Can you preach a sermon in one sentence?
That’s been the challenge for us as we seek to do ministry through our sign board on the front lawn. In the past, church signs used to list the times and the services available at the church week by week – and, realistically, they were aimed at the members of the church, not members of the public. Nothing more than a notice board.
In our diocesan Season of Discernment, our parish congregation met to pray and to talk about what God is calling us to be and do in our community. We considered the question: What have we got? One of the resources we considered was our location. We’re within the same block as a three-floor hotel, the Dolphin Encounter office, the kayaking outfitter, an arts theatre, a primary school, and the sports grounds. We’re also on the edge of a residential area where residents regularly walk. People may not be walking into our church on a Sunday morning, but they’re passing by our church sign every day of the week.
Around this time I came across an episode of one of my favourite podcasts, “Under The Influence”. The episode, called One Sentence Sermons, dropped a very large penny (from heaven) with a loud thud. We have a church sign! I thought. We’re in a great location! What if… And we took it from there.
The podcast talks about a woman named Cheryl Evans who managed a church in Texas in the 1990s. Her responsibilities included overseeing the church sign, and she decided to put up a new message every Monday morning. She learned a few things pretty quickly – she couldn’t just write fire and brimstone. Instead, she opted for a different approach, displaying a sign asking, "How would you prefer to spend eternity? Smoking or Non-smoking?" It garnered chuckles, honks, and waves from passersby.
This inspired Cheryl to use humour as a way to connect with people, turning the sign into a small outreach ministry for her church. Eventually, a magazine featured her and her unique church signs, catching the attention of other churches, which soon adopted this cost-effective drive-by ministry.
The podcast got me thinking about how we might use our sign to better advantage.
We discussed it at vestry and decided we wanted to put up a message every one or two weeks. We wanted the messages to be thought provoking as well as humourous. Being in Kaikōura, our church’s eco-church character could be reflected in the sign board as well. We could contribute to raising public awareness by posting messages notifying when nesting or fledging season is underway for our endangered species. The sign could also include messages of support for our community organisations. For instance, when the fire fighters climb up the Sky Tower, when students start the school year, or for groups like the St John Ambulance volunteers.
I was talking with a friend in Christchurch and telling her we were about to try putting up a new sign each week at our church. Before I could get any further into the conversation she burst out with, “They’ve got one up the road from us at the Methodist church. I always take my dog past there at least once a week on our walks to see what the message is going to be.”
We began our sign ministry in June, and I wondered when we might hear anything from outside the congregation about them. On the first Sunday of August I was about to change the sign when one of the members of the congregation stopped me and said, “Wait, I have a story to tell you.”
She went on to say how she’d had coffee with a couple of young adults who work here in the tourist industry. They do not come to church, but when our member said she attended St Peter’s, they replied, “Oh that’s the church with the sign board? Please tell whoever is doing the signs that we love them, and look forward to reading them each week on our way to work.”
For most people, it’s going to take a lot to walk into a church for the first time.
In whatever way you use your church sign, you will also convey the personality and values of the church congregation to a community.
The challenge is to write something that makes people smile, but has a serious subtext. Like “Forbidden fruit creates many jams.” Or, during the pandemic, when some people were stocking up on excessive amounts of toilet paper, one church wrote, “Don’t hoard. Even Noah took only two of each.” Another sign said, "Services cancelled. God now making house calls.”
There have also been some signs getting attention for the wrong reasons! One church put up a message that read “God is now here” – except that the spacing between letters was so tight that it read as “God is nowhere.”
Another church wrote, “Don’t let worries kill you. Let the church help.” And another, “We love hurting people.”
Here are a few examples of what we’ve used over the past few weeks.
Forgive your enemies, it messes with their heads.
Tweet others as you want to be tweeted.
Life is fragile, handle with prayer.
The struggle is real but so is God.
The world is changed by the example you set.
Label jars, not people.
This year, during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week), we’re putting up four different whakataukī (proverbs) over ten days.
Once I got started collecting, I was surprised how many places I started noticing these “one sentence sermons” and writing them down.
As we put up a new message each week, we trust that God will do the work and bring people past our church and past our sign board. We hope they will hear good news in a one sentence sermon.
Think creatively about it, and ask God how you might use what you have.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Can you preach a sermon in one sentence?
