REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE

It’s really easy to get in touch with me. You can call me on my land line, or you can text me or call me on my cell phone. If that doesn’t work send me a message through Xanga, or leave a comment on my MySpace or Facebook page or even classmates.com. You could also leave a message for me at my registered domain name at www.marklabouff.com. If that doesn’t work, send me an email at my personal email address or at my work email address, or any one of 10 other email addresses I’ve had over the last several years and have abandoned but probably still work except that I never check them. Or you could call me at work and leave me a voice message which (since we have VOIP) interfaces directly with Outlook and sends it to me as a .wav file attachment to an email so I can pick it up wherever I am on my Treo. You could try something as old fashioned as sending me a fax, cause when you do it transmits it digitally to my Treo as well so that I can look at it with the built in document viewer. Or you could do what I’ve started doing lately and call jott.com and leave a voice mail which is transcribed into an email and sent to one of my email addresses or as a text message to my phone. Of course I also have a Cisco IP Communicator on my desktop which emulates the phone in the office, so if I’m on the road I can plug in a headset and pick up voice mail messages and maybe even give you call back directly through my laptop. If you happen to have video conferencing capability, I’ll give you the IP address at my office and we can set up an muti-point high definition video conference. If you happen to miss the conference it will be recorded and stored on a server via Media Site Live and you can go back and watch it at your convenience.

I’m so friggin’ connected to the universe that I haven’t had an actual face to face conversation with a real human being in at least six months. 

NO HABLO CHRISTIANESE

Every profession, academic discipline, social group, and Dungeons and Dragons conclave has its own vocabulary or “jargon.” For example, when my son talks about neuroscience I wrinkle my forehead and nod knowingly, despite the fact that I don’t have a friggin’ clue what he’s talking about. That’s because I know nothing about neuroscience, although I believe it has something to do with your head.

The problem with jargon is that it often comes off as pedantic or exclusionary. I think this is especially true of “Christianese.” I’ve been thinking about this lately because several of the responses I got to my last two posts were written in Christianese. That’s ok; I knew what they were talking about because I happen to be fluent in Christianese. In fact, that’s pretty much the only language I spoke during my years in the ministry.

However, having stepped slightly outside of that paradigm several years ago my ears have begun to hear Christianese the way someone who is not familiar with that language might hear it.

In other words, it’s started to sound pretty silly.

Let me give you some examples. One of my favorites is; “I just received a word from God.” For those of you who routinely use that phrase it sounds normal, but try to imagine how that phrase sounds to someone who did not grow up in an evangelical church.

It sounds like the person saying it is completely nuts.

In fact, when someone says that to me today I typically respond with something like; “and what was that word? Porcupine? Pogonotrophy? Perambulator? Did you get any words from the Increase Your Word Power page in last month’s Reader’s Digest?

I say things like to people because I am (as one of the commenters on my last post so eloquently put it) an “asshat.”

Christianese becomes really fun when someone strings several patented Christianese phrases together such as; “I feel led to intercede for you because of the chasm that exists between you and the savior due to your iniquities. I pray that you will heed God’s call to repent and seek his face as you accept his invitation to become a born again and spirit filled believer.”

Huh??

Come on now…those of you with a background like mine. You’ve said something very close to that, haven’t you? You know you have…you can admit it.

So, to all of my fellow evangelicals out there, allow me to speak some Christianese directly to you: If you really want to be salt and light, stop talking like a televangelist with a bad suit and even worse hair, just speak English.

No Hablo Christianese.  

THE RESOLUTION

Thank you to everyone who offered their advice on how to best handle my recent “less than professional” behavioral episode. I thought you might be interested in the outcome.

I called the young man and offered to take him to lunch. During lunch, I apologized for the manner in which I had spoken to him, but asserted that my basic message remained the same. I wished him the best of luck with his future and told him that if there was ever anything I could do for him, not to hesitate to call.

Then I put my arm around his shoulder, walked him out to the parking lot, and shot him in the back of the head.

Ok…actually, I didn’t do any of that. I was planning too, but then I got some news. I didn’t mention in my last post that in addition to working part time for the church, he is also a part time middle school music teacher. Several of the middle school students who attend our church happen to be in his class. It seems that he has been telling them that he had to leave because everyone at their church was mean to him and that their church is filled with some bad people.

