Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
In recent years, I have seen a direct rise in church "message signs" as opposed to signs just displaying the name of the church, the pastor's name and the time it meets. I guess this is useful if you want to announce special programs or more personal messages such as "Welcome home, Pastor" or "Congratulations Graduates" but more often times than not, these signs just come across as sounding silly, stupid or downright confusing.
The following are signs I have actually seen driving to and from home to pick my daughter up from school. The most recent one, since today is Halloween, said:
"Trick or Treat!
This is no trick,
God's forgiveness is a Treat!"
I don't even know what to think about this one. Forgiveness is a Treat? Like the flimsy diamond ring you used to get from the dentist if you were good and didn't wiggle around? Like your mom would give you ice cream if you ate all the broccoli on your plate? Somehow I just can't imagine God saying, "You know, I sent my son to die for you, now isn't that a nice treat?"
This next one is just plain confusing. I drove by it several times before I finally realized what the real message was.
"The less you have, the more you
realize how much you can get
from Him Pastor David Gibbs
Youth Pastor Henry Murdock
Morning Services Sunday 11-12"
For the next few days, I actually thought this church was promoting greediness until I finally saw the "from Him" way down on the next line scrunched along with the name of the pastor. The way they had the letters arranged, you would have never known that one line went with another.
This next one is from this same church and I happened to notice it a few years ago and I'm still dumbfounded by it.
"Jesus is better than the Super Bowl"
I understand what this church was trying to say. They were saying that instead of staying home on Sunday night to watch the football game, you should come to church for the evening service instead. I just have to wonder what possessed them to put it this way? Saying Jesus is better than the Super Bowl is like comparing two things that have absolutely no relationship to one another. It's like saying, "My kidney is better than a moon rock" or "World Peace is better than a Happy Meal at Mcdonald's". There are just some things in this world that should not be compared.
Here's one that looked ok the first time I saw it. In fact, it was on our very own church sign.
"We Support Our Veterans On Veteran's Day"
However, the more I drove by it, the worse it started sounding. It became more like "WE support our veterans," (stressing the WE) as in "unlike you other people who don't". Or, "We Support Our Veterans, unlike the rest of you heathen, flag-burning reprobates who don't." Finally, it sounded like: "WE Support our veterans on Veteran's Day because since it is Veteran's Day, we feel it is only fitting that we should support them. We don't really worry about supporting them at any other time." Moral of this story is, never put anything on your church sign that makes out like you think you're better than the community around you. Especially when your church sign sits on a little hill.
Here is another tip for church sign messaging. Don't try to fit all the names of your high school graduates, mission trip kids, people who helped redo the roof or any other group of people on the sign if the total number of letters exceeds the sign's capacity. It looks ridiculous. For example:
"Congratulations DebbieChrisAshleyJudy
JoeAudreyBaileyJustinGregJonandBob"
I won't mention who's church sign this appeared on but Ijustthinkthatitwouldbeagoodideaifweinvestedinalargersignifweexpecttoputallthosenamesonitatonce.
My final entry is a set of signs I pass almost everyday during the holiday season since they are in front of a Charismatic Catholic Church down the road from my house (I'm not even going into what that church must be all about). I should correct that to say I see the signs during the holiday season and then for the following six months since it usually takes them that long to take them down and store them until the next Christmas. I suspect the only reason they finally do take them down is because they have to mow the grass.
The signs are individually painted plywood letters with lights and sparkly garland outlining them. They stagger them along the road front and it ends up looking something like this:
"C O M E
L O R D
J E S U S
C O M E"
I feel I must tackle the message of this sign first because I'm not really sure what this church is trying to tell the general public. I'm just surprised that during the very holiday that we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus's birth, they put up a sign that says, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come". If Christmas is Jesus's birthday, he already came, didn't he? Did they somehow miss that fact? The phrase does sound vaguely familiar as if it might come from a hymn or something but I cannot place it.
The other problem with this sign is the tendency for the lights to stop working on one letter or another and it's usually a few days before anyone comes out to fix it. We have seen all kinds of variations of this over the years such as: "Come, Lor Jesus, Come" and "ome, Lord Jesus, Come" but my favorite so far as been:
"COME, LORD JESUS, COM"
I would have thought he would have gotten a .org at least.
