Nice list. I would add that if your church sign looks junky (faded letters, hasn't been painted since Noah got off the ark, night light is broken), it definitely sucks.

Also, not to be picky, but since you brought up spelling and grammar, the word you want is populace, not populous. Populace is a noun, while populous is an adjective.

Re: Populace v. Populous...

Exactly why I am not in favor (nor am I in charge) of any church signs!!

:)

Thanks.

so, this is the best post i've seen for a while. so funny, and so true and so sad all at the same time...

Thanks for a timely post! We're a church plant that just launched this past Sunday night. The church building we meet in has a road sign that literally had the example from #5 on it - we were offended by it... and we're Christians! (imagine how non-Christians must feel seeing it everyday on the way to work...).

I'm a Christian looking for a church and have disqualified any church with lame marquees as it shows how out of touch they are.

I tried very hard to get a photo of a church sign I saw in Centralia, WA on a trip the other day, but I didn't want to offend the people who were out there mowing the lawn.

Painted on their church sign (so they were stuck with it for a while) was, "We're teeming with life!"

My first thought was, "A good dose of antibiotics will clear that right up."

My recent favorite:
"Prevent Truth Decay... Brush Up On Your Bible!"

Re: Populace vs. Populous, that's been corrected. You can pretty much be sure that any spelling mistakes around here are my fault (except for in the comments of course).

I hated maintaining the church sign.
Everybody would offer clever phrases and I had a stack of books, but I would typically prefer to post points from last week's sermon up there.

I prefer useful over clever any day.

Our church has a new sign which faces the intersection where the building is located. They are using the sermon titles each week which, while safe, are quite boring. I've made suggestions of doing other things, but have been "outvoted" by the Sr. Pastor.

"Life stink? Try our pews."

Really. I'm not making it up.

Our church sign is guilty of almost all of these and it irritates me every time I see it. My wife and I kinda laugh at how corny our reader board is at times. But how can I show a list like this to the lady who updates the board without totally offending her?

Tim...

I wouldn't show her this list, to be honest. Possibly suggesting some of the positive alternatives (towards the bottom) is a better way to go, rather than showing her what is wrong with the current slate of sayings that are posted.

Amen!

I was on a youth ministry discussion board once and the youth workers were literally in competition in trying to out-cute each other on their church signs.

I suggested that they simply post the service times and that they had great childcare during the service. I might as well of suggested that Jesus was just a good teacher for the grief I got.

Keep rattling the chains of the greeting card crowd!

This is perfect. Our church sign is reserved for functional purposes only (website, service times. upcoming events) and I am so glad for it.

Another category: Church signs that are smugly superior or dogmatic (not to mention assumptive) suck.
Real Example: "They Are Not Called The Ten 'Suggestions'"

True as it may be, it's not exactly a way to warmly invite people in.

Great article. I'd add to #1 that signs that take an adversarial stance with the reader are not likely to gain many visitors. An example I saw once: "Without Christ life is all fun and games until you die and go to hell." I thought, why not just throw rotten tomatoes at cars that pass by? That'll have the same affect.

I posted a few pictures (some real, some fake) of bad church signs in a post on how not to do a church sign a few weeks ago.

This is one of the BEST posts on this site I have ever seen!!! My two pet peeves are church signs and Christian bumper stickers (maybe another post idea there!)

Christians have SO MUCH to say...but so many times the way we say it "sucks" & so the world thinks we are a joke.

Keep up the awesome work--you guys are doing a great job!

"Weather Forecast: Reign Forever"
and
"Come on in! We're prayer conditioned!"

No joke.

Thank God our church always has upcoming events or service times on our sign.

How about church signs printed on paper - like a yard sale sign.

Rain and ink mix all too well.

My church is in the process of constructing an electronic sign in front of our church right now. And we're on a busy street next to a mall. The tips were very helpful in thinking this through for me as I'll be the one maintaining it. Thanks, Joel.

Thanks for posting this!

I did a similar post in two parts on my blog earlier this year, and the highest number of hits I receive to them are from people searching for "clever sayings for church signs." Ugh.

(Find them here: Here's Your Church Sign and Suggestions For Better Church Signs)

There's definitely too much "marquee madness" out there...

Ha, that was a great read. My favorite (from a few years back) "God can mend your achy breaky heart". I kid you not.
On a funny note the "Stop, Drop, and roll doesn't work in hell" has been made into a t-shirt by threadless:
http://www.threadless.com/product/535/Stop_drop_and_roll_doesn_t_work_in_hell

Not only does this one fall under the stupid joke/pun category, but the potentially condescending category as well. I saw the following on a local baptist church's sign:
"Prevent truth decay - read the AV 1611 KJV Bible".

