Ray Waddle's Journal

by Ray Waddle

Ionce saw a puzzling church marquee message out on a busy street: “NO NEWSPAPER EVER MISQUOTED SILENCE.” It was a little odd for a church sign — not exactly a quote from Scripture. It felt vaguely reproachful too (I was a reporter for a newspaper at the time).

All in all, it had the enigmatic aura of a Zen statement — until I realized the sign was on Church of Christ property. So I called the minister, identified myself and asked what it means that no newspaper ever misquoted silence. He was in a mischievous mood. He paused and said: “No comment.”

I’m a habitual reader of all church message signs on those curbside marquees. They are there to be pondered as we sit stuck in traffic or dash along at our 21st century pursuits, talking into cell phones at 80 MPH. Even when they are corny or lame, the spiritual marquee messages are never less than interesting. They are full of clues — clues about what’s on the mind of church and society right now, clues about how organized religion shows its public face and tries to grip our attention.

These days such messages are flourishing. In a civilization of buzz and marketing strategies and personal web sites, more and more churches seem eager to stake a claim in the media world with this endearingly low-fi approach. Recent estimates say we are bombarded by 7,000 commercial or branding messages a day (or is it 70,000? — I didn’t quite catch it). Churches — certain kinds of churches, that is – are responding to the noise and clutter of the information age by adding their voice to the jostling marketplace of ideas, the democracy of sound bites. Just this morning, on the main street nearby, I noticed four church signs representing a wide theological spectrum — at one end, the happy embrace of positive thinking with “CELEBRATE YOUR SPIRITUAL MAGNIFICENCE”; at the other, the stern earnestness of “DON’T CONDONE WHAT GOD CONDEMNS”, an apparent reference to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent sodomy ruling. Church messages are a congregational outlet for creativity and public relations. They are a measure of congregation styles too — whether light-hearted, grave, funny, heavyhanded, blunt, coy, folksy, sappy. My candidate for grimmest church sign ever seen was also the shortest, a model of grammatical economy: “TURN OR BURN” said the sign outside a tiny church on a country road.

Others, happily, are kinder, if not gentler: “DUSTY BIBLES LEAD TO DIRTY LIVES,” declared one suburban church sign. “UNDER SAME MANAGEMENT FOR 2,000 YEARS” announced another near a business district. One city church, dipping into urban anxieties, asserted: “GOD DOESN’T NEED LAWYERS — HE NEEDS WITNESSES.”

So the signs abound, but I notice the labor continues to be taken up largely by the traditional practitioners, evangelical Protestant churches. They see the signs as a tool for evangelism. Occasionally, mainline Presbyterians or Methodists or Catholics start their own sign ministry. My study of this overlooked science of church messages has identified no fewer than seven types. A Ph.D. dissertation could likely be written about how the messages reflect different philosophies of congregational leadership, worship experience, theological stance and sense of humor.

Here are some recent examples. Category 1, the most popular, is the Neighborhood Wit, who has a weakness for puns.

NO JESUS, NO PEACE.
KNOW JESUS, KNOW PEACE

YOUR SEAT IN ETERNITY: WILL IT BE SMOKING OR
NON-SMOKING?

DON’T GIVE UP ... MOSES WAS ONCE A BASKET CASE

THE BEST VITAMIN FOR A
CHRISTIAN IS B-1

CAN’T SLEEP? TRY COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS

TO BELITTLE IS TO BE LITTLE

Category 2 plays off current events. Perhaps the minister is a news junkie.

SATAN IS THE ETERNAL TERRORIST.
DON’T BECOME ONE OF HIS VICTIMS

Category 3 is the Short Essay. These churches are unimpressed by the virtue of brevity.

LIFE HOLDS NOTHING WITHIN IT
WHICH CHRIST HAS NOT
CONQUERED

THE COURAGE TO SPEAK MUST
BE MATCHED BY THE WISDOM TO LISTEN

Category 4 is instilled with the can-do American spirit.

COURAGE IS FEAR THAT’S SAID ITS PRAYERS

DON’T LIVE DOWN TO THE AVERAGE — RISE ABOVE IT

PRAY FOR A GOOD HARVEST,
BUT CONTINUE TO HOE

Category 5 might go by the name of “Yeah, but is it in the Bible?”

DON’T LET THE OUTSIDE WORLD SEE YOUR INNER
TEARS

GOD HAS AN 800 NUMBER

— PRAYER —
IT’S ALWAYS OPEN

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? LOOK AGAIN

Category 6, the choice of the brainiacs, likes to get more philosophical.

COINCIDENCE IS GOD’S WAY
OF STAYING ANONYMOUS

A MIRACLE IS SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY
WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED

WORRY IS INTEREST PAID ON TROUBLE
BEFORE IT IS DUE

Category 7 is the Strict Bible-Quoter. These straight-laced churches never dare to deviate from a Scripture passage:

HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER — EPHESIANS 6:2

(There’s an eighth category emerging any minute now: The growing pluralism of the religion scene means that Muslims and Hindus and others are getting into the spirit, putting up their own signs.)

Even with all the message mania, a statistical majority of churches still abstain. Probably they think the idea is frivolous, gimmicky, a bit undignified. They might reconsider. Given the bland and raunchy torrent of mass media these days, a brief encounter with a little religious wit or poetry might be the most memorable moment of the day. Here’s one to start with, right out of Ecclesiastes — “for God is in heaven, you are on earth; therefore let your words be few” — pretty good advice for life or, indeed, for an outdoor church message.