I like reading church signs as I travel around. One of my favorites came from the Nazarene Church in Russellville, Arkansas many years ago. "Faith is not jumping to conclusions, it's concluding to jump."
The task of putting up these informative, witty sayings falls to me at our church. I've bought books and searched the web looking for good stuff. It's not the easiest thing on my job description.
A fundamental necessity for the sayings is that they are theologically sound. There are lots of pithy quotes to use but some just don't stand the litmus test of good theology.
For example, just down the road a church sign says, "Faith isn't believing God can, it's knowing God will." Maybe the problem is that a church sign just doesn't have enough space (only four lines) to be as clear as we would like. Otherwise, the saying is backwards.
Faith is the confidence that God can do anything and that he will do everything he desires to do. To simply say "it's knowing God will" implies we can use God as an at-will genie who does whatever we want him to do. I don't presume to know what God desires in every situation so I can't say that he will do what I think he should do. He certainly can but may not because my desire may not be his desire.
So if I had to put it on a sign I'd say that faith is believing God can, not knowing he will. Or maybe I'd just say something completely different since there's not enough room to be clear. "Potluck Sunday at 6:00."
Clear theology doesn't have to be a sermon but it often can't be said in four lines or 140 characters.
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