A sign is most likely not going to convince many people to want to read the Bible as it is, much less seek out a specific translation that a lot of people will have a hard time understanding! Ugh.

I'm embarrassed to admit it here, but I thought "Seven days without prayer makes one weak" was funny.

I have to laugh at a few of the comments. Some folks don't like Christian bumper stickers, but it's ok with cars riding around town with stickers on the back promoting their church (aren't those considered "Christian bumper stickers")? What's the difference? Some folks don't like signs that make lite of the severity of Hell, but yet they infuse humor into their message. I'm not trying to argue for or against the points in the article, but I think it's kind of hypocritical of some individual's attitude towards it. As I've heard someone say before, "Of course that's your opinion and you have a right, but you'd be wrong". Just a thought.

Hey "Billy" (wink-wink), I would say you missed the point of the article dude. :-)

Bumper stickers advertising the church name is NOT BAD MARKETING...IF the church does church with excellence. However, bumper stickers with phrases like, "Get saved or microwaved" are ridiculous. One must ask the question, "What is the point of the message?" Like Mark Batterson says, "The best message deserves the best marketing."

Also--making fun of hell and using humor in a message...yep, you missed the point of the article not once, but twice my friend. I myself use humor in messages...as well as many other speakers. It's not that we have a problem with humor...it's that we have a problem with the stupidity that some churches show in their marketing. I would say telling a well placed joke is a good thing...saying that reading you Bible will prevent "truth decay" is flat out cheesy.

Ah, the church sign. Growing up as a P.K., my dad would always enjoy coming up with clever sayings for the church sign. He was a very punny and witty person, so they were cute to some, funny to few. I can relate to this blog so well. People who put up the signs need to remember that it is the same as sending an e-mail. Emotion, inflection, and facial expression are not part of the experience.

I pass a local church in our community 4 times each day. I wanted so badly to call the church office and plead with them to correct their sign which read...
"The Ten Commandants are not multiple choice"

Two signs I saw today:

"Be an organ donor, give your heart to Jesus"

"A day without prayer is like lungs with no air"

Makes me ill just thinking about it...

We recently purchased an electronic sign. It has generated both positive and negative comments, but it has been noticed. We have had several people say that they started coming to church because they saw the sign.
We stay away from cute slogans, we don't even include Bible verses (which I think shouldn't be on the sign). We do a Welcome, the time, sermon title, weekly events, and more importantly we list other community events, including other churches on a regular basis. It has become more of a "community sign" as opposed to our church sign.

Just saw one yesterday:

GOD LISTENS TO
"KNEE-MAIL"

I almost drove off the road.

One church sign near us read "Hot and Bothered? Its cool inside." I don't think they knew what they were saying.

I blogged a couple of entries from ChurchSignGenerator.com last month, what do you think of these for sign ideas?

http://luke.updraftsolutions.com/?p=238

http://luke.updraftsolutions.com/?p=251

I have performed google searches in the past on several topics and your website comes up, but I've never taken the time to look at it because of your websit name "Church Marketing Sucks". the word 'suck' is repulsive to me and just doesn't sound like a word a Christian based site would use. So . . . why do you use it?

So many times in our attempt at humor we alienate those who we most want to reach, whether it be on church signs, bumper stickers or Ts.

Laughing at yourself is ok, but laughing at others, via your holier than thou sign is sad.

I hope that many people read this post. For what's funny to us just may result in some real change in the hearts of those attempting to reach the unchurched.

Thanks for this. I love this blog :)

OK I confess - I stumbled upon this site because I am in charge of our church sign and was looking for ideas on what to change it to! A few months ago I volunteered to be responsible for changing the sign (what was I thinking??) because I saw it was unattended and now I understand why it was not being updated regulary. It's not as easy as I thought! After reading this blog I literally ran to church to change the cheesy message that I put up 2 months ago (yep uh huh it sucked). Great blog, helpful info, I'll be sure to visit again...if I'm not too busy coming up with appropriate, relevant, unoffensive yet meaningful church sign messages.

You are the perfect example of the human race: completely ignorant and stupid!

Church signs are one of my biggest frustrations. I see these all over the place! people have to have the cheeziest sayings on their sign, and for what? To make sure they are the dumbest looking church in town? I actually read this article a couple of months ago, but as I was browsing thru the pages, I had to come check it out again. from what i got from the article, cheeze sayings aren't necessary at all! i agree!

