churches eliminating "Baptist" from name...

[drfuss]

I can see why some churches remove Baptists from their names. If you have always been Baptists, you probably are not aware of some of the impressions that some non-Baptists have of Baptists. Before starting attending a Baptist church over 18 years ago, I heard a few comments like the following:

1. Baptists don't get along very well. It seems like there is always an issue causing disagreements.

2. Baptists think they know it all, i.e. I'm right, you're wrong attitude. We see some of that on here. They don't want to have to be like that.

3. Baptists have trouble getting things done because everything is done by committees.

4. Baptists believe in eternal security. You can become a Christian and then you can sin, stop believing, and do anything you want and still go to heaven because you believe in eternal security, i.e. OSAS. Most people can't buy this type of OSAS because they think a Christian should want to serve the Lord.

5. Baptists are required to attend classes learning Baptist doctrine.


Of course some of the above is not completely true and many other churches have the same types of problems. But since Baptist have open business meetings, some types of problems become kmown more than in other churches.

Due to the above misconceptions, I can see why some churches remove Baptist from their name.

 

[Mike Stidham]

There are some churches here that have done that. They either eliminate it or put the name Baptist so small in the title one cannot see it just driving by. I have no idea why it is done. It seems like across the country. I never heard of a Methodist or Presbyterian church doing so. It must be something about the word Baptist I cannot figure out.

The Methodist church here in my town has dropped the "Methodist" from its name, and now simply goes by "Christ Church".

Another neighboring Methodist church is planning to make the same move.

 

[Mike Stidham]

When I see a historically Baptist Church removing Baptist from their name I assume they are moving toward a more Charismatic church model in style and substance.

And you'd probably be wrong. In most cases, it's somebody reading too many Rick Warren books.

 

[David Lamb]

I haven't noticed it happening much here in the UK. But as I said in a BB Poll on this back in 2008 (here, if you are interested):

However, maybe the situation is different in the US, where it seems that not having the word "baptist" in the church name is looked upon as indicating disagreement with, or shame of, Baptist doctrines. Here, that is not necessarily the case. The church where Spurgeon was pastor is not called, "Elephant & Castle Baptist Church" (after the name of that part of London), but "The Metropolitan Tabernacle".
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I could give other examples. A baptist church which has a church name that does not include the word "Baptist" may not have dropped it, or been ashamed of being known as baptist.

 

[pinoybaptist]

The Methodist church here in my town has dropped the "Methodist" from its name, and now simply goes by "Christ Church".

Another neighboring Methodist church is planning to make the same move.

Must be the "sign of the times", then.

 

[annsni]

Interestingly enough, for some reason, we're a highly Catholic area and most will not set foot in a Baptist church. We have MANY people who would come to something at church but when they find out it's a "Baptist" church, they won't come. When asked why, they don't know - it has nothing to do with Baptist doctrine but they just don't like "baptist". I don't understand it.

 

[glfredrick]

I've just finished reading through this thread and have a few thoughts on the issue from the perspective of a church planter.

First, having Baptist (Methodist, whatever) in the name of a congregation can be important or not depending on the local culture in the place where that church exists.

In the Bible belt areas of America, for instance, NOT having Baptist in one's name (and more specifically, spelling out just which "flavor" of Baptist one is!) will probably lead to the death or non-start of a new congregation, for there are too many churches with too many distinctions -- even among Baptists -- for people considering a congregation to process. We see clear evidence of this on this board. Being a "Baptist" board, we see a range of theology that stems from hyper-Calvinist to Pelagian -- and all proudly waving a flag called "Baptist." I believe this is particularly so in the Bible belt area because there are so many churches.

Move to areas more commonly considered as "pioneer missions" areas, where the general evangelization of the populace is under 10% and using the name Baptist is almost anathema. People simply will not darken the door of a building with Baptist above that door. They don't know much about Baptists and their primary source of knowledge is from secular news -- rarely friendly in any sense of the word. In those areas, downplaying the distinctions is very helpful, and there may only be one Baptist church in any given community (or in some cases, an entire county!).

In some areas, churches have discovered a level of growth by eliminating the additional names on their signs. I was the pastor of a church with this name for about 5 years:

The Herald-Johnson Memorial General Baptist Church GBC

What I (we) discovered in a poll of people in the community surrounding the church was that the name of the church sounded more like a funeral home than a church, and the more words we held in our name, the less likely people were to potentially visit the church! No one, apart from the oldest congregation members knew who were "Herald" and "Johnson" and why the church was a "Memorial" to those names (which was a mistake based on good sentiments, but robbed God of His glory, in my opinion). Specifying "General Baptist" meant that we were probably out of the mainstream of Baptist churches in the area -- which we were! Adding GBC to the name indicated the particular denomination or sect of General Baptist that we were, but meant nothing to anyone who was not GBC, for no one else had a clue what that meant.

