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In this week's edition of the Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, discusses the use of profanity by ministry leaders. He argues against using such language, providing six biblical reasons. Iorg encourages leaders to carefully consider their language choices as a tool for effective ministry and personal growth.
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What is Lead On Podcast?
Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, welcoming you to our continuing conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. If you're new to the podcast, this is a podcast about the everyday work of ministry. It's not a podcast about politics or denominational issues or even really heavy theology or Bible teaching. Now, there's always some of that in the podcast, but this is really a podcast that focuses on the daily work of being in ministry leadership.
Jeff Iorg:Well, today, I have a theme for the podcast that, frankly, I almost didn't do. I do not want to be that guy that people say is an old man yelling, get off my yard. And this podcast, when I was thinking about doing it, had a little bit of an overtone about it to me. Now the reason I use that illustration about yelling at people to get off my yard is because I actually did that one time to a 5 year old child. Here's the story.
Jeff Iorg:When I bought my first house, the front yard had some issues, and we simply could not grow grass on about 1 third of our front yard. Now this was difficult because everyone in my neighborhood had a nice yard, and I was living in the Midwest at the time when everyone knew how to grow everything except me and I couldn't grow grass. And so, I really felt intimidated and frustrated and I wanted this yard to look better. So, I made a herculean effort one spring. I plowed up the yard.
Jeff Iorg:I spent hours cleaning it up. I got it all leveled out. I planted grass seed. I staked off with yellow tape around it so everyone could see to stay off my yard and watered, cared for, and within a few days, I had sprouts of green. And within a few weeks, I had a little bit of a yard that was really starting to grow.
Jeff Iorg:But I kept my protection up with all of those, yellow taped barriers because I really wanted this yard to be awesome. Well, one day, I'm standing at the front door looking outside when this little 5 year old girl comes running up to my house chasing a ball that had bounded into my yard. She hopped my little yellow tape fence, ran across my new lawn, grabbed her ball, and started back out. I threw open the screen door, burst out on my front porch, and yelled, get off my yard.
Jeff Iorg:Suddenly, I'm doing that which people say is only a metaphor. No. I'm doing it in real life.
Jeff Iorg:Get off my yard, I screamed. She burst into tears and ran off our property and headed up the street to her home.
Jeff Iorg:Feeling pretty proud of myself, I turned around to find my wife standing there. Now
Jeff Iorg:those of you who know Anne know that my wife is the kindest, sweetest person in the world, and she's that way everywhere to all people all the time. But she looked me dead in the eye, and she said, and I quote, in this neighborhood, I thought we were raising children,
Jeff Iorg:not grass, and turned around and went in the house.
Jeff Iorg:And I stood there on my front porch, knowing what I had to do next. So up the street I went, knocked on the door. This little girl's parents came to the door and I said, I've come to apologize to your daughter. And they said, well, she's in her room crying and we're trying to find out what happened, and I said, well, let's, get her in here, and I'll explain it, and it's all my fault. And that was the day I had to apologize to a 5 year old little girl for screaming, get off my yard.
Jeff Iorg:So I don't wanna be that guy. But on the podcast today, I wanna talk about an issue that could come off sounding that way, but I really don't want it to. It's a serious issue though, and one that I think that frankly, I think is more interesting than I even perceive.
Jeff Iorg:I wanna talk today about should ministry leaders use profanity? Should ministry leaders use profanity? Now, again, I almost didn't
Jeff Iorg:do this podcast. I was thinking about it when I was recently with a couple of pastors who have a number of interns in their very large church and a number of other students who are preparing for ministry in one way or another. They complimented me on the podcast, and I said, you know, I'm thinking about an idea, and I wonder what you think about it. And I said, I'm thinking about a podcast on should ministry leaders use profanity. And their heads snapped around, and they looked at me and said, yes, absolutely.
Jeff Iorg:You need to do that one. And they told me what an issue this is for some of their interns and also for younger men and women preparing for ministry leadership. I wanna talk about today this issue of what comes out of our mouths and why that matters for ministry leaders. Now why is it today that some younger ministry leaders are thinking about using profanity or in fact using it more often? Well, it's because of 2 things, really.
