Isn't it interesting how we can hear an expression time and again, yet one day those very words make a lasting impact on us! This happened to me in my first appointment as a pastor. In an ordinary conversation with my senior pastor, I simply said, "Since I HAVE to preach next Sunday...." The remark was made only in reference to an explanation of why I wouldn't be available to do something else before Sunday. I would be preparing for my message instead.
My senior pastor said, "You don't HAVE to preach...you GET to preach next Sunday!" I think he may have been enjoying this opportunity to chide his former English teacher associate pastor a little too much! Whatever his intent, though, his words reminded me of the power of language to shape us and others around us.
He was so right. How carelessly we choose our words sometimes! Since that encounter, I have many times pointed out to my parishioners that worshiping, serving, and studying together are all GET-to's, not HAVE-to's. None of us HAVE to come to worship. We GET to. None of us HAVE to teach a Sunday school class. We GET to. None of us HAVE to study God's Word. We GET to. Yet, what we say too often sends the wrong message, especially to the children and youth whose lives God has entrusted to us.
So often I've heard adults in the church use HAVE-to language when talking about church, as if church were some awful-tasting medicine the doctor prescribed for us! And we wonder and scratch our heads that so many of our teenagers have the opinion that church is boring or a drudge! They've heard it often enough in the conversations of adult church folks. I fear we may have done a really good job of helping them decide they no longer HAVE to go to church! We haven't done as well helping them realize they GET to go to church!
Copyright 2009 Lynn W. Dimon
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