Today I was creating a new PowerPoint game for Sunday and needed some difficult words to work with. I came across the book 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know. It was created by the people who bring you the American Heritage Dictionary. The cool part is that they went ahead and gave you the 100 words (on their website). You have to buy the book to find out what they mean. But if you are anything like me, you’ve learned how to define words in Google.

As a high school graduate I was kind of disturbed to realize that I couldn’t get my hands around the whole list. I have a master’s degree and was stumped by a good number of words. I am going to give you the list so you can check it out and see how you do. Be sure to read my closing paragraph at the bottom of the list to see what on earth this has to do with children’s ministry.

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat

These are the 100 words every high school graduate should know. What if we made a list of 100 words every kid should know when they graduate from the children’s ministry? What would that list look like? Let’s start the list. Right now. Go ahead, don’t limit it to one word, think of a few and share it with those who read this blog.