When I recently spent a week at Life Camp, a speaker mentioned an analogy how Christians are God's billboard. The image stuck with me, and I immediately saw a blog post in it. If you think about it, what is the purpose of a billboard? It promotes something. It shows the best part of a product and makes it appealing. It attracts people to the restaurant, etc. It makes people want whatever is featured.
If you're driving down the highway and see a poorly done billboard for a restaurant, with maybe a grainy picture and hard-to-read lettering, the chances are that your first impressions of the place aren't going to be great. You'll likely pass it by and find some other place to eat. Now, the restaurant itself might serve amazing food at fantastic prices, but you won't know if you don't visit it.
An attractive billboard, however, is much more likely to draw your attention—followed by your business. Isn't that exactly what we as Christians are supposed to be? When people know you are a Christian, but you act just like the rest of the world, why would they look into Christianity? Now, if you are different—a light in the darkness—they will eventually want to see what makes you that way. Even if people don't know you are a Christian, when they see you cheerfully helping a grouchy neighbor, or stopping to fix a stranger's flat tire, or handing someone the money he dropped and didn't notice, or forgiving someone who hurt you, or remaining calm and trusting God in a bad situation, they will wonder what makes you so different. They will want what you have.
Christians are God's billboard. Be a good witness; you never know when someone's watching. Most of all, you know that God is always there. Do your best to be a good billboard. Are you acting like you have the only all-powerful God living inside of you?
Very good point (and post), Bethany! I love the analogy. :D
ReplyDeleteThanks! I really like that analogy too. I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
DeleteOnce again you have shown your brilliance with words! I truly feel that is a great way to put it. We should all promote Gods glory! God bless you!
ReplyDeleteWell thank you very much! :) Soli deo gloria; to God alone be the glory, in every area of life! :D
DeleteHaha, the image *stuck* with you... anyway. Yes I agree it's a powerful analogy. I don't think many non-Christians go seeking out a Bible to read, but they will read our lives and see if it's consistent with out claims. Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteThat is such a perfect way of putting it! Thank you for your thoughts!
DeleteYeah! This is particularly interesting to thing about as I work through Week 2 of my Rhetorical Criticism and Visual Communication classes (the rhetoric and communicative appeals of billboards).
ReplyDeleteThat sounds fascinating! Do you have anything to add to what I included in my post? :)
DeleteI suppose I could say that we can use rhetorical tools to be better Witnesses, in certain ways. There's a bit of a fine line though, as we probably don't want to be truly deceptive in our rhetoric, but rather fine-tuned by light and truth. We can make logos or reasoning appeals by preaching out of the Word directly. We can make pathos or emotional appeals by explaining our experience. And we can make ethos or character appeals by detailing who God is and what He can do.
DeleteWow, that's really interesting! I'll certainly be trying to keep all this in mind. :) Thank you for sharing, Patrick!
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