Naming a Church
I am always fascinated by the names new church planters use for their congregations. We are in the one-word, two-word, at most three-word, era. One thing that helps reduce the number of words in a church name is to dispense with the name Baptist; some even don't use the word church. Oh well, be that as it may, I would like to share two thoughts on this subject; one tongue in cheek, and one for real.
I think I would like, just to be different, use multiple words for a church's name. For instance, how about "The Loyal Order of Non-creedal Apostolic Followers of the Bible in the United States of America, Incorporated"? When I was a boy, there was a church in Philadelphia that had a name longer than this. It had a national radio program we sometimes listened to. One year on vacation, Mom and Dad decided to be in Philadelphia for this church's Sunday morning worship service. It was baptism Sunday. They went outside, turned up the music, turned on the hoses, and started flooding people with water. It was pretty exciting to me as a kid. I had never seen anything like it, and never have since.
On a more serious note, I have named a church in the past. We named it Garden Baptist Church, playing off the theme that the Church is God's beautiful garden. Mary thought she was seeing the gardener on Resurrection Day. In a cosmic way, she actually was. If I ever name another church, I think I will steal the name of a Lutheran Church near my dad's house. It's called Beautiful Savior. I like that.