Mennonite Weekly Review

Next time you’re bored from one too many conference reports, try playing a round of Conference Speak. This new game, invented by my friend David Charles, is better than Sudoku.

Jane Yoder-Short lives in Kalona, Iowa.

As a delegate to Central Plains Mennonite Conference, and with his mind clouded from reading the thick conference booklet, he decided to try writing the Ten Commandments in conference speak.

The rules are straightforward. Take a simple statement and obfuscate what it is saying. You are limited to words in the conference booklet.

When David gave his report at church, he included one of the Ten Commandments in conference speak. After the laughter cleared I began to get an uneasy feeling about the way we communicate in church and conference.

Before getting too serious, I decided to conference-speak one of the commandments. With the help of my report booklet I wrote:

“In ongoing conversations it was discerned that members should be open to some disciplinary process and clarifying of one’s continuing work when one’s partner of interesting gender goes beyond maintaining appropriate boundaries. Such misconduct situations threaten the fabric of our continuing work of tending our souls and facilitating healthy relationships.”

I scored big, using 50 words to replace five: “You shall not commit adultery.”

Words are important. Words can affirm and encourage, or confuse and mislead.

As Mennonites we try to avoid conflict. We have Rom. 12:18 ingrained in our thinking — “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” We go to great linguistic lengths to avoid offending others. When does our careful kindness cross the line and become vague conference speak? When do our punctilious words become too vague, too flowery, too sanctimonious?

Could conference speak be a manifestation of a passive-aggressive system where we carefully cloud our yes with a prudent maybe while assuming everyone knows what we really think?