NO OTHER NAME

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."  –Acts 4:12

Mike and Dave spent the better part of a day building the beautiful sign out of a mashup of old fence boards, flooring, shelving boards, siding and scrap wood we found around the barn. I gave the boards a light pass with the sander, but didn't want to remove the qualities that made each board unique—paint splotches, chalk marks, stains and scrapes accumulated from years of use and storage.

I printed the scripture in reverse on wax paper, which my kids helped me gingerly carry out to the garage to transfer onto the boards. Unfortunately, when I applied the coat of polyurethane, the letters faded significantly, so Wendy spent nearly 3 hours painstakingly re-applying the scripture with a Sharpie. Dot-dot-dot-dot-dot...

The lettering for 'No Other Name' was a unique cadged-together process we created all on our own. I say this not in a prideful way, but in an embarrassed, I-know-there-has-to-be-an-easier-way-but-this-is-what-worked-for-us.

Step 1: Using Adobe Illustrator, I created an artboard that matched the dimensions of the area we wanted to use for the lettering (the wall was roughly 8' x 10.5', but I subtracted the scripture area from the artboard).

Step 2: Lay out the lettering in the size and position we want the final lettering to appear.

Step 3: Painstakingly print out the lettering on roughly 44 pieces of 8.5" x 11" paper.

Step 4: Piece the giant jigsaw puzzle of letters back together and tape them with clear tape.

Step 5. Cut out each letter. Now I have an outline of the letters for the wall.

Step 6: Attach the paper letters to the wall. Stand back and make sure you like what you see.

Step 7: Nail around the perimeter of each letter. We needed the nails to be deep enough to provide a solid support for the yarn, but extended enough to provide space for a lot of yarn. This took us about an hour and a half.

Step 8: Start stringing. This took a while. It was exciting to see how each letter became more and more distinct and solid as we progressed from one layer to 9 or 10 layers. 

The final result was incredibly satisfying and beautiful. Quentin hung lights and it was...amazing.

Words can't describe how I felt on Easter morning, watching over 100 kids walk into the room and take it all in. 

JESUS

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.   –Matthew 1:21

Wood and nails seemed to be the natural choice for the name of Jesus.

A slightly crooked, rustic barn board was the perfect backdrop for a bucketful of broken and bent square nails.

On a crafting note, E6000 is our friend! We used this glue on many of the signs. This sign was my first test case for the glue, and I wanted to test its' holding power. I glued a nail to another board, let it dry overnight, and tried to pry it off.  Then I tried to hammer it off. The nail stayed attached to the wood, but I broke off an edge of the board.  I took this as a positive sign and we used it faithfully.

CHOSEN ONE

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.   –Isaiah 42:1

This sign is one of the most beautiful finished signs, but it was one of the most frustrating to make. It may have just been timing (spring break, towards the end of the project), but we were incredibly frustrated with this sign.

Our first mistake, or challenge, was that we really wanted to use the beautiful old barn wood from Robert and Chewie's farm. The boards must have originally been made out of oak or some other incredibly hard wood. However, through the ages, the wood weathered to a thin pithy texture in some parts. The result was wood that was rock hard in some places and as soft as cheese in others. 

Step 1: Lay out the letters

Step 2: Nail around them

Step 3: Repair the boards

Step 4: Nail again

Step 5: Catch the nails that fly out

Step 6: Nail again

Step 7: Cringe as more nails pop out

You get the idea. We eventually switched nails and the result was whimsical and appealing. We used a combination of roofing nails (with big heads) and framing nails (with small heads). The string art was done with an open randomized cross-cross texture using vintage colors of crochet yarn.

This photo looks like a joke in the making: "How many Hoosiers does it take to hang a sign made out of fragile barn wood, nails and string?"

CARPENTER

"Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here wth us?" And they took offense at him.   –Mark 6:2-3

Carpenter was our first "junk lettering" sign, and it was a lot of fun to put together. Sam helped me lay out an impressive array of the tools and "junk" we were given. This was one of three tables of junk, not including the items too heavy to place on a table.

We were incredibly pleased with our first junk sign.

Then Mike burst our bubble by telling us we couldn't hang rusty metal tools on rotten siding boards.

Killjoy.

He kindly offered to take on the task of reinforcing the sign with purchased (new) wood.

So we spent the next three weeks kicking Carpenter around on the floor while we moved on to other signs. Thankfully, Mike reinforced the sign, we attached the tools with a combination of industrial glue (E6000 is our BFF) and by drilling holes in the sign and wiring the tools to the boards.

The finished result is definitely one of my favorites, but it also presented quite a challenge to the talented crew on hanging day.

REDEEMER

"I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth."   –Job 19:25

Wendy and I spent a lot of time planning out the materials and names of God we would use, and we tried to make a connection between the name and medium whenever we could. When we arrived at Redeemer, we decided to look it up for a more definitive meaning.

Here's the search result from Google:

Oh—a redeemer is a person who redeems. Now it's very clear.
Further searching and more diving into scripture helped us arrive at this concept: a redeemer is a person who frees someone else, either from debt, obligation or slavery. What better way to illustrate this concept than with broken chains?