Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Drive-by evangelism

I usually can't stand most church reader boards I come across. They seem to fall into one of the following categories:

Garden-variety guilt - "Give God what's right -- not what's left. "
Hellfire guilt - "Read the Bible -- It will scare the hell out of you."
Understood by Christians only - "Heavenly Forecast - Reign Forever."
Hellfire Guilt and Understood by Christians only combined! - "Partake of the bread of life, or you'll be toast!!"
Look at me; I'm witty - "The only Ghost here is Holy!"
Guilt and Witticsm combined! - "Suffering from truth decay? Brush up on your Bible."
Fun Scriptures - "Abstain from all appearance of evil. I Thess 5:22"

Tonight I passed by one that was actually worth the electricity required to light the sign.


I'm glad to see at least one church use their reader board as a way of communicating a positive message about God's love.

7 comments:

  1. I wish I can remember the many crazy ones I read in Memphis on the drive to our nightly "rap sessions" at Love in Action. Always made us laugh (or VERY angry)

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  2. Yeah I know. Most of them just make me roll my eyes...

    I just can't believe that churches squander the one opportunity they have to really say something meaningful to people who would never enter the church (such as reminding people of God's love for them) and instead post the usual assinine garbage.

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  3. What a beautiful sign. I do wish there were many, many more like that.

    Why don't these churches understand what anyone else does--that people need to be *enticed* in? It's not my religion anymore, but as a marketeer (sort of), it irks me.

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  4. I get you about the marketing perspective. And many churches are primarily about marketing these days...so it is suprising that they don't seem to get the idea of honey catching more flies than vinegar.

    But beyond the marketing...if Christians really believe they have "good news" to share...why don't they use their reader boards to share it?

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  5. Here's an online collection of some of the best

    Personally I like the one that says, 'Try our Healing Service: You won't get better!"

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  6. CA - that was great - I've read about that guy before but it'd been a long time. Thanks!

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  7. I love to hate those church signs, too, Christine. I was horrified when I arrived at the new church that hired me as pastor and the sign outside had been changed to read: "Don't want to burn? Use SON block!" A church down the road just posted this one: "For 'all' you do, His blood's for you!" Aaaarhhhhh...

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