A SIGN FROM GOD: AREA BILLOBARDS AND MARQUEES OFFER WORDS OF SPIRITUAL WISDOM

The sign at First Assembly of God Church, 750 N. Mount Auburn Road, welcomes passersby with words of wisdom.

Mount Auburn Christian Church, 930 N. Mount Auburn Road, uses its message sign to attract a drivers' attention.

Grace United Methodist Church, Broadway and Caruthers, provides food for thought with its message board.

When Wes Kinsey and Greg Illers make a spelling mistake, people take notice.After all, they only have about four lines of space available to get their message across so every letter counts. The messages appear in the marquee at Grace United Methodist Church at Broadway and Caruthers streets.Kinsey likens the "words of wisdom" to a sermon that can be read in about 10 seconds from the window of a passing vehicle. "We kid the pastor because he has 25 minutes for his sermon and we have four lines or less," Kinsey said. Many area churches are learning that advertising signs aren't just limited to retail messages. Churches across the country are beginning to use them as another means of outreach.Billboards for the "God speaks" campaign have been popular for months and Kinsey and Illers have used many of them for their sign at Grace Church. In Kansas City, a new campaign is beginning that offers messages from Jesus. The billboards provoke people to think about the spiritual aspect of life, their creator says.The signs also give churches an opportunity to relate to people on a practical level, an area pastor said. No one really knows if a sign draws people into the building, but it does show them that the church relates on an everyday level, said Mike Lovig, youth pastor for First Assembly of God Church. "You never know if it helps, but if one person gets a different perspective then it's a success," Lovig said. He changes the messages weekly on the church's sign along Mount Auburn Road.For the past eight years, Kinsey and Illers have been meeting each Monday morning to talk about ideas and decide on a saying for their church's sign. Sometimes they borrow ideas from slogans or other signs they've read, other times they brainstorm until something feels right. Each saying is recorded by date in a notebook so they can keep track of their words, and it helps them when people ask for repeats."We've had people call and say that's the best thing they've heard and others call and say we are almost blasphemous," with our words, Kinsey said.Either way, it causes people to think and offers them a moral message at the same time, Kinsey said.Lovig tries to use the First Assembly of God message sign for words of encouragement or to offer a challenge. "It's something to make people think," he said. And that is exactly the point of the "God speaks" and "Jesus speaks" billboard campaigns, their creators say. "In the 1980s there was a very successful slogan which said, 'When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen,'" said Frank Moseley, a Kansas City real estate agent who developed the "Jesus speaks" billboard. "I got to thinking how much more important it is when Jesus speaks that we should listen." Moseley said the signs are a means of introducing people to Jesus and gives them a chance to join Jesus' family.Using billboards for such a religious message is "probably not a bad idea," said Shelley Burrus, a media buyer with the Kuhn & Wittenborn advertising agency. "You have a pretty captive audience."The Associated Press contributed to this report.