So I felt a little guilty yesterday for not going to church on the HOLIEST DAY OF THE YEAR…but I had a thousand excuses. My back hurt, boy had rehearsal early in the morning…I wasn’t sure of the time, since we’d be going to a new church in a new neighborhood, Chris Fowler was on ESPN…blah blah blah…
and then I’d convinced myself that a) I was horrid person not worthy to call myself a follower of Jesus Christ, b) I was assured seats next to the band in hell and c) the rain that poured down icy and cold on my neck was the tears of our risen savior weeping that I’d lost my way.
And then I drove past the Congregational Church by my grandmother’s house in the suburbs and I read their Easter Marquee:
No…I just wanted to say, in a round about way…how stupid these Marquees outside of churches are getting. If I see one more of them that says “You think it’s hot HERE!” in August, I’m going to flip my lid.
I agree. Those little Marquee’s are annoying and I don’t think they really help attract people to church. With every passing day the church becomes more and more commercial.
You’re right Medea. Actually, a nice one I saw yesterday said “Rain or shine, the son rises” and it was nice since it was such an ugly Easter…
but really. My friend’s favorite marquee was down in Alabama…there were two churches next to each other and one said “Welcome Matthew Connor…the pitter patter of little feet” or some such thing…and the next church said,
The ones I dig are not in church marquees but in billboards al around my town. Plain black billboards with plain white Times New Roman type, purportedly signed by El Queso Grande himself, which go something like:
“Keep taking my name in vain and I may just make the traffic jam longer” – God
“I don’t doubt your existence”-- God
“This Sunday before hitting the Mall how about you stop a bit at my place?” – God
The first one I thought a bit cute, but the second one is just plain aggravating. Hey, I see and hear myself every morning and the Bureau of Revenue tells me my existence requires the payment of abour $3,000 for the past year.
Have you seen the new PETA billboard? The one with the painting of the Madonna breastfeeding wee baby Jesus on it? The caption reads something like “If it was good enough for him…” and is meant to encourage nursing/discourage the exploitation of cattle for milk I guess.
There’s one “billboard from God” on I-20 heading west from Shreveport, Louisiana that has a gigantic anti-abortion message in red, white, blue and a close-up of a baby’s giant head, and it’s signed God. You just don’t see those kinds of things in Yankeeland, and I’m still not used to 'em - although we did get the white-on-black “Sunday, let’s meet at my place before the game” and “Don’t make me come down there” billboards in New York. The anti-abortion one annoys me, though. It’s something about the wording. I’ll try to remember what, exactly, it says…
None of the churches in my hometown get witty on their marquees; they’re mostly just there to advertise the name of the pastor, the times of the service and the nursery hours (which usually start before the service on Sundays), and to announce any special happenings. The closest any of them try to come to “witty” is the “You think it’s hot here?” annoyance in the summer. (“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I’ve been to Texas in August. It’s not that hot here in upstate New York.”)
However, ::wicked grin:: ::fully aware of the irony::, my mother is the secretary for a church up home. The church has a number of little two-foot-tall cardboard-and-tin signs given out by the head of the United Methodist regional meeting, that advertise the church’s location. I may suggest that she use them to make Burma-Shave type ads, thanks to Why A Duck…
“Do you want to spend eternity in the smoking or the non-smoking section?” :rolleyes:
Seriously, jarbaby, I suspect the Committee to Increase Church Attendance will string me up in effigy, but I’ve always felt that the main reason for going to church is that you want to, to be present as a community of like-minded people who love God as you do join in worshipping Him and learning about Him and what He expects in the complex world of today. The idiots who try to scare you there or put you through a guilt trip have only themselves to blame if their goofball tactics backfire on them.
Just out of curiosity, are Christians the only ones with such billboards? Has anyone seens a:
"Look, I said, Don’t Fuck with the Jews!’
–Yahweh
or a
“No, really, I’m not a terrorist. I LIKE America.”
–Allah
Why is it Christians are the only ones that do such stupid things? Hey, i understand the concept of evangelization: how’s a religion going to spread if you don’t get the word out there? But resorting to this type of action is just ridiculous. A friend of mine recently took a trip to visit a grad school, and on the way back was talking about how as they flew over a Baptist church, he noticed the church had painted the curch’s name on the top, and also happened to add a “.COM” to it. Churches advertising on the internet…what’s the world coming to?
My favorite is a billboard that used to be around here that said, “Do you believe in God but don’t know what to do about it? Try Islam!”
First, I just love the mental image of someone saying, “I feel that there is some kind of power greater than ourselves that created the universe, but I just can’t find anyone that agrees with me! Whatever will I do? [Sees billboard and gasps] My problem has been solved! Thank you, billboard!” I’m sure that’s not what they meant, but that’s still what it always made me think of.
There’s also that the people who created the billboard don’t get that they’re basically reducing something they must care a great deal about to a consumer product. “Are your whites not white enough and you don’t know what to do? Try Clorox!”
Umm…
If my whites are not white enough for me, then they are no longer white. So shouldn’t it say, “Are your whites no longer white and you don’t know what to do? Try Clorox!”
However if you make that little modification… they brain gets thinking… It’d be funnier (to me) in a highly tasteless way (screw you hippies, my humor doesn’t have to be in good taste [see exploding easter bunnies]) to see.
“Are your whites no longer white and you don’t know what to do? Try the Aryian Nation!”
My church posts boring stuff like event announcements. Leave it to the Lutherans to not tell other people what to do. OTOH, I’ve been going through one of my Jesuit periods lately (see: anything I posted over the weekend) so I have no problem telling people what to do. I think they should be happy I’m not pushing to have them burnt at the stake!
Well that certainly is reassuring! Especially considering that my name is Matthew Connor![sup][/sup]
[sup][/sup]If in the now-unlikely event that I go to hell, I’m going to have some serious words with Satan. “But jarbabyj saw this one sign down in Alabama…”
