A church by any other name is still a church, Right?

By EvangelismCoach • February 2, 2007

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I’ve often been asked about church names. I found an article on line by Chris Forbes called, “What’s in a name?”

I remember when our church had to get a new sign made.

We evaluated dropping our Presbyterian brand from our name for various reasons –

We were embarrased by our denomination,
Most of our attenders didn’t have a presbyterian background,
We were presbyterian in our form of government,
Some people can’t spell presbyterian
There are 16 presbyterian denominations (or whatever the number was)
What does “Presbyterian” mean?

We read church growth books, listened to marketers, and studied the issue until it could be studied no more.

Would removing the name rename our church?
Would we loose something in dropping the brand?
Would we be denying our heritage?
What do unchurched people think? (Funny, i’m not sure we asked any, just read what others who asked determined).

What did we do? We kept the name, because —- it filled in the white space on the size sign that we ordered. The most spiritual of all reasons.

Actually, I think we decdided to keep the name since it was part of our congregational slang. We were “xxxxx Prez.” This term had become such common parlance that our newsletter used it, our marketing used it, and even our website! We kept it simply because it was part of our identity.

I’m sure there might be other reasons, none of which i can remember anymore. But we did take on the question as part examining the church’s outreach — did our church name serve or hinder our outreach purposes. Ultimately, i’m not sure we ever answered this question.

Let me ask you this:
Does your church name hinder or help your outreach?