I have Acronymphobia

What is it with the human need to turn everything into an acronym? Really. I cut this out of a magazine I was flipping through last week about, of all things, CUSTOMER SERVICE.

And, in case you're wondering...there was no key or legend anywhere in the article to "decode" what these acronyms stood for. I was left wondering what the purpose was for the advertisement. If people don't have the superpower to break the code...this adds NO VALUE TO THEIR LIFE.

Sadly, the Church is one of the biggest abusers of this, uh, technique.

• Do a health check, how many acronyms are in your bulletins, brochures or web sites?
• Who are you talking to? Are you using a language that only you understand?
• Are you making it easy for guests to find and take their next step?

You can change the world. Minimize the use of acronyms in your communications. It has healing powers. There's even an organization to combat this epidemic... Check out the Acronym Sense Society.

Comments

[KB]

dude. blair. i feel just as geeky. i know what all those acronyms were too...

after the whole wwjd thing... i sort of despise acronyms.
but i am guilty using them in text messages...

[Isaac Downing]

I just read this post today, but when I drove by a church last weekend, I thought about this very thing.

Their church sign said:

MAIN 11:00
SS 9:45

"Water Main?"

"Secret Service?"

"Social Security?"

[Rod Pearcy]

You just inspired me to kill ours. We have two. We publish a devotional called "Living in the Active Word". We call it LITAW.(pronounced LEE-TAW) Ive always hated that.
We have another program called "Until the Whole World Hears". UTWWH, pronounced UhT-WAH.
Two of the most ugly sounding words I have ever heard.
Solution: Come up with One Word names that we call things.

[Milan Ford]

Hey Kem!

Thank you so much for this.
I wrote a post about this a while back in my blogspot, The Pew View.

I wish (if only for one year or two) all churches or ministries would ban the usage of acronymns.

They are so overused...and often bleed with a lack of creativity.

Besides if you're trying to reach a new generation of unbelievers, do you really have to call yourself...

R.A.N.G.O.U.
(reaching a new generation of unbelievers).

Gets kinda corny after while...

Thx.

[Jeremy Scheller]

I was in a sever training last week:

Acronyms I learned about:
DNS
DHCP
LDAV
AFP
SMB

It only took 4 intense days of $500/day training to make sense of all this.

Hopefully the cost is less for our guests...

For four years now, everytime a communication request that has crossed my desk that said SCC, I painstakingly changed it to Sanctuary Covenant Church or The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is a far more powerful brand than SCC especially for FTG's (first time guests).

Slowly allowing the transition for internal purposes, but not yet for the big show...

[blair farley]

I feel super geeky 'cause I knew what most of the acronyms meant (and have been to a few of them!). I actually blame the acronym craze on Rick Warren. His prolific use of sermon points that all start with the letters of a word has gone forth into the church world and made us all acronym happy. I figure since he gets all the credit for good stuff all the time it would be kinda fun to blame something on him!

Seriously though... do you remember the old game show where they showed a personalized license plate and you had to figure out what the message was supposed to be. That is how it feels sometimes when reading church bulletins with lots of acronyms, or text messages!

[Steve Johnson]

Last night I was watching the Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres one game playoff. TBS continually ran a banner at the bottom of the screen saying "LDS are presented by Budweiser." I was a little surprised that the Mormon church would use any sponsor at all, much less a beer company.

Acronyms aren't only difficult for outsiders to decipher, but they can easily be confused for something else.