Billboards I’d Like to See This Summer

HH and I love where we live except for one thing: the view. Our balcony overlooks a parking lot and if you stand at the kitchen sink, you can see an Independence Boulevard billboard blocking our view of the Charlotte skyline. Usually the billboard is advertising a realtor or an HVAC business. It’s ugly.

One of my cousins works for a billboard company and I was asking her what it would cost to rent that billboard so that I could look out my kitchen window and be inspired. Not surprisingly – I can’t afford that or any other billboard.

But a girl can dream.

I would love to have a billboard that expresses a faith in Jesus that doesn’t look like these people or these people or these people. Most people think that Christians believe homosexuality to be “unacceptable” not realizing that tens of thousands of Christians in the United States not only “accept” our LGBTQA+ siblings; we recognize their gifts and love who they are. Every day I read tweets about how Christians are destroying the world.

Not the Christians I know.

The ones I know are doing what Jesus taught us to do like housing people and feeding people and teaching people that God has created each dang one of us in God’s own image. We like wholeness and colors – including gray – and all kinds of music and poetry and art and humans. A lot of us like Ted Lasso.

You’ve probably seen those billboards where God is talking to us:

I don’t mind these and I believe God can speak any way God wants to speak, but this kind of thing can be abused. Exhibit A:

I would love to see a billboard that states what my sister Denise Anderson came up with for a t-shirt to benefit several important charities:

I’d love to see a billboard that says:

• You know Jesus died for Nancy Pelosi, right? You know Jesus died for Mitch McConnell, right? You know Jesus died for Ilhan Omar, right? (This would actually be a series of billboards.)
• If your church condemns LGBTQA+ people, you need to find a new church.
• ‘Love your neighbor’ even includes people who get on your last nerve.

This is not about “getting new members” or “being woke.” This is about living the way Jesus shows us to live.

Also, if you know of any grants that pay for inspiring billboards, please let me know.