Featured Is it really that importatant for a Baptist church to have the name "Baptist" in their name?

When you say sister churches, are you talking about a local association?

 

Good luck with that.

A sample:

New City Church

New City Church

New City Church

 

Yes, just google, all manner of churches are adopting trendy generic names like that
All manner.

Former pastor Tullian Tchividjian's church was named that:

Tullian Tchividjian

"A grandson of (Evangelist) Billy and Ruth Graham, Tullian was the Founding Pastor of the former New City Church (in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) which merged with the historic Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in 2009....After a season of self-destruction leading up to, and following, his resignation from Coral Ridge in June 2015, Tullian is now married to Stacie"

 

If that's the case, why did you change the name?

 

He went into great detail in his original post.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL

 

Name changes are always hard - somebody always has a "better" idea.
The reasons you give fall in line with many of the common reasons churches change names.

Names connote different things in different locations.

A "New" Name church probably wouldn't work well in the NE Philly region.
Nearby is the Bryn Athyn Cathedral of the New Church, a Swedenbougian cult church of the New Jerusalem.

Rob

 

Mine doesn’t. Things seem to be working out fine.

 

I think the Baptist moniker is helpful but not necessary. I am more concerned with what comes out of the pulpit and whether the members show the love of Christ.

 

Because I hold certain very specific views regarding doctrine and church polity, I will _not_ attend a church that does not have "Baptist" in its name. Otherwise, neither I nor prospective attendees can tell whether e.g., "Celebration Church" is Baptist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, or even cultic, and I don't want to go church hopping here there and everywhere just to try and sort things out. Your mileage might vary, but I will remain consistent on that point.

 

I figured if the "Amen Church" was a member of the local "Smith River Baptist Association," then they were waving the baptist flag sufficiently enough that I wouldn't be concerned whether or not the word baptist was in their name.

My opinion only.

 

Nine Types of Trendy Church Names

You get the picture, but at the end he summarizes research that's debunked excuses often given for seeker-sensitive, pretentious namechanges.

 

Makes you wonder if churches that pick trendy names are setting themselves up for another name change at a not-so-distant time.

Yikes! I attend Crossing Community Church - who would have guessed that its a tready name?
That's been its name since its inception in the mid-1970's.
Our sponsoring church removed "Baptist" from their name a decade later.
We worship near Washington Crossing, PA so the name is a place name too.

Rob

 

When we lived in Northern Maine, in an area 95% RCC (and not coincidently, 95% Franco-American), the fundamental churches were almost all called "[town name] Bible Church." However, they were all thoroughly baptistic in doctrine and practice. There was a lone "Baptist" church, older than the Bible churches, in the mainly Scotch-Irish town at the end of pavement, a settlement isolated from other "English" areas by 50+ miles of Francophone towns. Perhaps, within that RCC enclave, "Bible Church" was sufficient to distinguish the works from the local religious establishment.

 

One church I formerly belonged to was clearly a strong Baptist Church (SBC) in name and practice. A few years after I left, it first dropped "Baptist" from its name, and later altered even what was left of the original name into "The Bridge Church ," in the process moving strongly into the charismatic movement with all the usual trappings. Yet even today it still claims to be "loosely" affiliated with the SBC -- do I recommend it to anyone, including a lost person? Absolutely not. My 2c.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention this: after the approximately 2-3 years of these changes _not one_ former member of the original Baptist church remained -- all had gone to various other churches that retained the "Baptist" moniker in their name.