Anyone can tell how long a church has been around (or had a makeover) by their name.
What was cool in a church name 50+ years ago (pre-1960′s):
•A denominational affiliation, a city, and a number (for the super cool).
•Examples: 1st Baptist of Lodi, First Church of the Nazarene, St. Marys of Springfield.
What was cool in a church name 50 years ago (1960):
•Churches with Biblical significance
•Examples: Bethel Church, Church on the Hill.
What was cool in a church name 30 years ago (1980):
•Anything that can be broken into an acronym with buzzwords like “Community”, “Family”, and “Center”.
•Examples: Central Community Church, Family Faith Center, Christian Life Center.
What has been cool in a church name for the past 15 years (1995-today):
•Something more ambiguous and artsy without the blatant Christian affiliation. And without the 80′s buzzwords, “Community”, “Family”, and “Center” .
•Examples: The Journey, Mosaic, Pathway.
What do you think will be cool in a church name for the next 15 years?
Next time you use our church name please include a link http://www.PathwayPaloAlto.com!
Church names that redefine what a church name can be, maybe something like 360 Church
How about the Church of Josh’s Jesus Journey. JJJ.
How about Rever? (That’s our church’s name) It means “to dream” in French. We specifically tried to stay away from the trends…
I can imagine some churches being so fluid and ingrained in a local context that they won’t have a corporate identity beyond their connection to Christ and one another.
I was attending a church plant in Santa Cruz for a while that went without a name for about a year. Then the IRS required them to form a corporate identity. Leave it up to the feds to ruin an organic community.
But I see what you’re saying. Maybe if we knew ourselves by who we are and not what the church sign says, maybe we’d be known in the community for that as well.
I’m thinking that many churches will be referred to as “Joe’s house” or “Tina’s place”…. not literally “Church of Joe’s House” but I believe the way things are moving, the meeting place will be in homes. Home Groups. Cell Groups. Jim’s place on Oak Avenue. Whatever it’ll be called, I think one day the ‘mega-church’ will dwindle down to ‘meeting at Tracy’s apartment tonight’… instead of having $5M budgets, paying $1000′s a month for utilities, spending a ton of money of playscapes and coffee shops, paying facilities for landscaping our extravagant parking lots and shaping trees to look like ten-foot angels standing guard and greeting those who drive onto our church campus each Sunday morning… I’m thinking we’ll eventually meet in homes. Not necessarily because of lack of attendance in church buildings, but I’m wondering how long before the IRS puts such a restriction on our financial liberties that large churches find it difficult to operate the way we do.
I like coming together on Sunday mornings…. love our Coffee House and that people meet there for coffee and scones… love seeing the kids play on the playscape… but if we put our monies together and really focused on needs/missions/benevolence, more than purchasing ‘bate’, we’d accomplish so much more.