Jeff Iorg:It's the desire to fit in and to be perceived as being relevant in the culture and connected with the people, so to speak. It it it's also, a desire to seem like your understanding of people and of how they communicate and of the relevancy of life as they see it. Now I understand that. But I understand this. My goal today is is not to give you a list of acceptable words or to tell you not to be relevant or to tell you not to try to fit in or not to connect with your culture.
Jeff Iorg:No. My my challenge to you today is to help you think about the words that you use and what they really
Jeff Iorg:communicate, what they really communicate.
Jeff Iorg:Now let me start by defining some words. First of all, the word profanity. I'm using that word today to encompass really several classifications of words. Profanity, is the word that usually is defined as being offensive words that are part of our language, that communicate something that's, coarse or vulgar. But those other two words, coarse or vulgar, now have taken on their own definitions in our culture.
Jeff Iorg:Vulgarities are words that are really beyond profanities. And vulgarities are words that up until recently you, for example, couldn't even say on public broadcast television. They were those, forbidden words that had to be edited out or bleeped out if they were accidentally voiced. And that's why there was that 7 second delay on live television, so that someone could bleep those or cut those words even in a context like that. And then, there's these crude words, and these are words that are slang words or just words that communicate something harsh or something with an edge to it, crude words.
Jeff Iorg:So, when I say profanity on the rest of this podcast, I'm really lumping in all three of those categories. What are usually thought of as profanities, which are simply offensive words, but also taking it beyond that to vulgarities, which are words that really people don't even say on public broadcast, and even crudities or crude words. Words which express things, which are sharp or harsh or really communicate something often in slang that's, really, that's really more of a vulgarity or profanity as well. Now if that's all too fancy for you, then let me take you back to my West Texas roots. I'm talking about cuss words.
Jeff Iorg:I'm talking about just cussing. That's what it was called when I was a kid, and that's what I grew up around, and that's what I'm talking about today. So should ministry leaders
Jeff Iorg:use words like this? I personally think the answer is no. But, again, it's not
Jeff Iorg:a legalistic no. I'm not giving you a checklist of appropriate words. I'm simply saying that I think there are good biblical reasons why we should be careful about the words we use because the words we use really do communicate. Now I mentioned my experience of growing up in Texas where people call these words cuss words. I grew up in the context where profanity was pervasive in my life.
Jeff Iorg:My father, for example, was a master cusser. He had the capacity to string together cuss words in very creative ways. He was a good storyteller, and he had the capacity to embellish his stories with the right kind of word at just the right moment to communicate a really unique, meaning that obviously usually brought some
Jeff Iorg:humor to the situation. And so, I grew
Jeff Iorg:up really, immersed in this kind of culture and this kind of communication, and really, it was a part of my life from the very earliest memories that I have, all the way up through my growing up years. And not just did I experience it in that context, but on the opposite extreme, just in recent years, I've had experiences where I've been immersed in culture where profanity was very common. You know, for 10 years, I was the chaplain for a Major League Baseball team. I was regularly in the clubhouse and around players in unguarded moments when they were being themselves with their teammates, and I will tell you that baseball players are masterful at using cuss words, profanities, vulgarities, crude words. They are masters at doing that in creative ways that, communicate clearly what they're trying to get across and oftentimes with a lot of humor included with it.
Jeff Iorg:It's pretty amazing what they are able to do. In in fact, one day, I was in the clubhouse, and I heard a player use a particular vulgarity 4 times in the same sentence. He used it as a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb, and by changing the inflection and the tone of his voice, he was able to communicate a different meaning about what he meant each time by using that word, and I knew exactly what he was trying to communicate and it was amazing to me that a person could do that with just vocal tone and inflection using the same word over and over again in different ways. So, again, I have grown up in this culture. I have, in recent years, immersed myself in a ministry culture that involved a lot of profanity.
Jeff Iorg:And so today, I'm not speaking and saying that, we must somehow shun this kind of, conversation or avoid being around it in any circumstance or anything like that. But I do think it's important for ministry leaders to ask and answer the question, should they participate in this kind of verbal expression? And again, I've already told you, I think the answer is no, and now I wanna give you some reasons why I think that.
