Tens of thousands of Rochesterian commuters are confronted by “Jesus Saves” billboard every day.

Posted on by Tom

I took the above enlarged photo with my iPhone through the windshield of my car as I was driving home from work last week. I was driving around 60 mph at the time and took the photo with one hand. Definitely don’t try this at home! Forgive the poor quality.  Yes, I even photoshopped it as best I could.

Okay, so what about that “Jesus Saves” billboard in the photo?

Rochester, New York sits smack dab in the middle of the anti-Bible Belt. Ninety-five percent of the people here are either Roman Catholics, mainline (modernist) “Protestants,” or atheists/agnostics. We certainly don’t see a lot of “Jesus Saves” signs around here.

The huge “Jesus Saves” billboard sits aside Route 490 eastbound near the city center. It’s been there for a couple of months. Route 490 is the major east-west expressway in our county. Average daily traffic (ADT) on 490 at this location is about 100,000 cars per day. That’s A LOT of people reading “Jesus Saves” each day.

The Lord uses many people and things to draw souls to Him. I pray He uses this billboard on 490 to get people thinking about salvation in Christ. The smaller print on the billboard references John 3:16 and says it’s sponsored by The Shepherds Fold Church in Scottsville, New York. I checked the church’s website and I see it’s Pentecostal and teaches the prosperity gospel. Argh! Definitely not a church I would recommend. But I do pray the Lord uses the mammoth sign to get passing motorists to think about Him.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

Postscript: I remember before I accepted Jesus that I used to scoff at any “Jesus Saves” signs that I saw. My buddies and I would always be tempted to append “…Green Stamps” to any “Jesus Saves” signs or posters we encountered. If you’re younger than, say, fifty, I’m confident you have no idea what S&H Green Stamps were.

22 thoughts on “Tens of thousands of Rochesterian commuters are confronted by “Jesus Saves” billboard every day.”

  1. Good job on the pic!! I can’t take a good one standing still most of the time 😉
    I am 52 ( heading to 53 👍🏻) and I do remember green stamps!!!
    Great post and yes I will pray the same prayer!!
    GOD IS GOOD AND USES WHAT HE WANTS WHEN HE WANTS -TRUE PERFECTION HE IS ❤️❤️❤️

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    1. Thank you, Beth! I was embarrassed to use that poor quality photo, but I definitely didn’t want to attempt taking ANOTHER photo through the windshield while I was driving! Hey, I’m going to have to lower my cut-off age for remembering green stamps to fifty! We also had yellow Top Value stamps and A&P plaid stamps back in the day.
      Thanks for praying! Yes, the Lord uses many, many people and things to draw souls to Him.

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      2. They gave out green stamps at the #1 area grocery chain. The #2 chain gave out the yellow Top Value stamps. I don’t remember either green or yellow reclamation stores being all that exciting but the green was definitely better.

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  3. Excellent! Glad to see that. When I lived in Syracuse, Rochester was a part of my territory so I was over there once a month.

    I’ll date myself, I certainly remember Green Stamps. My mother used to have us spend Saturday nights wetting them to put them in the book so we could redeem them.

    Blessings.

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    1. Thanks, Michael! When I was heavy into my Polish heritage-phase, I used to frequent the Syracuse Polish Fest in Clinton Square every year.
      Oh yeah, green, yellow, and plaid stamps were a huge part of the weekly grocery shopping experience back in the day.

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  5. I pray God would use this to bring people to Himself; I’m always cautious of signs like this in LA because of the weird groups behind them usually, but sometimes I’m just glad for the simple message by a group of Christians (when they are Christians) even if they are not fully as solid as I want them to be

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    1. Thank you for your prayers! Religious billboard messages are pretty rare around here, The Mormons had one going for awhile. And there were a couple at the same billboard location that praised Jesus but there was no indication who the sponsor was.

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      2. Yeah, we’re pretty similar to New England in that most of the Protestant churches are dead mainline, even the Baptists. We also have a very large Catholic population (Irish and Italian) but that’s mostly nominal at this point.

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      4. Yup, the pastor of the previous church we attended came up here from North Carolina. He saw the Western New York area as pretty-much a Christ-less mission field.

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