First Church of Christ; Second Baptist Church; Grace Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship. I’m constantly aware of churches as I travel, evaluating buildings, sign texts, presentation to the community, context, upkeep, etc. I observe from several perspectives. First is usually – as you can guess – the architecture. What does the architecture tell me about the congregation I might expect to find there? Is it attractive? Inspirational? Weird? The second perspective I observe from tends to be one of outreach. If I was an unchurched person driving by, is there anything that would compel me to visit there, or anything that might repel me. Beyond the architecture, changeable letter church signs are a part of this outreach observation process.  I scratch my head sometimes when I read these. I wonder ‘who is the church trying to speak to with their message?’ Some are hilarious, but I’m not sure that the unchurched will get the joke. Other messages are so steeped in Christianese that the unchurched can’t understand. And then there are the “turn or burn” seeker-desensitized messages that tend to make me burn. The third perspective of my evaluation is from that of a relatively Biblically literate person. And this is where church names particularly come into play.

I usually consider church names from the outreach / unchurched perspective, and this vantage point causes me to think that most churches should change their name. I commend the ministries that do so – often despite dissent from some members who fail to understand the unchurched perspective. These dissenters may even claim a Biblical mandate for maintaining the original name. But Biblical literacy alone suggests that some churches change their name. For example, today I drove by a church that I have driven by numerous times; Grace Independent Baptist Church. As a Christian, I understand what their name means: they are a church that ascribes to traditional Baptist theology but are not a part of any Baptist denomination, being independently or self-governed. However, from a Biblical perspective, they would be far better off being ‘Grace Dependent Baptist Church’ than Grace Independent. (As a Christian desiring to live Biblically, I would much rather be part of a church that heralds its grace-dependency than its governmental independence!) The ‘First’ churches also fall into this category for me. After all, Jesus said the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Doesn’t this warrant the Last Methodist Church? That name could even work from an outreach perspective. People may think it is like an animal on the endangered species list and flock to see it before it’s gone! Why my mind has wandered in this direction today is a mystery to me. Perhaps it’s due to the more intense examination of scripture and my own life that I have been going through recently. Or perhaps it’s the leftover meds from surgery last week. Whatever; I would just like to see churches consider more carefully the things they have inherited and lived with for years – whether facilities or names – and see if it’s time for a change.

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