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.
