vacuous church signs of the week

The award goes to two churches I drove by this past weekend.

1) The Clifton (Texas) Church of Christ, whose sign displayed the following quote when I drove past it on Friday: “If you pause to think, you’ll have cause to thank.”

It’s hardly original (a Google search for that term brings 203 results) and has been featured on any number of church signs before, I’m sure. In fact, on this page there’s a picture of a church sign bearing that quote, and at the bottom of the page the writer has added these words: “This sign reminds us to be thankful. But it also implores us to be contemplative about our position and blessings. It’s a reminder to be thankful, but it’s also a reminder of why we should be thankful.”

I don’t know what sign the writer was reading when he or she wrote that, but it surely doesn’t describe the quote “If you pause to think, you’ll have cause to thank”, at least not as it is written. To get any meaning of that kind out of it you’d have to read into it some deeper intended meaning, because the phrase itself says very little. Not only is it not a reminder of why we should be thankful, it says nothing about what we should be thankful for or (more importantly) who we should be thankful towards. Perhaps the fact that it was on a church’s sign will be enough for some to read a deeper intended meaning into it, but what would one think of such a statement if they saw it written on, say, a bathroom wall, or scribbled on a piece of scratch paper? Removed from a church’s sign and written anywhere else, the sentence would appear as empty as it really is, because it sounds quasi-profound but says nothing. A good quote from, say, Corinthians or Romans about the sovereignty and grace of God should have a quite different effect anywhere it is written.

I’m constantly amazed by how many churches there are which, when choosing quotes or statements to put up on their signs for public view, just can’t bring themselves to use actual scripture verses, and instead opt for vacuous “feel-good” statements that essentially any semi-spiritual person could agree with. A good choice for this time of year might have been Matthew 1:21, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (NKJV) Now that’s a verse that reminds us of who we should be thankful towards and why. Churches (and the unsaved public who might happen to read their signs as they drive by) will be much better served if their signs are used to actually proclaim the Gospel, by posting actual scripture and losing the puns, oh-so-clever rhyming schemes, and feel-good psychobabble.

2. Victorious Life Church in Robinson, Texas (just southeast of Waco off of I-35), which displays an ostentatious banner that advertises “30 minute worship!” In fact, you can even reach the church’s website by visiting 30minuteworship.com.

Lest you be lead to think that the 30 minutes refers to their praise and worship time and not the entire service, the site provides a breakdown of the 30 minutes: Worship (10 minutes), Word (12-15 minutes), and Response (5 minutes). They use terms like “innovative” and “cutting edge” to describe their worship, as if a congregation simply singing praise to God is old hat and must be infused with innovation and the newest, hottest, and rockin’-est worship tunes out there today in order to be relevant.

I also worry about any church that provides child care for children from ages “birth-12″. These days especially, those early years are too precious to be wasted by sending your kids to “trained personnel in our children’s areas who provide a safe Christian learning environment”, when an actual church service should be the very definition of a “Christian learning environment”. What kind of kids will be turned out of a church like this, one which allows kids up to age 12 (the age most kids will be when they begin junior high) to spend their Sunday mornings not hearing God’s word preached but around other kids in a “safe Christian learning environment”? 12 years is far too long for someone to attend a church without the benefit of hearing sound preaching, much less kids spending their first 12 years of life without sitting with their parents in a corporate worship setting.

Just my two cents.

I am repetitive with great repetition

During yesterday’s morning service at church the passage that was read in preparation for the sermon was Zechariah 8. It has a bit of repetition that almost made me laugh when it was read. Zechariah 8:2 reads, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I am zealous for Zion with great zeal; with great fervor I am zealous for her.’” (NKJV)

 

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “zealous” as: “Filled with or motivated by zeal; fervent.” So, essentially that verse says “I am zealous for Zion with great zeal; with great fervor I am fervent for her.” By that logic, you also could have just replaced “zealous” and “zeal” with “fervent” and “fervor”, and vice versa.

Perhaps the English translation doesn’t adequately convey what was meant with the seeming repetetiveness of the verse, but I was still amused by the part about being zealous with great zeal, which I imagine is kind of like being “swift with great speed”, or saying that one “works vigorously with great vigor”.

 

Neither of those would have described me this morning. I sneezed several times this morning when I was getting ready for the day, so I took a Benadryl before I left to drive to work. It was a very strong Benadryl apparently because I’d been at work less than a half hour before I began feeling very tired and weak, as if I could keel over at any minute. I haven’t sneezed once at work though (actually, I did about a minute after typing this sentence), and the effects of the Benadryl have gradually worn off so I feel quite a lot better and more awake now.

 

 

Note: I later looked up how that verse is phrased in a few other translations, and some of them substitute “jealous” in place of “zealous” and some use “wrath” instead of “zeal”. The New American Standard Bible puts it: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.’” Most of the popular translations put it in ways similar to that. The paraphrased versions, however, make Zechariah 8:2 sound flippant and, at best, oversimplified, as they do to countless verses. Here is that verse in the Contemporary English Version: “I love Zion so much that her enemies make me angry.” 

 

The Message’s paraphrasing of it is reason #926 why that book is little more than useless: “A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘I am zealous for Zion—I care! I’m angry about Zion—I’m involved!’” You’re kidding me, “God-of-the-Angel-Armies”??? What part of “the Lord of hosts” (NASB, NKJV) or “the Lord Almighty” (NIV) is so hard to understand that it cries out to be so overly paraphrased? Also, how is a new believer or a curious unbeliever likely to view God if they read a book – one claiming to accurately paraphrase scripture – which ascribes to the Lord God such benign phrases as “I care!” and “I’m involved!” when the verse those come from it is supposed to be understood as something much deeper than a statement that could just as easily be a politician’s campaign slogan?