I was driving home from work this evening and a billboard caught my eye. It wasn't one of those annoying flash every 30 second ones with the streaming ads but just a simple billboard.

There was this larger than life black king james looking bible.

Know the type I'm talking about? The one that just looks like "THE HOLY BIBLE" as if one could be the "HOLIEST BIBLE IN THE WHOLE OF THE UNIVERSE."

Anyhow, next to it the billboard said: One World. One God. Read Your Bible. And underneath each statement was a too small to be read bible verse. I think I caught John as a reference John 3:16?

Seriously, as if you could just jot down the bible verse to reference when you get home all the while whizzing by at 50 miles an hour?

As I drove the rest of the way home I did think about that billboard and the impression it made on me. First - props for the attempt at bringing God to our community in some tangible tribute. I could see Christians all giving themselves mental gold stars because they knew all this AND for sure THEY read their Bible.

There could very well be an ice breaker with those awkward quiet people that you carpool with..."So, awkward quiet person whose name I forget, what do you think about that billboard? Isn't God amazing? Can that Bible BE any bigger?" (Okay so perhaps I need to work on how to spark that conversation.)

For a brief moment I thought back to Evan Almighty and Bruce Almighty where God specifically sends messages to Bruce via popular like billboards and I wondered...hmmm is this a message just for me from God? Is he trying to tell me something and the other cars are all seeing the depressing cancer billboard for fairview hospitals that has been up there the last several months? That just happens in the movies...right? You'd tell me if you saw this same billboard right? 'er right? I'm not going crazy?

And then I wondered how much someone spent to place that billboard ad? They didn't put their logo on it...just the larger than life standard istock.com image of the Bible and the simple statements. Was that effective? How could I follow up with them if I had a question? I know it's a simple statement and pretty much you agree or disagree, but what's going to happen if you disagree?

Well I saw it and it made enough of an impression on me to comment. I agree there is one world and one God and I do need to read my bible. But what about the people that disagree? They just whiz by and roll their eyes and continue to be un-fazed by the fact that they are ignoring the eternal implications of their unbelief and they continue to not fear hell but rather just this nothingness that they think happens when you die.

I wondered what impression it made to the non-believer. Does an impersonal delivery of a message simply stating Read the Bible make someone who doesn't believe God exists run out and find a bible and just start reading it?

The cynic in me rolled my eyes at first because I think billboards like that one are the easy answer to being in our communities and mentioning God without being personally invested and relating and loving the people we meet that have different views than we do. The billboards are easily ignored.

As I continued thinking (and you'd think I live 30 miles away from work with the amount of thinking that was going on in my car)...there was this vague implication of guilt that I need to read my bible more and yet it didn't motivate me to get home and forgo microwaving my hot pocket and settling in to watch celebrity apprentice in exchange for a lengthy study of the Word.

So I'm torn...because the billboard did stop and get me to thinking and maybe part of their target audience might be lukewarm christians who need to find their bible and blow the dust off?

I feel a little bad about analyzing their motives when someone took a lot more effort than I've made lately to share God with the world. I just wonder if the billboard was the right marketing tool?