Staff Blog: "Our Insider Teminology by Karmel Puzzuoli

By Karmel Puzzuoli, Communications Assistant to the Bishop.

I still remember the first Sunday I stepped into the Episcopal Church. It was at St. Thomas, still my home parish, one frigid March morning in 2008.

The worship style was new, but I was taken aback by the beauty of it all, the peace and joy in the music, the beautiful words and traditions, the uplifting presence of God. I said to myself, “I never want to leave here.”

At the same time, I remember breaking into a sweat. Stand up? Kneel? Genuflect? Say “amen.” What’s that thing they do right before the Gospel reading? The Nicene what?I thumbed through the service bulletin, trying to figure out what to say, when to say it, what it meant, and how to avoid looking like a rookie.

It took several months before I felt like I had it down, but even four years later I still occasionally feel tripped up like a newbie.

I grew up in rural Kansas where my family attended a fundamentalist church called the Church of Christ, in which the underlying message every Sunday had something to do with sinning, asking forgiveness, redemption, heaven, hell and stuff like that. It was boring (for me), but easy to understand.

But the liturgical service in The Episcopal Church, which I joined at the age of 36, was completely foreign to me. It took me awhile to figure it out. Heck, I’m not even sure I have figured it all out yet.

When I see new people sitting in our pews, I wonder if they are experiencing the same sweaty nervousness that I did. What can we do to make it easier for those just getting to know us? What can we do to make it easier for people who don’t know us, but are looking at the sign “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” and wondering what are they all about?

I am currently in the middle of wrestling with our insider terminology. I think it can be a big barrier to those on the outside. Even our name, Episcopal, which is derived from a Greek word meaning “overseer,” and means bishops, or a system of church governance overseen by bishops, can be a little inaccessible to those who are church-shopping.

We use a lot of terms in the Episcopal Church that aren’t intuitive. A communications colleague of mine dislikes the word discernment for its lack of intuitive meaning in our churches. Stewardship makes me think of helpful folks who work in air travel. And every time I hear the word formation, I think of geese flying south for the winter, or the Blue Angels in an air show.

In fact, my friend Fr. Mark Engle, agrees. “The folks who need formation most are out there,” he said, and pointed outside. “They have no clue what we’re talking about when we say formation.”

Our dear Canon Spaid, who LOVES the traditions of the church, seems to also appreciate the difficulty in understanding TEC:

“What if you said to a newcomer, ‘Go through the narthex to the undercroft where our liturgies for the Triduum will take place,’” he joked. “There are so many words and terms that relate to the church that make perfect sense to me, and are the correct word, but people on the outside wouldn’t necessarily know them like chasuble, alb, stole, cassock and surplice, orphreys on altar hangings. Where is the clerestory? Should we use homily or sermon? Should we invite people to worship or the Holy Eucharist? Should canticles use their Latin or English titles – This Sunday we’ll sing the Benedictus Dominus Deus or The Song of Zachariah? Should we call them Canticles or Songs from Scripture? It’s the acronyms that get me: EfM, DOK, ECW, EDWM, P in C, CofE.”

LOL!

THAT’s what I’m talking about.

My new rule for myself … if I type in the word on Google, like formation, and the definition doesn’t match the one we use in the church, I choose a different word. This is my personal and professional preference.

Right now, the Episcopal Church is going through a period of reinvention, moving away from an institutional model and toward a mission-driven one. We are thinking about what we are and how we survive in a time of competitive church-going.

The challenge for us is to find ways to preserve our traditions without being exclusive and alienating potential newcomers. It's a difficult challenge, and something we need to think about.

It’s also a great time for all of us to talk about our faith, what it means to us, and how it has transformed our lives. It’s a time to be disciples, and a time to be evangelists! No insider terminology is needed to proclaim the way the Episcopal Church has transformed your life.

I welcome your contributions to this blog, as well!
Karmel Puzzuoli is the Communications Assistant to the Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan. She can be reached at kpuzzuoli@edwm.org.