That’s been the challenge for us as we seek to do ministry through our sign board on the front lawn. In the past, church signs used to list the times and the services available at the church week by week – and, realistically, they were aimed at the members of the church, not members of the public. Nothing more than a notice board.
In our diocesan Season of Discernment, our parish congregation met to pray and to talk about what God is calling us to be and do in our community. We considered the question: What have we got? One of the resources we considered was our location. We’re within the same block as a three-floor hotel, the Dolphin Encounter office, the kayaking outfitter, an arts theatre, a primary school, and the sports grounds. We’re also on the edge of a residential area where residents regularly walk. People may not be walking into our church on a Sunday morning, but they’re passing by our church sign every day of the week.
Around this time I came across an episode of one of my favourite podcasts, “Under The Influence”. The episode, called One Sentence Sermons, dropped a very large penny (from heaven) with a loud thud. We have a church sign! I thought. We’re in a great location! What if… And we took it from there.
The podcast talks about a woman named Cheryl Evans who managed a church in Texas in the 1990s. Her responsibilities included overseeing the church sign, and she decided to put up a new message every Monday morning. She learned a few things pretty quickly – she couldn’t just write fire and brimstone. Instead, she opted for a different approach, displaying a sign asking, "How would you prefer to spend eternity? Smoking or Non-smoking?" It garnered chuckles, honks, and waves from passersby.
This inspired Cheryl to use humour as a way to connect with people, turning the sign into a small outreach ministry for her church. Eventually, a magazine featured her and her unique church signs, catching the attention of other churches, which soon adopted this cost-effective drive-by ministry.
The podcast got me thinking about how we might use our sign to better advantage.
We discussed it at vestry and decided we wanted to put up a message every one or two weeks. We wanted the messages to be thought provoking as well as humourous. Being in Kaikōura, our church’s eco-church character could be reflected in the sign board as well. We could contribute to raising public awareness by posting messages notifying when nesting or fledging season is underway for our endangered species. The sign could also include messages of support for our community organisations. For instance, when the fire fighters climb up the Sky Tower, when students start the school year, or for groups like the St John Ambulance volunteers.
I was talking with a friend in Christchurch and telling her we were about to try putting up a new sign each week at our church. Before I could get any further into the conversation she burst out with, “They’ve got one up the road from us at the Methodist church. I always take my dog past there at least once a week on our walks to see what the message is going to be.”
We began our sign ministry in June, and I wondered when we might hear anything from outside the congregation about them. On the first Sunday of August I was about to change the sign when one of the members of the congregation stopped me and said, “Wait, I have a story to tell you.”
She went on to say how she’d had coffee with a couple of young adults who work here in the tourist industry. They do not come to church, but when our member said she attended St Peter’s, they replied, “Oh that’s the church with the sign board? Please tell whoever is doing the signs that we love them, and look forward to reading them each week on our way to work.”
For most people, it’s going to take a lot to walk into a church for the first time.
In whatever way you use your church sign, you will also convey the personality and values of the church congregation to a community.
The challenge is to write something that makes people smile, but has a serious subtext. Like “Forbidden fruit creates many jams.” Or, during the pandemic, when some people were stocking up on excessive amounts of toilet paper, one church wrote, “Don’t hoard. Even Noah took only two of each.” Another sign said, "Services cancelled. God now making house calls.”
There have also been some signs getting attention for the wrong reasons! One church put up a message that read “God is now here” – except that the spacing between letters was so tight that it read as “God is nowhere.”
Another church wrote, “Don’t let worries kill you. Let the church help.” And another, “We love hurting people.”
Here are a few examples of what we’ve used over the past few weeks.
Forgive your enemies, it messes with their heads.
Tweet others as you want to be tweeted.
Life is fragile, handle with prayer.
The struggle is real but so is God.
The world is changed by the example you set.
Label jars, not people.
This year, during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week), we’re putting up four different whakataukī (proverbs) over ten days.
Once I got started collecting, I was surprised how many places I started noticing these “one sentence sermons” and writing them down.
As we put up a new message each week, we trust that God will do the work and bring people past our church and past our sign board. We hope they will hear good news in a one sentence sermon.
Think creatively about it, and ask God how you might use what you have.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
