Honk If You Love Jesus: The Story Behind "Make A Joyful Noise"

Sam Butcher spent a lot of time in the carr. That's what happens when you're building a company from nothing — you drive to clients, to conventions, to anywhere that might say yes to what you're creating. And somewhere on one of those drives down a country road, he noticed a bumper sticker on the car ahead of them.

Honk If You Love Jesus.

Sam honked.

The woman driving the car ahead gave him a look that made clear she had entirely forgotten the bumper sticker was on her vehicle. And the look was not a kind one.

Undeterred, and perhaps enjoying himself more than he should have, Sam pointed at the bumper sticker and honked again.

The response from the woman was more of the same.

Sam laughed telling this story for years. Surely that woman, he always said, would have been mortified if she'd realized what was happening. But that was the thing about faith and joy — sometimes they show up in the most unexpected and sideways ways, in a horn honk on a country road from a man who believed God had a sense of humor.

From a Country Road to a Figurine

That awkward, wonderful moment on the highway became Make A Joyful Noise — originally proposed under the title Honk If You Love Jesus before a gentler name prevailed. The figurine has moved people to laughter, to tears, and to prayer in the decades since it was first introduced as one of the Original 21.

It is one of the truest expressions of what Precious Moments was always meant to be: not solemn, not distant, not religious in the way that keeps people at arm's length. But joyful. Human. The kind of faith that honks a car horn on a country road and then laughs all the way home.

The title comes from Psalm 98:4: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth." Sam found that noise in a bumper sticker and a bewildered woman who had no idea she was about to become part of history.

Make A Joyful Noise is one of the retired Original 21 figurines. The original can still be found at the Precious Moments Chapel Gift Shoppe in Carthage, Missouri.

The complete Original 21 Precious Moments figurines