A Fascinating Window

Shop window dressing is an art.  I live in a town with many high street shops, yet most seem to have either never heard of the art or just do not possess sufficient imagination.  Have you ever wondered why there is such a thing as window dressing?  If the purpose was merely to inform potential customers what is in stock, that could be done effectively with a printed list.  If the purpose is to display what is in stock, that would make more sense.  Clothing shops seem to presume this, so their shop windows have dummies variously dressed in the latest fashion (hopefully).  But the fact is that the purpose of window dressing is more than that.  It is about promoting sales.  Used intelligently, that space inside the window could be the secret of a successful business.

I grew up in Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea where some shops knew a thing or two about window dressing.  One of my childhood delights was to stare into the window of a seaside toy shop.  It was full of toys and games, surrounded by a model railway.  There was a slot on one side of the window, and an old penny pressed into it would start the train with its various carriages and trucks running on a circuit around all the other items in the display.  It would have been interesting if the train ran all the time, but the fact that you could interact with the display – you could make it run – added enormous value. If there wasn’t already a small crowd at the window, one would begin to form as soon as someone inserted the coin.

The town also ran an annual competition on the best dressed window in its town centre shops.  And a strange competition where we would have to spot shop windows that included an item that was nothing to do with the shop.  For example, a potato in the window of a clothing store!

For many years I have been teaching that a key purpose for the existence of the Church, and each of our churches, is to be God’s shop window.  I was therefore intrigued to read J.B. Phillips’ translation of Colossians 3: 12-14, which appears under the heading, “The Expression of the New Life”.  It reads:

“As, therefore, God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.”

The whole chapter is fantastic, but it was the word, “God’s picked representatives” that jumped out at me.  It seemed as if he was saying that we are what God has selected to put in his shop window.  The way we live and behave not only displays the work of God’s grace but, if we get it right, promotes the gospel and attracts people into ‘the store’.

I started this piece by stating that shop window dressing is an art.  A great shop window will have employed creativity to take the display to a higher level.  There is a Christmas film I have enjoyed over recent years, called Window Wonderland.  A young woman is given the opportunity to design a big store’s annual super-window.  As she struggles to come up with a good idea, life is further complicated by a competitor.  As I don’t want to spoil the story for those who have not seen it yet, I will only share two points from the story.  The first is that the window must present the traditional values of the store.  The second is that it must engage the interest of the contemporary public.

Similarly, our lives as Christians, both individually and corporately, must present the core values of the kingdom of God.  There needs to be holiness, integrity, and the beauty of love, worked out within an ungodly, often false and self-motivated world.  But if this is incorporated into a culture that belongs to a bygone age, it will be ineffective.  Those responsible for running the store on behalf of its owner could do with a great deal more creative imagination to ensure that there is a window that attracts because it effectively communicates the product to a contemporary world.

And, just in case the point has been missed, the ‘window’ is not Sunday church at 10.30 (or whenever), though it certainly should be part of it.  Church is a 24x7 living entity and needs to be something much more than a statement about the good news in Jesus.  It needs to be an honest display of the power and the qualities of the good news, lived out in a way that a passing world will stop and wonder and – hopefully – be attracted to come in.  And in that shop window, we would rather not have an object that is alien, like that potato in the clothing store.  Let there be nothing out of place.

Barry Osborne – 23 June 2018