Oh, and we did the polling with a simple questionnaire while standing outside of a local Kroger and Wal-Mart. One can discover a LOT about one's home church by doing that... One will also note that there are a TON more people shopping at Kroger or Wal-Mart than are entering the church under ANY name, but that is a different story and in fact one of the reasons for church planting.

When I start a new church -- before we nail down the church name -- we think and pray for an apt name that will convey a message to the lost community around us. We presume that believers who know what they are looking for will be able to find and discern us based on lists of local churches, etc., all of which identified us as SBC, etc. But the target audience is rarely the already saved Christians who are just church shopping -- it is the lost who are yet without Christ -- so we discover what THEY think about potential church names.

We follow up the name selection with a soft community poll like I describe above. Positioning ourselves outside stores, movies, service stations, etc., we gather information from local residents about potential names for the church with a simple question, "Which of the following church names would seem most inviting to the community?" Then a list of several potential names.

Ed Stetzer shared a story about church names in his church planting course work... One of the potential names for a new church he was planting was "Lakeside". When he presented this name to the community, everyone laughed. as to why that was, Stetzer did some investigation, where he discovered that "Lakeside" was the name of the local landfill!

When I read the names of other churches, Baptist or not, I often chuckle... They can only possibly make any sense to the handful of people that grew up with the name. In our area, "Penile Baptist Church" is just such an example. A good biblical name that no one has ever heard of, that sounds like, well, you are all smart folks, you get it... :laugh:

 

[annsni]

We had considered "Island Baptist Church" but we soon found a very strict KJVO church about 4 miles from our "ground zero" for the location of the new church that was "Long Island Baptist" so that wouldn't work. If it wasn't for them, we'd possibly be "Island Baptist". However, as I said, the Baptist name is a scarlet letter here not because of doctrine but because of the name. So we considered more and more, knowing that we'd be having multiple church campuses on Long Island. We couldn't really use the name of our church since it's "Northport Baptist" and Northport is the name of our town (it's bad enough that it's located in East Northport) and that would be really weird to have a Northport church in another town. I suggested "Island Community Church" but it seems "Christian Church" was the one that won out. So that's what we are - Island Christian Church. We have two ICC campuses right now (one is opening on Palm Sunday and ours has been going since September) and there's discussion about making the home church the same (doing a DBA, I'd figure).

It really does stink that "Baptist" is such a scarlet letter around here. I'd love to keep it but honestly, when we've been on vacation and have sought out Baptist churches, we've not been happy with what we've found anyway so I don't think the "Baptist" name holds much meaning around here anymore.

 

[gb93433]

Interestingly enough, for some reason, we're a highly Catholic area and most will not set foot in a Baptist church. We have MANY people who would come to something at church but when they find out it's a "Baptist" church, they won't come. When asked why, they don't know - it has nothing to do with Baptist doctrine but they just don't like "baptist". I don't understand it.

My mother grew up in Minnesaota and when I was a kid she talked about the anti-Catholic stance by Baptists. That kind of language would not be very well received by Baptists if a group was anti-Baptist. How many Baptists would attend an anti-Baptist church if they knew nothing about it except to know it was anti-Baptist?

 

[HAMel]

Corporate Name Changes;

Brad's Drink, changed to Pepsi Cola in 1893

Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., changed to Sony

United Telephone, Centel, Central Telephone, Carolina Telephone, changed to Sprint

Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web, went to Yahoo!

BackRub, changed to Google, 1998

Airtran Airways, changed to Valuejet Airlines

Quantum Computer Services, changed to AOL

Business reasons for all the above changes. Marketing.

 

[preachinjesus]

The decision to either remove (or plant a church without) Baptist from the church name is usually a missiological decision that is prayed over and considered.

For unchurched and dechurched people, who we need to be focused on, a denominational moniker usually doesn't mean very much. Thus the decision is contemplated after much thought and prayer. It isn't a knee-jerk in the vast majority of cases.

The church where I serve doesn't have a denominational affiliation mentioned in the title. We have had zero complaints from people who we are trying to reach. It was a good decision.

