Elucidation

Please consider with me the following terms:

• Prayer service
• Praise service
• Funeral service
• Graduation service
• Preaching service
• Song service
• Revival service
• Devotional service

(and the most common of all …)

• Worship service

Perhaps you could add more to the list. I would ask this: what does the word “service” in each of the above word-pairings suggest/connote? After you answer that question for yourself, perhaps you would, with me, engage in a three-step process:

1. Elucidate.

2. Gravitate.

3. Eliminate.

In #1, I mean to clarify the core meanings, e.g., of the words “worship” and “service.”

In #2, what I hope to suggest is gravitating toward more intentional, more accurate uses of both words.

And in #3, I indulge in fanciful dreaming: that by the end of my lifetime we might eliminate inappropriate uses of such erroneously concatenated terms as “worship service.”

Of course, if your preconceived ideas on the connotation of “service” aren’t anything like my preconceived ideas, then you won’t dream along the same lines at all. 🙂