Church Signs

I have a pet-peeve that can suck the joy out of the most beautiful sunny day. It is offensive church signs. I see church signs as I drive around and they have some of the most outrageous or ambiguous messages. 

Remember what a sign is for? To communicate to people outside the building what is going on inside the building and why they would want to stop what they are doing and come inside. Marketing is about considering your audience and the message needed to reach that audience. For the church, I feel their market audience message is to share a message of hope and love to a world that is lost, hurting, and running away from God.

What angers me about many of the church signs I read is they typically take one of three approaches to their message:

• “We’re all going to Heaven and you’re not." 
• “We don’t really care what you’re going through in your life. We’re right.”
• “Here’s a cutesy message that says absolutely nothing. Have a nice life!”

I won’t waste your time here reading examples of those offensive messages. If you want to see them, do a Google Image search for “church signs” and you will see plenty of examples. What’s sad is that some people are so proud of their bad signs they took a picture.

What if we tried more of a marketing approach on our church signs to communicate to the community, “We are here for you! To help our community. To meet your personal needs. We have a message of hope and love for you in a world that is sucking the life out of you. We just want to love you like Jesus does.”? Better yet, live our lives as Christ’s Church so that the church building doesn’t even need a sign.

I would celebrate church signs that have messages like these:

• We are giving away 1000 backpacks to school kids, on [date]. Tell everyone you know!
• Parenting is tough! Free parenting class on [days] at X pm.
• Need help to make ends meet? We gave out over 2 tons of groceries last year. Let us help you.
• We know life is hard. Need someone to talk to? Call our hotline 800-XXX-XXXX. We’ll even pray with you if you like.
• We care about youth and families! We want to help!
• Struggling with addictions. Check out our free support groups.
• Our youth want to help our community. Call us if you have an idea or person we can help.
• Free meal on [date], for all the community. Come! Be our guest! Let us serve you.
• Stop by our Fair Booth for FREE bottled water and Kid’s Face Painting.
• Free coat giveaway on [date]. We want you to be warm this winter.
• Park in our parking lot anytime! Especially on Sundays.

I am sure there are even better messages you could come up with. In a world that is more anti-Christian than not, as Christ’s ambassadors we should carefully choose our words. Coming across as an arrogant prideful Christian who has all the answers and has it all together doesn’t represent Christ very well. They know when we aren’t for real. It certainly doesn’t match Jesus’ approach to the lost and hurting world he encountered. As his representatives we should choose our words carefully, both what we say and what we print.

Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. Colossians 4:5-6