I live in the Bible belt, which means that there are five churches within one mile of my home. One in particular has had the same thing on their church billboard since we moved in almost three years ago. All it says is 'COGIC FIRE'. That's it. So one day I asked aloud, "What in the world is that?" A quick Google search revealed that it stands for Church of God in Christ and 'Fire' was a conference that was done in 2015. Now here is my question, what is the point of that sign? Why advertise something that is basically in code? Obviously the sign doesn't change that often, but someone at some point thought it was a good idea to make sure that the people who drove by knew about it. Not all of it, but they felt the need to let everyone know about it. This inevitably led me to a bunny trail where I started to pay attention to church signs.
Now, I don't give a shit about the dumb quotes that are posted. I know for a fact that they make books full of them, just for churches to copy. They aren't original or interesting. No, what interests me is the advertising. A Pentecostal church down the road from me had an advertisement that read: Brother Greg Coone. Friday, September 18. 7pm. Who has ever driven down a street, seen an advertisement for some random traveling preacher and thought, I don't know who that person is but I am going to that? A church right up the road from me is constantly putting up expensive looking banners about BBQs and Men's Breakfasts and Homecoming. Has anyone who doesn't go to that church thought, hmmm....I would love to go to that random church where I don't know anyone because I might get some free BBQ? Okay, there probably are one or two, but your average person just isn't going to do that. I used to be a Christian and I NEVER drove past a random church advertising a revival, preacher, group, or event and thought about going. It didn't even cross my mind. So who are those signs for? My working hypothesis is that those churches are using these signs as a lazy form of evangelizing. Anyone who lives in the south knows that the churches here are segregated and insular to the extreme. If all five of the churches down the road closed, it would have absolutely no impact on our community whatsoever. The members would find other places to go and their minimal impact on their communities would be absorbed by other churches doing the exact same thing.
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AuthorThis is a personal, but secret, blog archiving my deconversion from a Christian to a non-believer. Archives
December 2020
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