Rev Bill

Jim Watkins has posted “The Watkins Church Dictionary” — which gives definitions to terms you may have thought you heard before but now will understand their meaning.

Here are a few of them:

Bibull: Sermon that takes Scripture out of context.

Bored Meeting: (No definition required!)

Byelines: Third verse of hymns skipped over in congregational singing.

Carnal nurture: Replacing sermons with motivational talks

Church growth: Side effect of too many carry-in dinners.

Commviction: Psychological technique used to coerce parishioners to serve on church committees.

Deafline: Point pastors pass when their message goes over twenty minutes.

‘damentalist: Believer who has lost the “fun” in his/her faith.

Geek Orthodox: A member of an online church.

Ground Zero: youth pastor’s office

Guessin’: Sunday school lesson that leaves students wondering, “Now what was the teacher trying to say?”

Guestimony: Message of a former drug-crazed hippie, former female impersonator, former multi-level marketer, etc. Especially popular in churches where there are no “sinners.”

Heaven’s Gate: Senior Bible class.

Helloship: Shallow conversation in church foyers often mislabeled as “fellowship.”

Justavacation: Excuses for skipping church

Lite sin: Antonym of “deep sin;” having one-third less disapproval than other leading sins.

McMessage: Entertaining sermon with little nutritional value.

Meology: Self-centered doctrine.

Messchatology: Deriving theology from “last days” novels

Ministry: Suffix, which applied to any activity immediately spiritualizes it (ie., beach ministry, mall ministry, softball ministry, etc.).

Non-prophet organization: Politically-correct church that doesn’t want to offend anyone.

Pastornoia: Overwhelming fear that the minister will: a) visit your home while you’re watching Swingtown, b) see you on your way to the lake on Sunday morning, c) ask you to serve on a committee.

Pew mold: a) globs of gum stuck to the bottom of church seats, or b) person who has been sitting in the same seat, reciting the same testimony, and praying the same prayer for six months or more.

Preloud, postloud: Opening and closing music performed by deaf organists.

Prophits: People in ministry for the money.

Sinspiration: Motivation to do something right for the wrong reason.

Tele-Vision: Special revelation given to a TV evangelist when contributions fall behind budget projections.

Two-timers: Parishioners who only attend at Christmas and Easter.

Read all of these new definitions for new terms here.

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