Assumptions

Last night we had dinner in a local restaurant.  I noticed that the restroom were labeled with W and M.  There is an assumption that people will get what is implied by the letters. I've seen other restaurants with restroom signs that leave some assumptions to the customer.  The image today is of a pair of restroom signs.

As I looked at those signs last night I thought about how we do that in church.  We, the insiders, know what we mean, but would an "outsider?"  At a funeral yesterday, I noticed that the church had the phrase "for God's glory" on the wall of the sanctuary.  Great - except it was in Latin.  Our church order of worship has asterisks next to a parts of the service where the congregation is asked to stand - except the order doesn't say that.  All we have are asterisks, not instructions.

Look around your church with the eyes of a stranger.  Where are these strange, insider codes to be found?  Or, where is your church facility "silent" because "everybody knows" the tradition or the location of a ministry?