Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Making a call this afternoon took me out into Gwinnett County a ways. For some reason I found myself paying attention to church signs. Now I need to be careful here because the church I serve has a sign as well. You know the kind. A white sign with backlighting and removable black letters to put up a brief message.

Now what I found myself thinking as I passed one after another is. . . . "what are we thinking?" Sometimes churches say the dumbest things on this bit of public space. Sometimes the message attempts to be cute, i.e. "I created you and I can take you out. S/ God"

Other times, I think the message is for some intra-mural conflict: "We read the King James Version here."

Yet other times, it seems that the focus is on conveying some divine wisdom to help the lost or struggling soul: "Faith that fails to resolve doubt, will find doubt that desolve faith." (How's that for a massive failure to understand the nature of faith!)

Being cute, airing dirty laundry, or offering poor theology just doesn't seem to make sense to me. In the few brief seconds a commuter passes by a place of worship is a precious time to communicate something that offers hope, creates a chink in the confidence of worldly pursuits, or presents the integrity of the Christian message seems invaluable.

I wonder what is on our sign at church this week!