We’ve all seen church marquee messages citing some bilicial or uplifting quote. I like these for the most part because, well, they are harmless and no one else is doing it.
However, the heckler that is inside of me, cannot resist adding a tag line on to them once in a great while and I really want to take a peice of cardboard and marker and put it under the “deeper message” with a wise crack.
Here is one that I recently cracked myself up with. My response is in italics.
“Jesus came to Earth to bring us Joy” *and she’s bringing the beer. *
Shirley, we are shocked and dismayed at your reprehensible behavior. You may not say such things. You may not even think such things. Put your head in a drawer (hopefully one with a Gideon Bible in it) until you have experienced true repentance.
OTOH, I’ve always wondered who comes up with those sayings. My daughter and I speculate that there is someone whose job at church is to write those each week. I suppose nowadays nobody writes them – they just find them on the internet.
There’s a readerboard at a church near my house that has half the message on the eastbound side and the other half on the westbound side, so you don’t get to read the rest of the message until you return. And if you read the wrong side first who knows what could happen!
I thought of a clever new sig line last night, but I forgot it when I woke up this morning.
Hee hee…nice to know I’m not the only one. There’s a church in town called the “Gospel Satellite Church” (I swear I’m not making this up!). Since their marquees occasionally got rather hate-filled (mainly anti-gay stuff), my friends and me used to “edit” the marquee once in a while.
My favorite was “Jesus saves” (we added “Green Stamps” to the end of it).
PR
If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.
Ahhhh…There will be a special, extra-hot room in hell for us “church marquee sign modifiers”.
I don’t even remember what the original marquee said (I was only 13 or 14 at the time)–Something loquacious like “Come join us Sunday Morning at 9:00 for a worship service that will uplift and blah blah blah…”
After a few letter removals and switches, it read
Come join us for Beer and Weed Sunday Morning at 9:00
Of course I did this at 3:30am Sat. night/Sun. Morning.
:::::Gets the marshmallows ready for hell’s flames::::
I tried to do this with an illuminated multiple-lightbulb marquee at the local Four-Square Church. As I drove up to the traffic light, it was scrolling by happily like the front of a Las Vegas casino announcing Art Linkletter’s 500th performance, and it was saying something like, “The Bible … tells us of … AMAZING … events!.. Jesus does … incredible…”
At this point I said out loud the word “stuff” to complete the phrase, and ostensibly to mock the sign. I was tickled pink when the sign continued:
“… stuff … EVERY DAY!”
Suffice it to say that it is hard to mock this sign, since it will probably come up with something just as goofy as you can, generally delivered in a goofy way, like “dropping” the words down from above, with a little bounce.
I am currently working on a film short about this very thing!! The church signs here in the “Bible Belt” are just hilarious. I am in the process of shooting as many as possible and then I am going to edit them together in a montage set to music. (Can’t give out too many details…spies and all.) It is going to appear as a trailer on a documentary a friend of mine just finished about the importance of church life in Appalachia.
Born O.K. the first time…
If you are born again, do you have two belly-buttons?
There’s a “No Parking” sign in front of one church in Old Town Alexandria, VA, that says (paraphrased) “NO PARKING ON SUNDAYS 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM VIOLATORS WILL BE BAPTIZED”
I am resurrecting this because of this and just how funny it is. A guy at Fark asked people to anagram a store sign and this is the result of some suggestions. (scroll about 1/4 the way down.)
And then there is this link that nearly made me pee my pants.
LOL! That’s a new one. When people are annoying I’ll tell them to put their head in a drawer. (As penance goes, it’s less creepy than ironing hands a la Dobby the elf)
A few weeks ago I saw this, at a small church down the road from my house:
Apparently the possibility of a dual meaning had not occurred to them. I was so tickled by this that I took a picture of it and posted it elsewhere on the web.
There’s a radiator shop here in town with a long, rambling, poorly-spaced marquee that reads, as far as I can remember,
HELLIS FOREVER !!!
JESUS WANTS TOSAVE YOU
REPENT ANDBECON VERTED
BELIEVE ON THE LORD
JESUS CHRIST !!
and on the other side:
HE DIED FOR YOU !!!
HEL OVES YOU
JESUS CHRIST GOD'S SON
KNOW HIM-- LOVE HIM
PR ISE HIS NAME
Wait a minute! Did Shirley see mouthbreather’s handiwork?
For you non-churchgoers, many congregations cater to the younger generation by having 2 services, one with traditional hymns and such, and one with more modern music and themes.
I saw a sign once advertising worship services that said:
8 AM: TRADITIONAL WORSHIP SERVICE
10 AM: JOYFUL WORSHIP SERVICE
You stole my quip, Prairie Rose!
I once saw on a church sign in Santa Monica:
THE GREATEST OF ALL FAULTS IS TO IMAGINE YOU HAVE NONE
According to Will Eisner, a minister posted this sign at the height of the streaking fad:
STREAKER
REPANT
YOUR END IS IN SIGHT
Shortly after my dad died one of the churches near where I work had a Father’s Day message “Bring Dad to Church this Sunday!” I was soooooooooooooooooooooooo tempted to take the urn and ask them where they wanted Dad to sit.
