I’ve got a lot of ambivalence about church signs and what usually gets put on them. You can find someone who will declare “I came into church and became a Christian because of what someone had on a sign.” and I have no doubt about the sincerity of that profession, but I have a question about its scope. Someone coming into a building responding to a sign was probably about A LOT more than just what was written on the sign, by evidence of the thousands of people who saw the sign and DIDN’T come in. Probably what drove that person is was desperation from other sources that appear a good deal less churchy.

This goes to how we think about the what and the how of evangelism. I’m working on a sermon on this so it is germane.

One of the illustrations in my sermon is the Red Sea crossing in Exodus. Was Pharaoh’s army any less a part of what brought about the deliverance celebrated in the Song of Moses (which then gets referred to in Revelation 15)? All of the parts of the story contribute to the reality of the praise of Israel. The geography, their inability to cross the river, the vulnerability of a mob of former slaves who have just looted the empire, the pillar of fire, God’s miraculous action with the water. It’s all part of the picture, but as human beings our power of perception is limited and so we focus on some aspects elevating them above the others. Most of those aspects we don’t want to put on our signs, but I think knowing that all of these play a part is helpful in understanding how to use our sign.

I guess I think that it is important to tell the truth on the sign (don’t oversell what your little congregation with its imperfect people can actually do for others) and to not raise expectations that the Christian life is the same sort of resolution that the government gave to GM, which is usually the kind of resolutions we’re looking for.