Jeff Iorg:The first reason is this. What you say communicates respect for people around you. What you say communicates respect for people around you. In Ephesians 4 29, the Bible says, no foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. You have a responsibility as
Jeff Iorg:a ministry leader to speak words that build up other people, and even by your words, extend grace to those who need to
Jeff Iorg:hear it. So that people who are around you and hear the words coming out of you feel strengthened, empowered, built up, edified, that people who hear your words receive them as a means or a vehicle of grace. Man, that's a heavy burden, isn't it, that we actually grace people by what we say to them? So the Bible says
Jeff Iorg:our words give grace to those
Jeff Iorg:who hear. What a powerful, powerful possibility exists in our words. So the opposite is also true. You know, I'm amazed
Jeff Iorg:in our culture at how pervasive profanity has become, especially in public places. I, for example, enjoy going to live sporting events. I've often jokingly said if I wanna watch a game, I stay home and watch it on TV. If I wanna experience a game, I go to the ballpark or I go to the stadium. I enjoy the experience of live sporting events and all that goes along with them, but one thing I don't enjoy is the amount of profanity that's used around me when I'm in a public place like that.
Jeff Iorg:It seems almost that the crowd effect even lowers people's inhibitions even more. And when I'm there and my wife, my granddaughters, when they're hearing language like this, man, it doesn't bring grace to my life, and it doesn't build me up, and it certainly doesn't them. In fact, it often seems like it's more demeaning to them than it is edifying or grace building. Now I'm not sure that the people around us who are yelling out these words are recognizing that what they're doing is having a harmful effect on the people around them, but it does. It doesn't communicate respect.
Jeff Iorg:It communicates instead something less. Now I had this emphasized to me when I was a boy. I've already told you that I grew up around a father who, used a lot of profanity and, actually, as I've said, was kind of a master cusser. He used a lot of words in creative ways and, would by inflection and by tone of voice and other things could tell a story and oftentimes a humorous story by using these kind of words. So by the time I was 11, 12 years old, I was starting to feel myself to be a little more, mature than I probably was, but I wanted to prove that I was
Jeff Iorg:a man, that I could talk just like my dad. And so when we were in the garage working on a car one night, something happened and I spouted out a profanity, and he stopped, put his tools down, and turned and looked at me. And he said, I don't care what you say out here in this garage, but I
Jeff Iorg:will never hear that language come out of your mouth in front of your mother. Now, that puzzled me just a bit because I knew that he had used some of that language around my mother, but, nevertheless, what he was saying to me was,
Jeff Iorg:you can talk however you want to out here around me, but when you're around your mother,
Jeff Iorg:I want you to respect her enough to watch your language. Now, that conversation was so pointed in my life and so memorable that I'm telling you about it now, what, these 50 years later.
Jeff Iorg:I remember so clearly that my father, who definitely did not model these things in his life, somewhere deep within him wanted to communicate to me that my words needed to bring respect and edification and even grace to my mother, and he didn't wanna
Jeff Iorg:hear that language coming out of me. So the first reason that we don't use profanity is because we wanna show respect for people and extend grace to them by all of our words. A second reason is because the way we speak is one way that we can stand out in the culture. Now listen, I'm all for, understanding culture and connecting with culture and being involved with people and cultural touch points, but I don't think that extends to the language we use trying to reflect the profanity and vulgarity and coarseness of our culture. Here's what the Bible says about that.
Jeff Iorg:In Philippians 2 14 and 15, it says, do everything without grumbling and arguing, those are verbal expressions, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and per perverted generation, and now get this phrase, among whom you shine like stars in the
Jeff Iorg:world. If you wanna stand out in this generation, if you
Jeff Iorg:want people to see your bright light shining against the blackness of the world we
Jeff Iorg:live in, then watch your words.
Jeff Iorg:No grumbling, no arguing. But beyond that, I think the principle is no words that cause you to be recognized as a part of a crooked and perverted generation. Instead, use words that make you so different that you shine like stars
Jeff Iorg:in the universe. Man, this verse came home to me so clearly a few years ago, back when I
Jeff Iorg:was serving again as the baseball chapel leader. I was, good friends with the general manager of the San Francisco Giants, who was and is a very committed Christian. He and I were standing on the field one day during spring training, just having a casual conversation while we were watching practice. Suddenly, I sensed a man walking up to my side, and I glanced over, and it was the owner of the Giants. And he had his, grandson, about 10 year old boy with him.
