We are alive at an interesting time. Words no longer retain their original meaning (whatever that was) and in fact have deconstructed to the point where persons have chosen up sides to be for or against people who identify with these words in some way. Here is my short list, maybe you can add to it:
Gen-X ministry
Postmodern ministry
Emerging Church
Emergent
Evangelical
Evangelism
Fundamental
Heretic
Biblical
Non-Biblical
Inclusive
Non-inclusive
Here is a short list of words that will lose their meaning once we have finally decided what they mean:
Missional
Transformational
Incarnational
How can one know when a word is losing its meaning? What are the signs?
1. When people lose their funding because they are proponents of ________________ ministry. (you fill in the blank)
2. When multiple writers, proponents, and others start saying, I am not ______________.
3. When people say: ___________________ doesn’t work.
4. When people who have been using the term, writing books about the term, making their living talking about the term, begin to say it is time to stop using the term.
5. When prominent bloggers do an online poll with a few more than 100 participants and declare that the result indicates we should “dump” the term. 
Here’s what I say….let’s just use my all purpose word: Hoodabada… When you want to talk about a rising cohort of generational leadership, just say the “Hoodabada Leaders.” We can rename websites and organizations: “Hoodabada Village” sounds good, don’t you think? We can write books about the “Hoodabada Church.” I think I am onto something here. What say you?
words are important. they mean something. and words do change in meaning. however, when we start spending more time analysing, debating, deconstructing and redefining the words than we do living out what the author of the Word tells us to do, it seems to me, that we have totally lost sight of what Hoodabada is all about.
Here’s my thing- I do what I do and like what I like. People can call it whatever they want, they can stop calling it whatever they want. I just know where I am, and what interests me. I go with concepts, and the concept, if I feel it is worthy of pursuing and connects with what is going on deep inside of me, will always be a part of my life till I need to move on from it (if ever). No matter what it’s called by someone else. Does that make sense?
And for what it’s worth, I feel like missional is one of those words that has lost it’s meaning already. But, again, the I’ll never lose the concept (as I see it).
Cody and Michael,
Thanks for your comments…Maybe all of this stuff has just “jumped the shark.” From Wikipedia:
Jumping the shark is a colloquialism used by TV critics and fans to denote that point in a TV show or movie series’ history where the plot veers off into absurd story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations, particularly for a show with falling ratings apparently becoming more desperate to draw viewers in. In the process of undergoing these changes, the TV or movie series loses its original appeal. Shows that have “jumped the shark” are typically deemed to have passed their peak.
Cody, I know what you mean…I thought it had jumped the shark when it was first in use. My reason: whenever I asked someone to explain it to me it took 1-2 paragraphs. Any “concept” that needs that much defining is not clearly defined, that’s for sure…
You bring up a really good point. I have stopped using the word postmodern to describe anything. I have written a few posts in the past about where I think the culture is headed after postmodernism, but I have come to the conclusion that trying to define things postmodernism is self-defeating. I think that we should just talk about what we are talking about instead of thinking up neat little names to describe what we are talking about.
If we really want to keep people on their toes, we will change the words we use to describe things every few weeks. We should be more prone to use a diversity of metaphors instead of sitting down with just one.
I love it…HOODABADA that is, it describes what I think and feel about the church and all its terms.
I like the term whodapapa better…