Thankyou!!!! I thought I was the only one who 1. hated doing the church sign, 2. after hours of searching through web sites and books to find "clever" one liners could only find cheesy christian sayings I cringed at - thanks for providing a positive alternative. I also thought though that your web site from the title was going to be a "christian bashing" - but I was so desparate to find something decent to put on the sign I thought why not ...

This is in response to the comment that signs with poor grammar "suck"
1) Writing on a sign needs to be understandable. This is true.
2)Spelling errors can't be up there.
Following these two guidlines though, abbreviated spellings, alternative punctuations, and sentence fragments are ok on a church board. Remember that they are only about 5 lines, or 23 syllables, of space in most cases.
Besides this, it is much better to have what you say on your board be as short as possible. This allows for reading it by at 40 miles per hour! The shorter the better!

Another thing to remember is that many signs don't have every possible punctuation mark. Periods, dashes, elipses, quotation marks, and apostrophes are not found in many sets. Dashes are easy to "make" using white paper and tape and an F. The rest, you can't. Is it possible to understand the saying perfectly without these? Yes.
Is it bad grammar? Probably. Remember though, the idea of register. We don't use the same grammatical conventions, for example when communicating by AOL IM, that we do when writing an essay or a business letter.

One other thing I'd like to mention is the criticism on "old looking" letters. They are very expensive. It's not easy to get replacement letter in the budget.
Of all the things that need doing in a church?! For many congrgations, I'm not sure it is good stewardship.
I'm sure any church, whose ratty church sign letters that offend you
would be glad to have you as an anonomous donor to replace them.

I disagree I feel that anything within the perameters of the Holy Spirit and our Fathers guidance that we should use whatever possible to get an unbeliever to notice God in some way. Jesus Himself used the tools of the day to make his points..like oil, money, lampstands...and so on. "Marketing" in the right spirit is not "sucky"

I agree with lukas. The word "sucks" is repulsive to me too. It does not sound like a word that Christians should be using. I was not allowed to say this as a child, nor do I still use this word. My children are also not allowed to say this. There could be a better choice of words.

As I was looking through this page I was amazed to see how much this topic bothers people. It really amazed me. I mean, I always saw the church sign to be a quick little pick me up as you drive by. Granted, I agree about the holier than thou messages, and the ones about hell. But I kinda like the cheesy one liners. I think that all marketing works that way??....I'm just saying this as a minister and as a p.k. I have grown up with this stuff. I always get more positive comments from the cheesy signs (our sundays are better than baskin robbins) than the ones that have scripture or things on it. I don't feel that churches mean to offend anyone with the cheesy signs. I just think it is something light hearted and is supposed to be fun. I mean I don't get mad every time I pass a billboard on the highway. Just thought I would throw my two cents out there.

I would just like to say I love the cheesy Church signs I see and I have to laugh out loud at those of you who are so offended by them. If you don't like them that's fine, but I know plenty of people that do and enjoy reading them, and to dedicate a website to making fun of them and saying they suck doesn't seem right. You want to talk about our Christian witness, I wonder what non-Christians who stumble on this sight think of you making fun of other Christians and their ideas they put on signs. Some of you (Christians) say the cheesy signs you see make you sick, lol, give me a break. Is all this complaining and making fun of Church signs suppose to help build the unity of Jesus' body the Church? I think not.

Interesting site. I'm among those who find the "sucky" characterization offensive, but decided to read the entries since I recently volunteered to put sayings up on the church sign...based on the fact that I enjoy seeing them as we ride along in the car. True, some are better left unsaid. Others are food for thought. I am glad I read your site though because it will cause me to be more discerning in what I choose to use on the board. Since we live in a vacation destination spot, for this month ours says "Awesome creation - Awesome Creator!

Hi! I have found this site helpful, by finding out how others feel about church signs. And I will also be more careful choosing when we decide on our new church signs.I will try to be positive,encouraging, & uplifting on it. But, I am one of those that look for and enjoy Church signs. I agree that some are too long,boring, or not that funny. Church should look exciting and inviting. The sign should not remain the same all the time - for too long. When I see a sign changing from time to time...I think "Wow, they are with it." There is something going on there at that church...they are alive!! Thanks for the info.!

