Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Come As You Are -- Leave Changed

Church signs offer an interesting snapshot of the beliefs of a particular group. This sign left me wondering what they were selling.

Come As You Are -- Leave Changed

How would a church member feel about the sign?
How would an outsider feel?

I see 2 potential interpretations and I'm sure you can come up with many more.

1. The sign gives the impression that the church will accept you as long as you change to become like them.

2. It might mean that everyone in the church is in a constant, creative mode of allowing change to be normative in their lives.

My feeling is that this sign is there to make the parishioners feel that they are offering hope to those on the outside. Missing the possibility that it is a bit arrogant in that those already in are doing better than those who aren't.

Generally, I don't think people want change all that much. So offering change as a sales pitch seems somewhat naive. It would be interesting to find out if anyone actually showed up as a result of this marketing campaign.

How would you write the second part of this ad campaign?

Come as you are -- Leave ....

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