Okay, so it's time to unveil one of the most pondered, but not asked out loud questions of the last couple months: what's up with the clocks on the stage?!?There's really two parts to this question, one being "why clocks," and the other being "why are the times on all the clocks set to 10:10?" Well there are three answers to this 2 part question...
First of all, "why clocks?" As we looked into the encounters Jesus had with 
people of His day, I thought that, though it is a bit abstract for sure, that a sort of "looking into history" sort of a theme would be a simple allusion to the series. So we went with old looking pottery, old encyclopedias, as well as old looking burlap, an old looking brick wall, and clocks to give somewhat of a "look into the past" sort of idea as we uncover some of the encounters Jesus had in the first century.So yeah, kind of abstract, I know, but whatever, I think it looks cool.
As far as "why is the time set to 10:10" goes, the answer is two-fold.
First of all, our first Sunday morning services were at 10:10 back in 2002. We did this, mainly to be quirky, and also to allude to John 10:10 which states, "I have come that they may have live, and have it to the full." I thought that the reference to our first Sunday morning services would be fun, but even more-so it would be fun to references a scripture that really speaks directly to the idea of the series "Jesus Encounter." The idea that Jesus came to bring life to those He encountered. Not just those in the first century that we looked at, but to us as well.
The second reason for using 10:10 (really the third reason, as reason number one was sort of two-fold in itself) is far less spiritual, and more of a quirky pop-culture reference. Traditionally, most clocks that are displayed in stores as well as in ads are set at 10:10. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, 10:10 just "looks 
better" than any other time. It shows off both hands (for clocks that have ornate detail in the hands) and shows that the mechanism works properly (seeing a clock at 6:30 or even at 4:40 makes one think that the clock's mechanism is loose and the hands are falling down). Additionally, 10:10 looks like a smile, which subconsciously helps the customer to be more interested in the clock (this is true, I'm not making it up; and yes, it works). Lastly, most clock makers have their logo right underneath the 12, so having the clock read 10:10 frames the logo nicely, and even draws the eyes naturally to the center between the two hands to view the logo. Just to prove that this is correct, here's a photo I took with my phone while shopping at Wal-Mart just the other day:
And just for the record, when I bought the 5 clocks (at TJ Maxx, even), 3 out of the 5 were already set at 10:10.I thought it would be funny to set the clocks back to 9:10 when we had our time change, just to freak out the most observant of our congregation. Sadly, I never got around to it. :o)
