I was translating an article into Spanish for work, and as part of a story I recount in the article, I wanted to include a few bits of text slang—basically the Spanish equivalents of lol and rofl.
For me, the Spanish word for "to text" is "textear." I've spent most my life going to Honduras yearly and everyone there uses that word. So, I did a Google search, for "un diccionario de textear."
The first page in the results simply said "Textear— Honduran slang for texting," and the rest of the results were all the same.
Yea, I totally got called out.
In the back of my mind, I know my Spanish has a bit of a distinctly Honduran flare to it, but I never expected it to be so obvious that a machine would pick up on it.
So what's the big deal about that? Well, my first reaction was pride. I realized that my vocabulary insures I'll never be able to explain the idea of texting to a Spanish speaker without lots of confusion and even humiliation, but I didn't care.
I was proud to be using a word so unique that only a Honduran could understand me, because I love that country and even if no other Spanish speakers can understand me, if I fit in with Hondurans, I'm happy.
What does that have to do with visitor retention?
It's an important lesson in the power of words to unite and to divide. By using an esoteric word, I had cut myself off from 95% of the Spanish speaking community, and actually I never found the dictionary because I never figured out the right word to trigger it. I was cut off.
Additionally, when I use words like that, most Spanish speakers don't understand that there's a dialect difference, but instead assume I'm an arrogant gringo who thinks speaking Spanish is nothing but putting an "o" at the end-o of every word-o. In short, they think I'm irrelevant to their life because they can't understand what I'm saying. It's a false assumption, but it ruins the relationship anyway.
The same happens with visitors when we use Christian-ese. They don't have a clue what sanctification is or why they need any remission for their sins. (Shoot, I'll even be honest with you and admit I grew up in church and have worked as a college English professor and I don't know what "remission" means if you use it outside that phrase). So, why do we think words like that will make visitors stick around?
In reality, theological words used in front of non-theologians build walls and convince people we're irrelevant to their lives and don't understand their problems. And accurate or not, visitors leave and that's all that matters.
Of course, there's a good side to this principle as well.
As I mentioned, even though my word choice isolated me, I was proud to be recognized as having a Honduran accent. The same goes for people new to the church. If you avoid overly church-ey language that might isolate, but make it easy for visitors to pick up on and use words or ideas common to your church, you're giving them the tools needed to become a part of your community and fit in.
A good example of this at my church is the idea of being planted in the local church. Probably a third of all services at some point contain a reference to Psalm 92: "those who are planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in courts of our God." If you go through the first session of our introduction to church class, you'll hear that idea at least ten times. It's not an alienating idea the first time you hear it (unlike big, esoteric words that no one understands), but as visitors pick up on the idea, they know that anytime they use it they will be recognized as alluding to something the pastor said. That makes them feel like a part of the community.