De Los Dientes Para Afuera (What?!)

I love Costa Rican “dichos” - idioms or sayings that get thrown into almost every conversation.

Some of my favorites I’ve learned in the last four years are:

Es tan difícil como hacerle un nudo a un banano.

(It’s as hard as making a knot in a banana.)

Es tan difícil como sacarle un pedo a un muñeco.

(It’s as hard as getting a doll to fart.) And yes, I’m still… childlike. 😇

Van con doble tracción hoy.

(They’re going with four-wheel drive today, aka they are wearing glasses.)

Caer de paracaídas O Ir de paracaidista

(Parachute in or go as a parachutist, as in show up unannounced or uninvited, to crash a party… and yes, I’m referring to you, Nelson! When he lived nearby, he’d text me from our front steps asking if he could stop by. At least he asked! And he was always welcome.)

And one I just learned during the Sunday sermon: De los dientes para afuera, or “from the teeth out” - meaning “You’re just saying it, you don’t mean it, you don’t intend to follow through, you’re just saying that, you’re just being nice.” Or, to use a common English saying, you’re just “giving lip service.”

Lip service. From the teeth out. Just words, no action.

We’re all looking for ways to keep calling our worship and tech teams to serve the LORD with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not just lip service. Not without follow-through.

We’ve plastered scriptures on our rehearsal spaces, green rooms, and PCO reminder emails. As we must!

And like the Passion Translation or the Message add color to standard English translations of the Bible, idioms and sayings can do the same to our values.

So, you now have homework. It’s this: come up with a phrase (or adapt an existing one) to give more punch to your team’s commitment to be “all in.”

I’ll start with some attempts:

• Our worship service is more than lip service.

• We fight tooth and nail to give our all.

• We don’t have to sweat bullets during the service because we’ve gone for broke at rehearsal after we burned the midnight oil in our preparation at home.

• We don’t give it the old college try; we swing for the fences every time.

• We work our fingers to the bone at home, so rehearsal is a piece of cake.

• We eat our humble pie by practicing at home, making rehearsal easy as pie, and our gathered worship like pie in the sky!

You get the point. So, I’d love to see what you come up with to inspire your worship team!

-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)

De Los Dientes Para Afuera (What?!) (Nº 388)