We are in the process of installing a new electronic sign so I found the site to be helpful. I agree somewhat with the advice and general responses that people have made for I too get miffed at religious cliches and judgemental statements. Having said that, I'm still amazed what many people find interesting and informative. Therefore, lets not be so overly cautious to the point that nothing creative is evey said or done. Thanks

ohhh get a life... If church signs suck so much why don't you do something positive about it. It sucks that you have put all this effort into being negative about church signs

Heh. Craig is funny.

"Why don't you do something about it..."

What a riot! Thanks, Craig!

I too have made it my business to update our billboard, and stumbled on this page looking for ideas. Quite honestly, I found this page to be quite discouraging. After reading most everyone's comments, I've decided that I will allow GOD to use me as I decide what to post on the board. Just as in life, I will NEVER be able to satisfy EVERYONE. Even today, I am learning not to depend on other folks opinion as I make decisions for myself. I appreciate everyone's comments and opinions, but when it's all said and done...it's like this...Thanks but no thanks! I got this!
Be blessed all!

As someone who is in charge of our church's sign and trying to
constantly come up with witty things to put on the sign:

YOU SUCK!

Besides that anything you can do to help introduce people to God is good.

Thanks Memphis.

Can't seem to find where we disagree, but thanks all the same.

I think you made some good points, however, in total your post violates its first principle. Who are you to say what is funny and not? Who are you to say what sucks and what doesn't?

Church signs shouldn't get people to go to church, people should get people to go to church. We as Christians like to wear "Christian" messages on our clothes. Our life should speak Christ, not our t-shirt. Same with our church. We like advertising God with signs and attire, instead of advertising God with our own life. Jesus didn't need a neon sign to tell people how much He loved them, He did that with His life and death. Don't advertise love, just love.

I think the advertisements on our churches, T-shirts, cars and etc. always gives someone a chance to witness, regardless of what they say. I have a T-shirt that says "Forgiven" like a name tag, and I used to wear it at the gas station where I worked, and let me tell you I was able to witness more with that T-shirt than I would have ever done without it. Someone would read it even when I wasn't paying attention or was really busy and it gave me the opportunity to explain how and why I was forgiven. I think these signs are not just to get people into the churches, but to get people talking about God! Remember, God can use even the suckiest thing to reach the person(s) with a ready heart!

I saw one that said "Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out."

Yeah be prejudges.

i saw one in alliance ohio that said "Happy Athiest's Day: April 1, 2008."

i'm still speachless.

I saw one at the church close to my home that said "Dusty Bibles lead to dirty lives". That surely doesn't make me want to attend that church.

I considered calling and asking why they would put up such a judgemental sign, but I was scared of what the answer might be. Their other "inspirational" quotes are just as judgemental and corny as that one, but their parking lot is full every Wednesday and Sunday.

I still love my friends that have joined that church so their kids can play "Upwards" basketball.

I am sorry for your bad sign experiences in the church industry. We are part of a church plant in San Antonio TX, and we own a sign company! We are trying to market to churches for this VERY reason. So many times churches don't get the design or quailty they need, when a sign can make the first impression. We have gone above and beyond to provide excellent signs to churches that have high quality, and a huge impact! Give us a call, we may just change your mind about how signs can make a great impression for your church---and not create a "sucky" one!

~Nicole
Cold Fire Signs
210-694-6013
www.coldfiresigns.com

This is an interesting and useful article. I agree on most however the example used for the Joke message I did not take as a joke. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." is not funny because frankly its not funny. I take as a statement to make one think about their prayer life.

I do wish I had read this before I wrote nearly 1000 Church Sing messages myself. (www.Messages.PoetPatriot.com) However, I think I did a pretty good job, overall. I scanned through and did not catch any presuming to quote God. That's good.
I have few questions that I believe work. They either include multiple choice answers or require just a little inward reflection, often with a simple yes or no answer. If you need a list of Sayings check out mine at www.Messages.PoetPatriot.com.

There are so many comments on this post that I doubt anyone will get to me but I'll share my thought as well.
Regardless of the emotional comments going back and forth between both sides of this issue, the fact is, the Church (universal) represents Christ to the world. I think we need to be careful in all things, including but not limited to signs, we represent him well. Considering the excellence with which God has done all things, we have the responsibility to make sure something as visible as our church signs display the excellence of our God. If you can't think of excellent things to put up on the sign, perhaps you should consider simply putting the words of God up there. Pick out a significant verse from a past or future sermon and put it up there. After all, it is the understanding and embracing of the Word that ultimately draws men to Christ, not our clever comments. Just a thought...