Comics and Toddlers

So I bought a LA Times today because they had a section on the Inauguration of Barack Obama. When I got home I opened the paper and flipped through. As I was flipping through my little brother was standing by me and I thought "I should show him the comics." Because kids love the comics right. Apparently I was wrong. He didn't get much out of them. Do you know why? I figured it out but it never would have occured to me until I tried to read one to him. He didn't get much out of them because he didn't get them. He didn't get the word plays or the thoughts behind pictures themselves. It occured to me as I read one with a guy playing football buried by a bunch of players and stating to his wife on the phone "Hey, hon, can I call you back? I'm buried." Now I expect you to get that if you are an American who speaks English as a primary language or has some understanding of the English language.

So this got me thinking. How often do we put people off or do people simply not get what we are saying because of the internal language we use. Often Christians have a set of words they use that they assume everyone else gets but really only Christians get. Now I understand that some of this is unavoidable but we can remove some of the interal language. Our message should not be hindered by our terms. So next time you are going to share something about Christianity with someone that isn't a Christian try to use as little Christianese as possible. Crazy factoid: Christianese is actually a word according to my spell check on the Mac. Just goes to show that we have internal language. Now next time you share make sure you are not preventing their understanding because of your Christianese.