Every people, culture, organization, and institution has words that are unique. Words are keys to how a particular people think, what their values are, and what their sense of reality is. Starting on April 6th, we are going to reorient ourselves around a cluster of words that seem hard to understand in 21st century America. Words like: "sin, transgression, repentance, penance, redemption, salvation, atonement, iniquity, grace, faith, and covenant." This is the language of the church - the language of faith. And the wonderful thing about this language is that the meanings do no change because this is God's way of describing humanity, and it's God's way of describing His solution. When most people hear these words they don't quite know what they mean, so the solution to the discomfort has been to stop using the words altogether. We don't use these words in our prayers, we don't use them in our conversations, and we don't use them in sermons. But if we are going to partner with God in saving the world, we have got to know that humanity is messed up. Sin cannot be fixed, ignored, swept under the rug, or cleansed with hard work. Ignoring the language of sin won't make sin go away, and it will also weaken the language of grace because you will never understand forgiveness unless you understand the full impact of what has been forgiven. What values, meanings, experiences, and answers do we lose if we forget how to speak the language of sin and salvation?

• April 6: Let us Talk of Sin
  
• April 13: Sin is Our Only hope
  
• April 20: Recovering Repentance
  
• April 27: The Peace of Salvation
  
• May 4: Conversion: Either/Or, or Both/And
  
• May 11: Baptism: Meeting Jesus at the River's Edge