 

[mandym]

One could pray over robbing a bank. Doesn't make it any more honest. Removing the denominational affiliation from the name in order to hide who you are and fool people to coming in and visit the church lacks Christian integrity.

 

[Tom Bryant]

There are so many different kinds of churches with the name "Baptist" in them that it is hardly an identifying name anymore.

Baptist tends to be a good name for those snowbirds moving here from baptists churches up north. But it really is a non-issue for others. But if it got in the way of reaching people, it's not a hill on which we'd die so we'd drop it in a minute.

 

[sag38]

I agree Tom. If a church wants to drop the "baptist" designation from thier name that is thier business. A church should be known for it actions rather than it's demoninational designation.

At a small town southern church I served in the past there were very severe eternal problems. In the midst of trying to solve the problems some folks thought that changing the church name would make a difference. I opposed it based on the fact that the reputation of a church in a small town has little to do with the name on a sign but more so with the overall reputation of the church in the community. When folks are fussing and fighting over petty internal issues (throwing stones in a glass house) the community hears about it and wants nothing to do with it. In a small town you can't even have a private bbq in your backyard without the entire town knowing about it. In a more metropolitan area where there is a much more diverse and mobile populace the word "baptist" may be an initial deterrent and better left off the marque.

 

[mandym]

If someone does not want to go to a "Baptist" church and a church removes "Baptist" (hiding who they are)so those people will visit anyway is that honest?

 

[luke1616]

Earlier today I found out that a church I used to attend...Morningside Baptist Church...is changing their name to Morningside *Community" Church.

This seems to be a trend these days, and I dont care for it.

Are they ashamed of the name "Baptist"?

Is it a "marketing" thing? They think it will bring more people in?

I thought it was God who brought people in?


I just dont like this trend. Why not be up front about being a baptist church???

Does the name "Baptist" bring them in, or does God? Besides that, we're supposed to go "out", not bring "in".
The word Baptist does as much as a fish symbol on the back of a mini-van, nothing. A true believer is a living epistle, as is the church body, not the name or the building or the club we belong to. That's a worldy belief trying to be Godly spiritual, lots of laughs, in my opinion.

 

[Crabtownboy]

The church I attend when I am home has debated removing the word "Baptist" from our sign ... but we have not done so. We have debated it because the word Baptist carries a very negative connotation with many people and that is sad. The primary reason we have kept the name is that we are Baptist ... in what I consider the traditional sense of the word, not what has evolved over the last 40 years. :jesus:

 

[Tom Bryant]

One could pray over robbing a bank. Doesn't make it any more honest. Removing the denominational affiliation from the name in order to hide who you are and fool people to coming in and visit the church lacks Christian integrity.

If a church dropped the name to hide what they were or to fool people, it would lack integrity, much less Christian integrity.

But many new church plants and older churches drop the name because it is an impediment to reaching their community.

 

[mandym]

If a church dropped the name to hide what they were or to fool people, it would lack integrity, much less Christian integrity.

But many new church plants and older churches drop the name because it is an impediment to reaching their community.

So how is one different from the other?

 

[Baptist Believer]

One could pray over robbing a bank. Doesn't make it any more honest.

Yep.

Removing the denominational affiliation from the name in order to hide who you are and fool people to coming in and visit the church lacks Christian integrity.

Yep, that would be an evil motive.

However, if Baptists in your region have gained a bad reputation (and your congregation has had nothing to do with it) or are greatly misunderstood, then it might be appropriate to change your name to remove potential misunderstandings/obstacles to those who might benefit from your fellowship.

If Baptists actually believe and obey the Bible (like we say we do), then not having "Baptist" on the sign (if there is one) is not hiding anything as long as we profess we are Christian. Moreover, I think a church's doctrinal stance can be explained on a Web site and in person where the Baptist distinctives/emphases are outlined.

One thing that no one has mentioned in this thread is that a seeker can investigate churches through Web sites and understand the church's official doctrinal position before they even darken the door. I have yet to see a church Web site where core beliefs are not listed.

Another charge in this thread that hasn't been confronted is the idea that "marketing" a church is somehow wrong. There are certainly many ways to market a church that are wrong, but there are also many ways to do it properly. And unless your church meets in secret and no one ever invites anyone to attend, you are probably "marketing" your church to the world through outdoor signage, personal invitations, descriptive words such as "Baptist" and "Church", ads in the telephone book, tracts with your church's contact information, and special events where the public is invited.

Yes, the name of a church *is* about marketing, but it is not necessarily evil.