Death of a Sign.
Making way for something new to be born.
We’ve been working on getting a new sign up on the front lawn of the church. The old one doesn’t represent us anymore—it’s a little world-weary, a little plain-jane, with coded and mysterious language that means little to outsiders, and no art in sight in our image-driven world.
It takes time to do things in church, like get a new sign envisioned, designed, paid for, post holes dug, panel delivered and installed. I figure it’ll finish happening sometime between the fourth Sunday in Advent, and the Rapture.
But today I came home to see that the old sign had fallen down, of its own accord. The sign of the times? I’m thinking of putting up a vinyl banner in the meantime, hung between the two old posts, which are still standing: “First Church Somerville UCC ~ Building the Beloved Community ~ A (sometimes vinyl, but always authentic) work-in-progress since 1874.”
I can’t say I’m sad about it. I was a comp lit major, and it was drilled into me in undergrad days in my semiotics classes that signs are vitally important in what they communicate, they have the power, like names, to shape the reality of the person/community/thing they’re attached to. Our old sign served us well for many years, but no longer represented who we’ve grown into.
We have some infant ideas for what the new sign will look like. Certainly, it’ll have our new logo, beautifully designed by your own Communications Team, a new representation of our lovely old rose window, the Holy Spirit entering a tattered but sweet flower-world, and our tagline, “Building the Beloved Community.” It’ll proudly bear the name, United Church of Christ.
Beyond that, what? What are your ideas? What should be on the first face of First Church that our neighborhood sees?
Nov 21, 2009
I’m thinking neon, or something with Christmas lights.
Nov 21, 2009
Well, it needs a rainbow stripe or something like that. It’s somewhat redundant with our flag, but sometimes the flag falls down. It would be good if we could illuminate it. The sign should certainly include our website address–not that anyone is likely to look up our website from the sign, but rather to show that we have a website that we take seriously.
I’d like to include space on the sign for events. The hard part would be doing so in a way that a) doesn’t look empty when we don’t have anything to advertise, and b) draws attention when we change things. Racks of black letters on transparent (yellowing) plastic won’t cut it. One goofy idea: what if the sign was rigged so you could easily hang an additional sign on the side? Perhaps even stretch a vinyl sign between two horizontal, retractible rails?
If we had enough money, it would be great to do something really novel: like projecting an animated sign on the side of the church. But we don’t.
Nov 22, 2009
Be prepared to be surprised–and welcome.
or
This may not be your father’s Jesus.
or
You’re more welcome than you might ever imagine.