Seeing an Old Friend in a New Way — The One Great Hour of Sharing Logo

by Alan Krome
Associate for special offerings for Mission Interpretation

This year’s One Great Hour of Sharing posters — yes, there are two of them this year — have a new figure in the center.

OK, but what is it?
It’s the new One Great Hour of Sharing logo ...
Yes, but what is it?

If members of your congregation — or you — look at the new logo with a touch of perplexity, that’s fine. Consider it a teachable moment. And then help them decipher it. Or get them to help you.

First a little history.
For many years, One Great Hour of Sharing had no logo. It had a familiar if somewhat cumbersome name and a lot of tradition, but no logo. Then, about 15 years ago, the focus was placed on the word “Hour” in the logo. That hour came from the hour-long broadcast on a Saturday night in March 1949 that first invited Christians to give to help meet the needs of those devastated by World War II. (It probably also came from the service the next morning when they were invited to give that offering to their church.) So the logo introduced in the early 1990s was an hourglass image.

The problem was, many people thought, this focused on the most limiting
part of the offering’s name. So, after a few years, a new designer decided the real logo was the offering’s name itself, with a focus on the word “One,” highlighting the fact that millions of Christians in many denominations join together in this single offering. But that still didn’t feel like a logo.

Now, the people from all the denominations receiving the offering decided to focus on the other big word in the name: sharing.

About this new logo ... what is it exactly?

This year some congregations will be receiving the offering for the 60th time, and now there’s this new logo. What is it supposed to be, or mean?

Well, like the offering itself, it’s more than one thing. And also like the offering, it’s complex on the surface but with a couple of very simple concepts at the heart. And finally, like the offering itself, it may require a new way of seeing to really get it.

That said, I invite you to walk through a process of exploring the logo, one that you can adapt and no doubt improve for your own congregation.

What do you see when you first look at this figure?
Share your perceptions and those of anyone else who is looking at it with you. You might want to write them down on newsprint so that you don’t forget any of them. Then read the following perceptions to see if there are some you didn’t see.

For each of those listed, close your eyes, then open them looking to see that particular figure. Some may not appear that clearly to you, but don’t worry about it. Just move on to the next one and see if you see it. As you
become comfortable with the fluidity of the image, you may see some images later that you didn’t see at first.

Some people see an image of the globe as seen from space. Can you? (Don’t frustrate yourself by looking for particular continents.) Some people see a fruit with leaves sprouting out of the stem at the top. Can you see that? Some would say that with its rough edges, it looks more
like just the seed or pit at the middle of a fruit, like a peach or plum pit. Can you see that? Others see a heart in the middle of the world. Can you see that?

Do you see any human figures in the image?
Some people can see them right away, while others have a very hard time seeing them. It’s a figure/ground perception thing, like the traditional image of the chalice/faces. If you have a hard time seeing people in the image, try reversing which is the ground and which the figure, as you would do with the chalice/faces illusion. If you still have difficulty, try putting a piece of paper over the right side of the image. Now what do you see?

What do you see the people doing? Why do you think they are related as they are?

Now, in what ways might the images above relate to One Great Hour of Sharing? Look at the images different people have seen and decide whether each of those images reveals something different about the mission of the offering.

What about the fish?

Good question. Unlike our ecumenical colleagues, the Presbyterian One Great Hour of Sharing team decided several years ago that the fish was probably the image most Presbyterians associate with the offering, and since then we’ve emphasized it in a number of ways. For the most part, those have been in our children’s materials — the coin box and the stories about Gracie. Those will continue, as will our identification of the offering with the fish. However, as far as an ongoing image that represents the offering to both children and adults of all the denominations that receive the offering, we are excited to introduce the new logo.

If you think of creative ways to use the new logo with your congregation or to introduce it to them, please share those with us, either by sending an email or by going to the Sharing Ideas page on our One Great Hour of Sharing Web Site.