I’m sorry, but if you feel it is appropriate to whine about your lot in life to 12 years olds and to try and turn them against their church, you are simply slime.

I didn’t have a great deal of respect for him to begin with, but what little I had has gone out the window.

There won’t be any apology from me. In fact, he should probably stay clear…

I’m packing.

I’M A BAD, BAD MAN

It’s true; I’m a bad, bad man. I’ve done something I’m not terribly proud of and I’m trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Don’t get your hopes up. Despite my recent postings about prostitution, picnic table sex, and consenting livestock, it was nothing immoral. In a nutshell, I was a jerk.

I’ve got this whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on, but I’ve come by it honestly.

As you know, the first half of my professional life was spent in the ministry. During that time I became very adept at church politics. For those of you not involved in a church, you might think that in a church situation everyone always deals with each other in a mature, loving, and compassionate way. Please…don’t make me break out in maniacal laughter. Churches are made up of people, and people occasionally get their panties in a wad and if you’re on the church staff you have deal with people in a very gentle and diplomatic way. At church I’ve always been the kindly Dr. Jekyll.  

15 years ago, I left the ministry and entered the business world. When I interviewed for the job I now hold I was told that if I had thin skin or wore my feelings on my shoulder I would not survive. They weren’t kidding…not even a little bit. I was worried about being able to adapt to that kind of environment. I found, however, that I not only adapted to that environment, I’ve learned to thrive in it.

Perhaps its being in a situation where you can actually say what you think, but I’ve found it to be incredibly liberating. I’m in the systems contracting business. It’s a business that moves very, very quickly. When you have a crew 500  miles a way from home and hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake and problems arise, those problems must be solved quickly and efficiently, and there is not time to worry about people’s feelings.

The procedure is simple: When there is a problem, those involved have a quick meeting and a plan to solve the problem is strategized and put into place. Then the person or persons who caused the problem are “ripped a new one,” and then they are taken out in the parking lot and shot in the back of the head with a small caliber weapon.

It might seem barbaric, but it’s actually very efficient, and I LIKE efficient.

At work I can become the demonic Mr. Hyde.

I’ve filled in directing music at the church I now attend many times over the past several years. Two years ago our music director retired and I was asked to take over his position on a part time basis which I agreed to do. My official staff title is “Pastor for Worship and Arts.” It may sound like a fancy position, but trust me, it ain’t.  When I first started they paid me a small amount of money. I always signed the checks back over to the church. After about six months of this the pastor decided it was kind of a silly arrangement from a book keeping point of view, so they stopped paying me altogether. This was just peachy with me, because if they don’t pay me, they can’t tell me what to do.

Because I’m a busy person the church was gracious enough to offer to hire a part time music associate to help me. A few months ago they hired a very nice and very talented young man in his early twenties. The young man turned out to be a fabulous musician, but a less than stellar employee. To say that his work ethic and communication skills could stand some improvement would be like saying George Bush could probably use some vocabulary lessons. After about six months on the job he had alienated so many people that when he walked into the building crowds with torches and pitchforks would begin to assemble and would have to be dispersed.

This past Sunday morning he was late, he had not done what he was supposed to do to prepare for the services, and he was in an uncooperative mood. As the old saying goes; “I only had one nerve left, and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t standing on it.” That’s when it happened. I transformed into Mr. Hyde and I had a little discussion with him. I could hear the words coming out of my mouth, and I could hear the tone I was using, but it was like I was outside of my own body unable to stop myself. When I had finished, he burst into tears and ran out of the building. He called the chairman of the board of directors that afternoon and tendered his resignation, effective immediately.

When I was his age and had just started in the ministry, there was a deacon in one of the churches I served who had talked to me on several occasions like I talked to this young man last Sunday. I remember how wounded I felt and how bitter I became whenever I thought about him. I realized that I have now become that deacon in his life, and I really hate that.

I know that he needed to hear some of the things I was saying, and I know that if he doesn’t change, he’s going to have a very difficult life in the ministry (or in any profession for that matter), but I could have handled it better. I could have tried to build him up instead of tearing him down. Yes, I was a jerk…

…but at least I was efficient.