Signs...and wonder-whys...

When Jesus said that it is a wicked and adulterous generation that looks for a sign, I'm sure He was talking about a miraculous sign, which is very different from the kinds of signs I see displayed in front of churches that I pass on my way to work. Nothing miraculous there, hey! What He might say about the generation who posts these signs...well, I won't indulge that speculation. I'll just throw out a few rattlingz generated by some signs I've seen recently.
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The "Used-to-be-Baptist-but-now-operating-under-a-new-name-because-probably-they-read-some-book-that-said-'unchurched'-people-stay-away-from-churches-with-the-word-Baptist-in-their-name" Church has once again posted their schedule of pagan rites. See March 11, 2008, for my first mention of this oddity. They removed this particular item for a while, but now it's back:

Sun Worship 10:45 A

Apart from the fact that it seems odd for a nominally Christian organization to offer sun worship as part of its ministry palette, I just have to wonder if 10:45 is really the best time to worship the sun. I'm no expert on pagan orthopraxy, but it seems as though sunrise would be a more usual time for sun worship, except perhaps at the solstices. But maybe today's American pagans pursue their faith approximately as lazily as American Christians follow our own.
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Speaking of worship, I saw a sign that advertised two distinct services, though I have forgotten the times posted for each:

Praise worship...

Traditional...

Apparently it has not been their historic tradition to praise or worship during church services. After all, it's not like the God of the universe is...oh, wait...hmmmmm...never mind.
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And while I'm talking about the God of the universe, this sign puts Him into some sort of perspective, I guess:

When you get to your wit's (sic) end, you'll find that God lives there.

Is saying, "I'm not going to say that if you don't know that the saying is wits' end, not wit's end, you really shouldn't be posting signs anyway," the same as saying it?

But, grammatical challenges aside, this message annoys me. It just seems to squarely center God's nature on "me," as though the official word from God is, "I'm there for ya, bro." Once again, as it has many times recently, this quote (attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau) comes to mind - "God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor."

Not that God isn't "there" for us, or that we can't find Him when we're at our weakest. I just don't think that's where He lives. Or that those things are particularly large parts of His place and work in this universe.
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Which brings me to another odd sign, one that I have smiled at for some time, now:

Bishop Ernest - Pam Jones

At the risk of offending, am I the only one who thinks this sounds a little transgendered or at least cross-dressed? I guess if you saw the old sign, you could guess easily enough that Ernest got a promotion that Pam did not. It used to display the names:

Pastors Ernest & Pam Jones

Or maybe it was:

Pastors Ernest - Pam Jones

Either way, it was easy enough to follow the old sign. The new one is a little wonky.

I don't know Ernest Jones. I'm sure he's a great guy and a Christ-follower. But it seems to me that maybe he was so anxious to get that "Bishop" title up there that he didn't really care what the rest of the line looked like.

"Bishop" or "overseer" was once a function that some people fulfilled in the community of Jesus-followers. There wasn't any particular job description attached - just someone who oversaw things. Big things, small things, simple things, complex things, single things, multiple things...just things that needed overseeing.

But then churchianity decided that "bishop" must be an office in the church, and that the Bishop usually should have an office in the church. I don't find it very comforting that "office in the church" so easily takes on two meanings that should be so diverse. Once describing the work that people did in the course of living in a community of faith, terms like "bishop," "apostle," "pastor," became official jobs within a hierarchy.

But now we live in a time which has made these words more trivial still. Now they are nothing more than titles handed out by a parent body, or taken by individuals as they see fit, with little or no relation to a real role in the community of believers, or any assembly thereof. By giving the words themselves more and more importance, we have robbed them of their beauty and power. We have placed ourselves on the losing end of a sorry trade - the simple, elegant, graceful beauty of "having the oversight" for the empty privilege of "being the Bishop."

We have lost the respite of the mustard seed that sends mountains packing, and gained the labor of endless effort that won't cure a hangnail.