“7 Days Without Prayer Makes One Weak!”

Oh yeah – you know them and you LOVE THEM – Church Signs – whether they be the brick kind the size of the Great Wall of China  or those new “FLASHY” digital ones – for some reason church folk can’t resist putting up those (oh I’ll be nice) less-than-desirable – pithy sayings to draw one’s attention.

Now to be honest the one I made reference to in the title “7 Days without Prayer Makes One WEAK” – is actually one I sort of enjoy – I’ve seen it in a number of places.  It always makes me smile a little.  Yes it is cheezy and is a back door cut at reminding you to pray each day, but at least there is a nugget of truth in it.

The ones I’m more talking about are the ABSOLUTELY ASININE ones that seem to flow freely.  And don’t even get me started on the ones misspelled (and I’m not talking ones of alternate spellings or intentionally making a play on words as the above indicated difference between WEEK & WEAK) – if you can’t stop for five minutes and “google” it or look up in a dictionary then you should have your rights for posting the sign ETERNALLY REVOKED!

 Although from the looks of this one – I guess these people won’t be turning to “GOOGLE” to do any spell checking!

Now I’m not planning to turn this in to something major – as I’ve found there are other sites out there (this one I really liked, Crummy Church Signs) – so no need to turn my blog into something people are already doing.  But I figured I’d share a couple I’ve seen recently that sort of made me shake my head in frustration.

Unfortunately most the time I see them “on the fly” while traveling and did not get a chance to take a pic for proof – but in the future I’ll do my best to try and cover that ground.

So here goes:

One church sign in our area had this plastered on it – The top line said “WELCOME” which I think is a general message that they leave up, but then below it said  “There are No Fire Extinguishers in Hell” – Ladies and Gentlemen, rest assured NOTHING says WELCOME like telling people that there are no fire extinguishers in Hell.  I bet they had to pack out the little side Sunday School room (come on we all know that they have one) for that day’s sermon – the people came from all around to hear that message!

Then the other day I was driving and saw one that said something to the effect: “How to get to Heaven – TURN RIGHT and STAY STRAIGHT”  (my caps for emphasis) – you know what’s funny, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the only way to Heaven was to A) Live a completely perfect life, of which none of us have ever been able to do or B) Accept Jesus (the only one who DID live a perfect life) as their Lord & Savior  – am I wrong?????

Now if push came to shove I’m sure that is what this church would say they believe, BUT their sign makes it look like once you REPENT (turn around – turn from your old wicked life – which is the “turn right” part of their sign – and let me add I do believe repentance is part of the process) then all you have to do is just STAY STRAIGHT (live right) – and I would be willing to bet a million dollars (although I’m sure gambling is on their list of things that are not considered “living right”) – that they have quite the list of characteristics of what “STAY STRAIGHT” would look like.  Probably #1 would be “No Running in the House of the Lord”

So once again I stop and wonder – WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY THINKING?  My hope is that someone AT LEAST meant well, but I guess some people just won’t ever figure out that this type of stuff doesn’t work.  Now am I saying I’m against all church signs & they serve no purpose – NOT BY A LONG SHOT, but come on people NO ONE IS LOOKING TO THESE AS A DYNAMIC WITNESSING TOOL!  Most of the time they do WAY MORE damage than good.

So you got any great sign sayings you’d like to share or have an comments on my thoughts – please let me know!