Jeff Iorg:Well, I had no relationship with him and realized that he probably wanted to talk to his general manager, and so I just sort of quietly eased over to the side a little bit. And sure enough, the general manager and the owner started a conversation, and I overheard this conversation. It was a relatively innocuous one about some issues going on with
Jeff Iorg:the ball club. And then the general manager's phone rang,
Jeff Iorg:and he excused himself from the owner and said, I I really need to take this, and the owner said, well, of course, and he stepped over to the side to talk on the phone. But I'm still standing close enough to the owner, and he's standing there with this young boy who was his
Jeff Iorg:grandson. And he looked down
Jeff Iorg:at his grandson and he said, I know you like watching the players, but you see that guy I
Jeff Iorg:was just talking to right there? He's the
Jeff Iorg:one you wanna really be like. Well, that perked up my ears, and then he said this to his grandson. No one else around. He didn't know anyone else was listening. I'm just a few feet away.
Jeff Iorg:I overheard him say, son, he treats people differently. In fact, in all the meetings I've been in with him, he has never said a cuss word. He's different, or you should grow up to be like him. And I just stood there thinking about this verse. We shine like stars in the universe, and how this Christian general manager was living in such a way just by the words he used in a culture of profanity, the words he used caused him to be different and caused the owner of the ball club to say to his grandson, that's the guy you wanna be like, and the thing that stands out most most about him, which makes him different, that I notice, is how he speaks to people.
Jeff Iorg:So we stand out from the culture when we don't use profanity. Number 3. Our words reflect our genuine religious conversion. You know, in James chapter 1, it says, very clearly that people who speak a certain way give evidence of their conversion experience. The Bible says in James chapter 1 verse 26, if anyone thinks
Jeff Iorg:he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless, and he deceives himself. Look. When you control what you say and when what you say reflects who you
Jeff Iorg:really are, it validates the conversion that you claim has happened. You you claim to have passed from darkness into light. You claim to have passed from death into life. You claim that the old person has been put away and a new person
Jeff Iorg:has come to be. You claim these things, but the Bible says what you say really reflects the truth of your conversion. Here's another reason. Another reason that we don't use profanity is because when we control what we say, it limits other destructive acts of self control from overcoming us. In the book of James, the Bible says this, chapter 3 starting in verse 2.
Jeff Iorg:For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature, also able to control the whole body. Now, did you get that? You want
Jeff Iorg:to control your whole body? You want to control your sexual appetites? You want to control your hunger appetites? You want to control your whole body? It says, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he
Jeff Iorg:is mature, able also to control the whole body. There is something remarkable about controlling what you say that gives you the capacity to control the rest of who you are.
Jeff Iorg:When you control your words, the Bible says it's a good indication that you're on the path of controlling the rest of your whole body because you started with what is often the most difficult to control, words. And then James goes on to give 3 illustrations. He says, now if we put bits into the mouths of horses, so that they may obey us, we direct their whole bodies. The bit in a horse's mouth is small, but it's how you direct a whole horse. And then next verse, and consider ships.
Jeff Iorg:Though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. Again, a ship being guided by a rudder, small part, controls the direction. And then finally, so too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest.
Jeff Iorg:So there are 3 illustrations here. The first one
Jeff Iorg:is the bit controlling a horse. The second one is the rudder controlling a ship, and the third one is a small flame of fire setting off a forest fire. James is simply saying this, if you want to control your whole body, you want to control your appetites, your desires, your actions, get control of your words. And when a person does not have control of their words, it ought to be an alarm bell ringing for us that they're also a person who's probably struggling significantly
Jeff Iorg:to control other areas of life as well. So we avoid profanity,
Jeff Iorg:and we use wholesome words so that we can practice self control with our words, and by doing so, have control over all the rest of our bodies as well. Well, number 5. When you make the decision to not use profanity, you obey the injunction in the Bible about using foul or unwholesome words. Back to Ephesians 4 29, no foul language should come from your mouth. And that's pretty straightforward.
