Church signs and maybe's

Bettie Gray

I LOVE TO READ church signs—the ones that make you think twice, and then you grin. In the town I'm from, some of these are in Spanish, some in English. Sometimes they have a few letters missing here and there. One such sign caught my eye: "CH _ _ CH." When read on, I realized the missing letters were left out deliberately. It continued, "not complete unless U R in it."

When "R U" in church anyway? Is church a place you get to by going through a door? Who else is in it? Can it get too full—or too empty? What does church do?

At Sunday School when I was about five, we learned a little rhyme where we held our fingers a certain way and moved them around to match the words: "Here's the church and here's the steeple; open the door and there're all the people." To me at that age, church meant dressing up on Sunday morning in my fanciest (read scratchiest) clothes and patent leather shoes, going to a white, wooden building where we were grouped with other children our own age, and listening to a grown-up who used felt-board pictures to illustrate the Bible stories she told. "The Good Samaritan" was my favorite story. It made me think that if I were ever alone and got hurt, some kindhearted person would come and help me. And it made me think I could even be a good Samaritan. I thought about those Bible stories a lot.

So, was I "in church" when I was listening to those stories in Sunday School? Undoubtedly. But what about the times when I thought about those Bible stories while I was being rolled downhill in a barrel by my cousins, or while I was chasing lightning bugs after supper with my sister and brother, or while I was falling asleep at night? Maybe it didn't look as if I were anywhere near church at those times. But if I could feel comfort or hope from those Bible stories, wherever I was, does it mean that church might be more portable than a white, wooden building?

Maybe it does make church complete if U R in it, but there may be signs that church is N U, too.

Bettie Gray
Staff Editor

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