Horrible Church Signs

I can't not read church signs.  How can I say that and it not be a double negative?  I am compelled to read church signs.  I am drawn to them like a bug to the light. Like the ocean to the shore. Like the earth to the sun. Like the moon to the earth. Like a pig to the mud.  Enough.  Many church signs are clever. Some are actually thought-provoking. Most are mean-spirited.  I guess they are meant to inspire fear and guilt. Some are annoying like the one I've seen on several churches lately "Free trip to Heaven. Come inside for details." If I stopped and went inside, I hope they would at least give me a nice brochure.  I choose to be offended by most church signs, but  for reasons I don't understand, I read them anyway.

A few years ago during August, we experienced a heat wave of 100 degree plus temperatures day and night for several weeks. The heat was oppressive.  People were dying. As I drove by a Baptist church near here, I read on their sign "Hot? Think about hell!" And then recently I drove by a country Baptist church whose sign read, "Stop, drop and roll doesn't work in hell."  These messages are "the good news of Jesus Christ?"

Southern Baptists certainly do not hold a monopoly on horrible messages in front of their churches, but from what I've read over the years they are particularly adept at it.  There is a non-denominational "contemporary church" near where I live that I pass quite often.  Its messages are not exactly positive, but I don't find them to be offensive.  It's just something I must read as I pass by. But I am entirely baffled by the message I read today.  The sign reads "What if we are right." That's it!  "What if we are right." I thought the message might apply to something on the other side.  On my way home I read it and there was no relationship between the two messages that I could see. So now I was back to wondering what the person that posted that sign had in mind.

Did he mean by "What if  we are right",  "What if we are correct?"  Correct about what?  Is the message possibly referring to the previous message on the sign?  Are we motorists supposed to remember every sign?  Just because I read all of them doesn't mean I remember all of them. Is it possibly "What if we are correct" about some theological position that we are supposed to know about their church?  If so, that leaves me out. I have no idea what they believe about anything.

Did he mean, "What if we are politically right?"  Did he mean, "At this church we are Pro life, Pro Trump, Pro guns, Pro military, Pro US flag,  Pro White, Pro second amendment rights, Pro Nascar, Pro conservative values like limited government (unless the government is pushing our agenda and in that case we are Pro bigger government), Pro wall at the south, Pro expelling illegals and limiting immigrants, Pro Muslim ban, Pro defunding Planned Parenthood, Pro reversing Roe V. Wade,   Pro making America great again like it was before women's suffrage, civil rights, social security and Medicare.  In other words, if the liberals and the main stream media are for it, we're against it."  Is that what they meant?

Since I have been witness to many church-wide fights and blow ups over the  years , I couldn't help but entertain another possibility.  What if the pastor is making a point to the members of the congregation who are on the other side of his argument.  What if the church is split down the middle over the color of the new carpet with the pastor on one side of the conflict and he's telling the other side as they drive up for church "What if we are right?"(run-on sentence).  This explanation, based on years of  personal experience, is as plausible as any.

About twenty years ago a local Church of Christ posted a very unusual message on its sign.  The church moved and put the property up for sale leaving the sign in place for over  two  years.  Since I read it every single time I passed it, I memorized every word.  It simply read, "An ounce of probably is worth a pound of perhaps."  I couldn't find it in the Bible or The Farmer's Almanac so I have no idea what it meant.  But that doesn't mean I didn't give it a lot of thought. I'll just leave it with you to decide for yourself. And when you figure it out, please let me know.

Maybe the first church to buy a portable sign for their front yard had good intentions.  Maybe after much discussion and disagreement,  when the "I"s had it, they intended to do something good for the church and for the motorists who passed. If I didn't have enough attention problems, churches now have flashing LED signs. I am now forced to read more than one message at a time. Not all church signs are bad or troubling. One rather delightful sign in front of a United Methodist Church reads, "Don't let worries kill you. Let the church help." Or the Lutheran Church that posted, "God didn't make anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close." And finally the Reformed Church that wrote, "Keep using my name in vain.  I'll make rush hour longer." But somewhere along the way these signs became a medium for the lowest parts of human nature and the worst of the "Christian religion" to publicly express themselves.  To me their message seems to be, "We love you and Jesus loves you, but He delights in sending you to hell." But  no matter how bad these signs get, until Jesus comes again, I'll read every one of them.