Jeff Iorg:No foul language should come from your mouth. So in whatever definition of foul your community or your culture has has decided, those words are off limits for you. No foul language. Now I I say that because I recognize some words in some cultures are not particularly profane or not particularly vulgar, but
Jeff Iorg:in other cultures, they are. So this does require some cultural understanding to determine what is a foul language, but it's not that hard in American life to understand what we mean by foul language, vulgarities, profanities, crude language. Stop it. Just give it up. And when you do
Jeff Iorg:that, you're obeying the injunction of the Ephesians 4 29, to leave off foul language. And then the last reason that I found in the bible to not use profanity is because it reveals maturity. It means that you put away childish things. Now the Bible is very clear about using this illustration. It says to us that there are some things that children do that adults just don't do, and one of them is has to do with the words we use.
Jeff Iorg:1st, 1st Corinthians 13:11 says, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. And then in the next chapter 14 verse 20, brothers and sisters, don't be childish in your thinking, but be infants in regard to evil and adult in your thinking.
Jeff Iorg:The words you use reveal something of your maturity. You put away childish things. When I was a little boy, I remember the very first time I set up profanity. I must have been about 6 years old. We had moved into a new neighborhood, and there was a group of guys, boys, that had a little club in our neighborhood.
Jeff Iorg:I don't know, half a dozen boys, and they had a little clubhouse. It was actually kind of a a a a shrub that they had hollowed out, Big shrub, and you could crawl in there, and it was like a a giant tent or a a wigwam or like a big leafy igloo. It was quite the little clubhouse. And, when I moved into the neighborhood, they said, hey. You wanna be a part of our club?
Jeff Iorg:And I said, yeah. Sure, guys. And they said, okay. Well, in order to get in, you have to say a cuss word,
Jeff Iorg:and I said, oh, I I don't I don't say those words. Now I
Jeff Iorg:was 6 years old. I didn't really even know what I was claiming, but I didn't know I knew that I didn't really say those words, And they said, well, you can't be in the club unless you say 1. And I said, well, what's the word I have to say? And they told me. And I knew it was a bad word.
Jeff Iorg:I didn't know what it meant, but I knew my my dad said it sometimes, and I knew from the way he said it that it was not a good word. But I thought about it for a while. I looked in that clubhouse. I saw those guys in there. I thought it's just a word, and so I said my first cuss word, and they let me in the club.
Jeff Iorg:Now, I don't even remember what the word was exactly. I think I do, but I'm not a 100% sure, but I do know I got in the club that day.
Jeff Iorg:I was a child. I did a childish thing. After I
Jeff Iorg:became a Christian a few years later, I started growing in my relationship with God and started being challenged to grow out of childishness and into maturity. I made the decision as a teenager. You know, I just don't think I need to use childish language anymore, So I moved on from profanity as a life pattern or even something that I would allow or tolerate in my way of communicating. It was a childish thing. I did it as a child.
Jeff Iorg:I'm glad to tell you those stories. I did normal said normal things that normal boys say to try to establish themselves in some way in their club or in my family or with my dad, but when I got a little older and more importantly,
Jeff Iorg:when I started maturing in my faith, I decided to put away childish things. Well, today on the podcast,
Jeff Iorg:I hope you haven't heard me yelling, get off my yard. I did that once. That was not a good day. Instead, what I hope today is you've heard me explain why I think it really matters what ministry leaders say, how we say it, and the words we use. I do not think you have to use profanities, or vulgarities, or crude language to fit into the culture or to establish or prove your relevance.
Jeff Iorg:I think you can do that by many other ways that establish relational connections with the people you're trying to reach and with the communication you're trying to deliver in this season of life. I've given you 6 biblical reasons why I think you should make the wise decision to measure your words, so that you can show respect for people and even extend grace to them by your words, so that you will stand out from the culture like a star shining in the night, so that your words will reflect the genuineness of your conversion, moving from darkness to light and from death to life. I want your words to demonstrate your your self control, not just of your words, but of your whole body. Using these words carefully helps you to obey the injunction against foul language and reveals your maturity. It enables you to say I'm no longer a child, and I put away childish things.
Jeff Iorg:The words that come out of our mouths are significant. They're a tool that God uses through us in our ministries to impact the lives of others. Let's make the right kind of impact with our words, as we lead on.