The following are signs I have actually seen driving to and from home to pick my daughter up from school. The most recent one, since today is Halloween, said:
"Trick or Treat!
This is no trick,
God's forgiveness is a Treat!"
I don't even know what to think about this one. Forgiveness is a Treat? Like the flimsy diamond ring you used to get from the dentist if you were good and didn't wiggle around? Like your mom would give you ice cream if you ate all the broccoli on your plate? Somehow I just can't imagine God saying, "You know, I sent my son to die for you, now isn't that a nice treat?"
This next one is just plain confusing. I drove by it several times before I finally realized what the real message was.
"The less you have, the more you
realize how much you can get
from Him Pastor David Gibbs
Youth Pastor Henry Murdock
Morning Services Sunday 11-12"
For the next few days, I actually thought this church was promoting greediness until I finally saw the "from Him" way down on the next line scrunched along with the name of the pastor. The way they had the letters arranged, you would have never known that one line went with another.
This next one is from this same church and I happened to notice it a few years ago and I'm still dumbfounded by it.
"Jesus is better than the Super Bowl"
I understand what this church was trying to say. They were saying that instead of staying home on Sunday night to watch the football game, you should come to church for the evening service instead. I just have to wonder what possessed them to put it this way? Saying Jesus is better than the Super Bowl is like comparing two things that have absolutely no relationship to one another. It's like saying, "My kidney is better than a moon rock" or "World Peace is better than a Happy Meal at Mcdonald's". There are just some things in this world that should not be compared.
Here's one that looked ok the first time I saw it. In fact, it was on our very own church sign.
"We Support Our Veterans On Veteran's Day"
However, the more I drove by it, the worse it started sounding. It became more like "WE support our veterans," (stressing the WE) as in "unlike you other people who don't". Or, "We Support Our Veterans, unlike the rest of you heathen, flag-burning reprobates who don't." Finally, it sounded like: "WE Support our veterans on Veteran's Day because since it is Veteran's Day, we feel it is only fitting that we should support them. We don't really worry about supporting them at any other time." Moral of this story is, never put anything on your church sign that makes out like you think you're better than the community around you. Especially when your church sign sits on a little hill.
Here is another tip for church sign messaging. Don't try to fit all the names of your high school graduates, mission trip kids, people who helped redo the roof or any other group of people on the sign if the total number of letters exceeds the sign's capacity. It looks ridiculous. For example:
"Congratulations DebbieChrisAshleyJudy
JoeAudreyBaileyJustinGregJonandBob"
I won't mention who's church sign this appeared on but Ijustthinkthatitwouldbeagoodideaifweinvestedinalargersignifweexpecttoputallthosenamesonitatonce.
My final entry is a set of signs I pass almost everyday during the holiday season since they are in front of a Charismatic Catholic Church down the road from my house (I'm not even going into what that church must be all about). I should correct that to say I see the signs during the holiday season and then for the following six months since it usually takes them that long to take them down and store them until the next Christmas. I suspect the only reason they finally do take them down is because they have to mow the grass.
The signs are individually painted plywood letters with lights and sparkly garland outlining them. They stagger them along the road front and it ends up looking something like this:
"C O M E
L O R D
J E S U S
C O M E"
I feel I must tackle the message of this sign first because I'm not really sure what this church is trying to tell the general public. I'm just surprised that during the very holiday that we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus's birth, they put up a sign that says, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come". If Christmas is Jesus's birthday, he already came, didn't he? Did they somehow miss that fact? The phrase does sound vaguely familiar as if it might come from a hymn or something but I cannot place it.
The other problem with this sign is the tendency for the lights to stop working on one letter or another and it's usually a few days before anyone comes out to fix it. We have seen all kinds of variations of this over the years such as: "Come, Lor Jesus, Come" and "ome, Lord Jesus, Come" but my favorite so far as been:
"COME, LORD JESUS, COM"
I would have thought he would have gotten a .org at least.