Yes, that caption was written on a church sign that I recently drove past. It caused me to reflect on both the people reading the sign and the sign's authors.
As some of you know from my Facebook site, the sign creeped me out a little. Maybe it was the use of printing in all caps, maybe it was the exclamation point at the end, but there is little room for such a posting to be regarded as a positive thing. I can't think of very many situations where yelling, "GOD IS WATCHING YOU!" would come as any comfort at all. It is almost exclusively the wrong thing to say in nearly every situation.
Yet, I know a thing or two about the congregation who posted it. I don't believe they meant any harm by it at all. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that they meant it as something quite positive. Perhaps they knew you'd read it as you barreled down the road at 50 mph, "take comfort friends God is watching over you." This is reassuring, pleasant, and calming.
To the insiders the sign is comforting; to the outsiders the sign is frightening.
This is a church planting blog and here's the connection. Every church, whether old or young, needs the critical eye of the outsider to keep our message on track. Without that precious point-of-view our message of a good news at best gets misunderstood and at worst rejected without ever being faithfully represented.
It's time to gather some more voices.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm glad to hear that others are a little creeped out by those types of signs as well. They remind me of the fire and brimstone theology you sometimes hear preached on a university campus or the street corner of a big city. It seems like a pretty ineffective way to spread the gospel to non-believers and an almost equally ineffective way to get current believers to reflect on their own lives. The method itself is an important part of the message.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, what do you mean at the end by "It's time to gather some more voices"?
"Tim," thanks for the comment. I was refering how when you get a whole bunch of people together who've been churched for as many generations as they can remember, it's hard to hear what they sound like to the unchurched. I think that it is time we gather the voices of the unchurched into our conversations.
ReplyDelete