it to spiritual gifts. Being a new Christian at the time, the word “passion” had a completely different meaning to me and was, more often than not, used to denote something sexual in nature.

“Finding your passion” was another one. It seemed like an attempt to get lazy people up and moving. You know, kind of like, “Stop moping and wandering around aimlessly! Get out there, find your passion, and get going.” It seemed like an appeal to find out what excites you, what motivates you, what really piques your interest more than anything else. I've heard successful people refer to something similar when they say, “Find out what you really love and do it.” That's how they made their fortune. What they did wasn't a chore, it was their “passion”. This also seemed weird – relating business practices to the Church.

It seems like nowadays when I read a mission statement from a church, from a pastor, from a missionary, etc., they use this word quite frequently. It's like a catch word that has to be a part of any formal description of what they do and who they are. I watched a show awhile back about speeches and advertising and such. When the President of the United States is going to give a speech they run several versions of it by panels of regular citizens and then pick out the words that really resonate with the people. They continually tweak the speech until they arrive at the final version which has those nice catch words throughout. As I see the continued use of “passion” in the church it's almost like that same thing has happened. It's a word that seems to resonate with everyone. Never having attended a “Church Growth” seminar I can't speak to what is taught there. The continued use of this word in the writings that I've mentioned makes me wonder if there is a connection there, a similarity, along the same lines as the presidential speech writers. 

If catch words must be used I wish a new word would take the place of “passion” and all it's variations. I read a pastor's blog awhile ago and this word was used repeatedly throughout to describe the congregation and himself. I began to wonder, “He's saying it so much that it sounds almost like he is trying to convince himself he is the way he says he is.” I wish pastor's would stop trying to get “their” people excited about spiritual things, realizing the futility of trying to keep people excited. I wish pastor's would have a passion to study the Word of God a lot more and teach the Word to “their” people so that the people would see and understand how awesome God is, how much He hates sin, how great our sin debt was but Jesus Christ paid it for us. I wish pastor's would see that God grows His Church through the simple preaching of the Gospel, not through some technique or program, and it is that Gospel that is an offense. I wish they would see that people leaving the church because of the preaching and teaching of God's Word is okay, instead of giving a 15 minute pep talk and then announcing the next potluck. Offend no one. Keep everyone happy. Be passionate.