Churches Can Be Expressive Individualists, Too

What is the name of your church?  Why was that name chosen?  Have you ever thought about it?

Much has been made about the way people choose baby names these days.  We try to sound intellectual or original, modern or old-fashioned.  We want people to say, "Oh, what a [fill in the blank] name!"  As expressive individualists, we name our children so as to communicate something about ourselves.  

This is unavoidable, to a certain extent.  Naming things is inherently expressive.  What we choose to call something (animate or inanimate) will communicate something about ourselves and how we experience that thing, the world, etc., whether we like it or not.  This is good and has always been true.  Nevertheless, children's names today certainly seem to reinforce the expressive individualism that dominates our modern society.

Well, it turns out churches can be expressive individualists, too. 

A quick Google search reveals an interesting variety of church names in my area:

Grace Fellowship

Faith Family Church

First Christian Church

The Summit Church

Cathedral of Life

Cross Pointe Church

Greenwood Christian Church

NewPointe Community of Church

Church of the Lakes

Open Door Baptist Church

Be Life Church

St. Peter's Catholic Church

There's something about pointe (with an e), I guess.

It's easy to pick on the seeker-friendly names.  They're trying to sound hip and modern, we chide.  We appropriately question whether we should try to attract people to a church by making it sound less, well, churchy.  However, I think, if we reflect, we'll see that we are all guilty of this.  We are all giving in to the impulse to market ourselves to church shoppers.

We want people to know we're traditional and liturgical, so we pick our favorite saint (my home church is St. John's Anglican Church).  We want people to know we're not that kind of church, so we use words like Full Gospel or Conservative.  We wish to be perceived as welcoming, so we add some ambiguously inviting language at the front of our name.  We want people to know that we're theologically astute, so we label ourselves with our favorite doctrinal distinctive.  We aim to convey that we're just a simple church that doesn't play the games all those other churches do, so we call ourselves a Community Church and/or use the name of our local city, town, etc., despite the fact that churches aren't really local in the way they were 500 years ago, no matter how hard they try to be.  More examples could be offered, but I'm sure you get the point.

In fact, I don't really know what the point of this all is.  I just thought it was interesting.  I suppose it's helpful to be self-aware, and maybe this will help us to be less critical of other Christians.  We live in a consumeristic, individualistic society, and it seems impossible to be successful without acknowledging that and playing the game.  If you want to reach people, you need to be visible.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I think the same could be said of closed doors.  We try to avoid operating like a business, trusting God for organic growth, but reliance upon God certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't spend a little time ensuring our public persona isn't completely unprofessional.  It's a delicate balance.  How do we project our identity as a church without giving in to the spirit of the age?

So, what is the name of your church?  If you could rename your church (or name a brand new church), what would you choose?

Most importantly, why?