Words, words...

I picked up this cheap toy today. My up-front reason is that I need something new for my children's meetings, but I must admit, the clincher was that I wanted all of you to see this:


"Usage Elucidation"?


Admittedly, it is "not for children under 3 years", but that still seems a bit stiff.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a real words fan. I appreciate being able to "elucidate" my meaning when talking (I had to look the word up, and I'm still not sure I'm using it correctly- the "luc" part is light, i.e., "shed light on"). But, you can overdo it pretty easily.
At our Project Timothy seminar recently we ran across this one:"Personal Mastery- learning to expand our personal capacity to create results we most desire and creating an organizational environment which encourages all it's members to develop themselves toward the goals and purposes they choose."
Our instructor pointed out that this means "being able to do what you're trying to do".The jargon is okay for specialist studies, but it's a bit hard on our members for whom English is a second language.
I guess we Christians need to take heed as well. If we are trying to explain our faith to someone, we need to make sure the explination is understandable to our hearers, who may not be up on all our church jargon.