So I drove by a church the other day with a sign which read: "Jesus is also planning a separation of church and state" or something similar. I have no comment on the political implications of the sign, but I had to ask myself, AGAIN - WHY do churches insist on attempting to spread some message (supposedly evangelistic in nature?) through ridiculous billboard sayings? (I feel similar about "Christian" bumper-stickers.) You can scour the internet for a multitude of actual signage (although some is faked), but here's a few anyway:
"Try Jesus - If you don't like him, the devil will take you back"
"Life – your only chance. Eternity – payback time"
"What if we're right?"
"God is not bound to the facts"
Those are examples of some of the bad ones. Now maybe I'm just narrow-minded, but the idea that someone might actually be evangelized and find relationship with Christ through the silly, and sometimes utterly evil, ideas that churches put on signs is ridiculous to me. (I reserve the right to be wrong. If you got saved because God spoke to you through a church sign, I would love to know about it and I wouldn't judge you.) And don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with every sign out there. There are actually a few I've seen that made me laugh, like "God so loved the world, that he did not send a committee." But that's church humor, not an attempt to evangelize the world through your sign. It's the signs that are attempting to move a person to act based on a few theologically unsound, out-of-context, and sometimes judgmental words.
Is the goal of these signs to be clever? Are they trying to convince us of Christ's message through wit? Does somebody really think that this attracts people to churches?
Before I wrote this post, I did some searching around to see what's on the internet regarding church signs. I couldn't believe it (well, I could actually) when I found a site that has the following on the home page:
"[SITE] is a 100% FREE resource that provides an endless abundance of thought-provoking and inspiring Christian messages and is the perfect tool for anyone looking to promote God’s kingdom beyond the walls of the congregation. (My comment: what happened to "GO and make disciples?")
Every church sign saying that you see listed has been submitted by Christians just like you and me, from all corners of the globe, making this resource truly a central area to help spread the word of Jesus Christ."
Are you serious? Spread the word of Jesus Christ? Inspiring Christian messages? I don't know about you, but I have yet to be "inspired" by a single church billboard. In fact, most of what I've seen makes me wary to step foot in the door. This is not bible-believing Christianity, it is not evangelism, and it is not a "Christian message." We have got to stop believing in these silly religious ideas and recognize our own laziness. This is not the gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not clever and witty as if to persuade men to believe on account of any such thing. Truth needs not be hidden behind anything. Paul says, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3)." He also says that the gospel is the power of God to us who are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18), but it is foolishness to them that perish. Dare we, the church, make the actual Gospel of Christ to sound foolish to men by our attempt at cleverness?
"If you think Jesus isn't real, try dying without Him and see what happens." - Church Sign
Frankly, it's absurd to me to think that these sayings have any positive effect on the passers-by who might actually need the salvation of Christ. It makes light of the gospel and makes the church look ignorant concerning the true needs of the world around them. Do not be taken in by the religious fads of our day, thinking that just because a church, or many churches, take part in them, that they're "gospel." We as the church often fail to open up our bibles and do something because God said so. We measure our evangelistic actions by the world's standards rather than measuring them by the Word of our God. We need to wake up and get real.
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