So now that we’ve began sharing our call to go start a new church in the South Bay area of San Jose, CA, many people have began asking us a lot of great questions. One of the biggest questions people began asking us has been, “What are you going to call this new church plant?”
The funny thing is, I found it far more difficult naming our church than naming our kids! For one, we’ve talked about our kids names since before we had even got married. We already had meaning, values, and family history that we wanted our kids names to reflect. But naming a church has a variety of factors to consider that, unlike naming a child, are difficult to think through. The primary purpose of a church name is to communicate something to the people who are not yet a part of your church. In other words, branding.
Branding is simply what people think of when they hear, see, or remember your organization. Branding, despite the negative perspective that some associate with the term, is an unavoidable reality. Every organization, such as a church, is communicating something about themselves – whether intentionally or unintentionally – and that is branding. So here are some of the factors that we considered when choosing the name for our church plant to the South Bay area:
- Culture: If the point of branding is to communicate something to the people you are trying to reach, then how do those people think? What does their current value system look like? What from this culture should we, as a church, receive? What can we redeem? What should we reject?
- Vision: No two churches are alike. Nor should they try to be identical. God has made his Body of believers to be diverse, and while naming our church, we should consider the unique calling God has given us. We knew that our church was going to focus on people finding “life in Christ.”
- Need: If every church is different, how has God uniquely shaped our team to do something about real needs in this community? Jesus healed, fed, and ministered to the “broken-hearted”. Not every church is capable or called to reach people through addiction recovery. But maybe they are capable of creating an out-of-this world ministry to families, college students away from home, or people who have felt “burned” by a previous religious background. We specifically felt shaped to reach young adults, families, and people with little or poor church experiences.
- Values: Past the Biblical, doctrinal beliefs that every church should adhere to, what are the values that we want to become synonymous with the brand of this church? We knew that while our church plant’s vision would focus on “life in Christ,” our values had a consistent theme of change: healed relationships, broken addictions, new futures in Christ, “old things past away, all things become new” kind of change.
Other factors that we considered in our naming process included location and denominational monickers. In terms of location, we realized that what happens in the South Bay impacts the world. So we decided that we would not choose a name that tied us to a particular street, neighborhood, or even our target area. Some church leaders insist that churches name themselves according to geographical names, but we were more focused on connecting with the people of our target area than the geographical names already surrounding us. Naming a church on geography is not a “good or bad” thing. We just decided that it was not going to be a focus of our naming process.
In terms of denominational identifiers, we are a Baptist church plant, sent by a Baptist sending church, supported by a Baptist sending agency. However, we realized that the denomination tag was a stumbling block to the Gospel for the people we were called to reach, who had no affection for the name that, to me, had always meant “Bible-teaching.” So while the name had value to me, it was counter-productive to getting a chance to share the Gospel. And since dropping the name “Baptist” didn’t mean dropping the conviction we held to being “Bible-teaching” we knew the right decision for us was obvious.
In my next post, I’ll share the names we considered, how we researched the branding value of those names, and how we ultimately decided what our church would be called.
Blessings,
Pastor John
This is super interesting. I’ve never thought about how much a church’s name influenced its mission until this. But I remember when I was trying out churches after moving to LA, I tended to avoid churches whose names sounded too “cool” or like they belonged to a live show or concert arena because they probably weren’t a good fit for me or my needs at the time. My church, Oasis, is exactly what I needed after experiencing the culture shock that came with my move – a place where God’s consistent love helped me stay grounded.
I’m so excited for you and Tiffany! I can’t wait to come see your new church, whatever its name is!