I love words. Working with them, sharing my thoughts through them with others, receiving ideas and inspiration from others through them. Words are powerful. And I have to confess that, because I love words, I sometimes think I have to protect them. That is, I will admit that from time to time I get frustrated by made-up words, by what is often called a neologism (literally, “a new word”). For instance, and taking an example from my own line of work, I kind of despise the word “missional.” Even though I often use it. But it bothers me. There’s an inelegance to “missional,” I would argue, that is unnecessary and unhelpful, so why...

Dear Partner in Preaching, In a remarkable little book called How to Do Things with Words, philosopher J. L. Austin makes the claim that, contrary to conventional wisdom, words don’t simply describe things but actually make things happen. Words, that is, aren’t merely descriptive but are evocative, even creative. When two persons say, “I do” in the context of a marriage ceremony, for instance, they are not merely describing the relationship they are entering into but actually creating it. And when some says “I love you” or “I hate you” we don’t only hear those words but actually feel the force they exert upon us. Words, in...

I love words. I love what you can do with words. I love playing with words, shaping ideas with them, communicating things that matter to me through them, and affecting the thoughts and feelings of others with them. For all these reasons and more, I love words. But not always. As I’ve said before, I don’t always love words when they come as poems. When words come in poems, they don’t seem to follow the rules, or at least they operate by different rules, rules I haven’t mastered and don’t feel competent at. That’s, in part, why the Saturday poetry post has been important to me. It’s a way to stretch, to push myself to work a...