Meandering around Facebook, I ran into the group dedicated to “Theology Students United Against Feelings and Shepherding” — a group with whom I sympathize whole-heartedly. I was especially impressed with their discussion thread about the “word or phrase most over-used at Div School.” First response: “faith journey,” yes!
my vote would go for “community”.
I noted with approval the presence of “missional” on their list. Valuable as the notion of “mission” and “missio dei” no doubt are, you can’t have a wienie roast these days without it being missional somehow or other; the term is losing its usefulness from its overuse by unimaginative ecclesiastical sloganeers.
But “faith journey” is my number one overused term by a long, long measure.
When I was at Duke Divinity School (M.Div.), I don’t remember much talk about feelings at all. CPE (not at Duke) was another story.