Naming a church is a dicey business. After all, you want a name that has meaning to those who are already there but is also welcoming to
those who are not. You want something catchy and modern but the church is ancient and timeless. You don’t want the same name as every other church in town yet there really are a limited number of names that communicate qualities of the church based on qualities of Jesus. Because house churches in theory could be anywhere, you don’t want to name it something too specific to a location. You want a name of which you would not be ashamed in 5 years as too old school or too trendy. You presume that you would know whether you have met these criteria based on your understanding yet the very people you want to appeal to do not even know you exist yet. So, what to do about a name? What if you have ‘buyer’s remorse’ with the name? What if people confuse you with some other church or worse yet, with some other kind of business like, say, the strip club down the street? You have to have cards to give to people you meet but you still don’t know your name. What to do, what to do? If you have the straightforward but slightly humorous streak I do, you admit the issue right up front. My cards say I’m pastor of No-Name-Yet United Methodist House Church Community. While we are working on a name, everyone knows this isn’t really our final name but they do remember us! And, we have an identity, no
matter how unnamed, to tide us over until we figure it all out. Have some suggestions? Send them my way!
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I still think you should call it Freedom UMC
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You never know what it will finally be.
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Freedom UMC has too much of a post 9/11 Ra Ra America feel to it. Not that patriotism is wrong, it just seems like the focus would feel too much on that from the outside.
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Just for a fun play on words you could always be the “KNOW THE NAME UMC” or “NAMES IN THE KNOW UMC” or “UM CHURCH OF NAMES” Yes you did ask the one person who loves words with ambiguity and many meanings… Really dont expect you to take any of them seriously but it was fun coming up with them and knowing some of the biblicity behind each one…
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Keep playing with the words. You may find it for us before we figure it out! We’re toying with The Open Door. Today I was thinking about an ad that says something like, “The United Methodist Church has created 10,000 doors into the church but the most important one is The Open Door.” Somehow I think the other 9,999 doors would disagree.
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