On a recent trip with my son to see family in Houston, TX, I hit my brakes a lot. Now, you have to know something about traveling through Texas. There are a LOT of small towns. And in those small towns, there are a LOT of police parked in hidden places who would love nothing more than to share a coke, a smile, and a ticket with you should you forget to slow down (not that I speak from experience of course).
So as I was going through one of those unnamed town, I came across a small church with a surprisingly large white church sign in front right off the highway. On the church marquee read the following:
"Think the heat is bad now? Try spending an eternity in hell."
It caught both the attention of my eyes and my son's eyes. I literally had to turn around and drive back to make SURE that what I saw was actually there. It leads me to this plea:
"Dear Church Sign Marquee's. Please stop. I am not convinced the scare tactics are working."
I read recently a biography of Michael J Fox who shared a "church" experience as a child. In Canada he was at a fair and there was a bus that was painted and used by a local church as a witnessing tool to share the love of Jesus to those who wanted to know more. So, as a toddler, Michael J Fox loaded in the bus and a man walked to the front with a pack of matches.
He said, "I have a pack of matches. Let me ask... what would it feel like if I lit this match and put it under my hand?" One child responded, "It would hurt." Then the man said, "Right! Now, let me ask you. What would it feel like if I lit a thousand matches and it burned me all over my body? Because that is what it would feel like if you didn't know Jesus and went to hell. Right now."
Michael J Fox said, as a child, his initial response was "If this is a religion that just speaks of fear and hell, then where is the joy in any of that?" So he walked out of the bus thinking, 'not for me'.
Now I am not saying we don't address the difficult issues. On the other side of the coin, you have a lot of churches speaking a lot of grace but portraying an "anything" goes kind of religion and Jesus was certainly outspoken on a lot of things that we are afraid to address in the church (Read the 'Woes' in Matthew 23). But the simple truth is this...
Church Marquees. You have 8 seconds to reach the attention of a passing motorist on the street. Would you rather take those 8 seconds to create fear or inspire? To cause doubt or give hope? To offend or actually draw people inside the church where they possibly don't feel that they fit in?
My hope... my prayer is that it is the latter.
It is easy to beat people over the head with Romans 3:23 that reads, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But let us also be the church that reminds those of Romans 3:24 that follows that statement with "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
That, my friends, is the rest of the story.
How will you use your 8 seconds today?
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