And the Sign Said…

Mitch Albom, a popular Detroit radio personality, put it in the “bad song prison”, but I always thought it was one of the best “one hit wonders”: Signs by the Five Man Electrical Band.

My favorite part was this:

And the sign said “Everybody welcome, Come in, kneel down and pray”. But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all I didn’t have a penny to pay. So I got me a pen and a paper And I made up my own little sign, I said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me I’m alive and doin’ fine”.

We are entering into “sign season”. Political signs increasingly dot neighborhood yards. They join other signs left over from movements and issues from the last few years.

I wonder how helpful they are. Do they communicate? What do they communicate? Do they help or hurt? Do they divide or bring together?

What signs do you have in your yard and why?

When the “I believe” signs first came out, I had in mind to produce and market some yard signs that displayed the Athanasian Creed. Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity etc., etc., etc., etc.

That probably would not have caught on.

Of late, the following seems like a good idea for a sign. How about a yard sign that says, “What if you disagree with this sign? Can we still talk?” What conversation might that spark?*

We could use more of that. Conversation. Conversation serves to better community. Conversation serves to better thinking.

My “latest favorite book” is How to Think by Alan Jacobs. In it he says there is really no such thing as “thinking for yourself”. Thinking involves community, others, conversation. We compare and contrast what others have said with what is in our mind, and the sorting through all that is what thinking is.

Christian, let me encourage you to become a better thinker. Instead of reacting, dismissing and disparaging people and their signs, whether those signs are in the yard or on the car or tattooed on an arm, engage your neighbor in conversation. Remember, that neighbor is someone for whom Christ died. Keep in mind that that neighbor is unlikely to be totally wrong on everything and that you are unlikely to be totally right on everything.

Christian, let me encourage you not to succumb to the political and social spirit of the time: this group against that group. We are here as ambassadors of Christ to engage people with the Gospel. And it is hard to do that unless we first engage them in conversation. If we want to help them to think about Jesus, we firstt need to spend some time thinking together. Such thinking includes listening and reflecting in relationship.

Early Christians engaged with others with whom they disagreed. They reasoned, discussed… thought together. They had a great tool: the mind of Christ. See I Corinthians 2:16.

By the power of the Spirit, we have that mind too. Our minds connected to the mind of Christ engaged in conversation with other people’s minds is the playground of the Holy Spirit.

So back to signs. Can you be confident enough in Christ to look past the signs in your neighbor’s yard? Can you engage instead of disengage as an ambassador and not as an adversary? And what signs might you display that invite people toward conversation and thinking and Jesus?

Keep in mind that to be on the path toward significance includes being a sign for Jesus. “Everybody welcome, Come in, kneel down and pray.”

*If you decide to take my idea and produce lawn signs that say, “What if you disagree with this sign? Can we still talk?”, let me be the first to place an order.