Should we avoid ‘divisive’ words when we invite people to church?

A US church has sparked online debate about the use of certain phrases in order to attract people to church.  

During an interview, Elevation Church’s digital content director Nicki Shearer told Pro Church Tools that the church avoids using language in its invitations that might alienate or “immediately make someone feel like an outsider” especially while promoting Easter services.  

“When I think about how I’m going to talk about Easter, I’m thinking about how I’m going to talk to people far from God because that’s the thing that matters most to us,” she said.  
 
“For us, the most important thing on Easter is inviting people to church. This means reaching people far from God. So we’re not going to use the words ‘calvary,’‘resurrection’ or the phrase ‘the blood of Jesus.’ We won’t use language that will immediately make someone feel like an outsider.” 

As Relevant reported, the comments led to pushback suggesting that the Elevation were watering down key doctrines in order to make them palpable to online audiences who were unchurched.  

Elevation has not responded to such comments at the time of writing.  

As Pro Church Tools pointed out in a post, however, the church only ensured it did not use such phrases for invitations.  

“Importantly, Elevation absolutely emphasizes the resurrection of Christ in an Easter service (and uses that word),” Pro Church Tools wrote.

“Yet, you won’t find it on an Easter invitation of theirs.”