Thursday, January 24, 2008
#24. Church names that sound like clothing stores.
My cousin goes to church at a place called "Warehouse 242." There's another church in his area that recently started called, "Elevation." Across town from my dad's church is a place simply called "The Summit." I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point we started naming our churches after stores that sell designer jeans. And I'm cool with that. I don't think you have to name something the "Back to the Bible Holiness Church" which is outside of Atlanta in case you want to attend. And more than that, it opens up some good conversations with people. Imagine you're at work on Monday and someone says, "What'd you do this weekend?" You can reply "I hung out at Elevation." Your friend will then say, "Is that the new salsa/techno/hip hop/Southern Cambodian traditional dance club? I've heard the girls in that place are ridiculous." At which point you can then say, "No, it's a church" and then proceed to share the entire gospel with him. OK, maybe you shouldn't do that, but at the bare minimum, saying you went to "Elevation" is going to at least keep the conversation rolling where if you said, "I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' over the weekend," your friend is going to throw an imaginary smoke bomb and climb out of a window to get out of the conversation. So maybe interesting names are a good thing.
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26 comments:
lol, that was hilarious
oh my... I love this.
P.S. - I did a search for "Back to the Bible Holiness Church." There are a bunch of them. Two in Georgia, one in Alabama, one in North Carolina. And those are just the ones with websites. How many "Back to the Bible Holiness Churches" do you think actually know what the Internet is?
Ha! My church recently changed their name. The choices were "Westside Chapel" and "Gracemark". The latter is JUST what you described, and HOLY COW I'm glad that Gracemark lost! We are now Westside Chapel... and we have morning worship services, too, not "experiences". Go us! Now, if only the elders would get rid of the greeting time during the service, bless their hearts... ;o)
Man bro, you are a master of the tounge and cheek. Great creative writing, I saw the whole smoke bomb and ladder in my visual.
Is a Gracemark anything like a skidmark?
That's really neat, I moved from Canada to take bible school near Charlotte NC and I have been to both warehouse 242 and Elevation. They are very trendy. Elevation grew from like 2 families to about 3,000 members in 2 years.
I go to Elevation!!!
Heck yes.
Near NC State in Raleigh there is a church called Vintage 21 which bought the building that used to be Jilians bar. Very trendy.
I just found your page through swerve.lifechurch.tv, and I love it, but when I saw this post I about died. I live in High Point but have attended services at all 3 of those churches you mentioned. I'm studying to be a pastor and when I start my church, I'm thinking I'll name it "Church". That way, the conversations will be more like "Hey, what did you do today?" "Oh, I went to Church!" Or, "I think I'm going to Church tomorrow, will I see you there?" "Sure, but where do you go?" "I just told you..."
Chattanooga - "Club Fathom"
yeeeeah.
I'm at work now on lunch break and nearly choked to death trying not to laugh out loud. I attend Elevation Church here on the Gold Coast in Australia.
Oh, and your blogs are brilliant. You have a gift.
God bless
I know a few people who attend Elevation here in Charlotte and they love it, which is cool.
I remember going to one church, I forgot the name, but it was during Christmastime and they were spraying fake snow on everyone during worship. It was WACK. Or should I say, wiggity-wiggity-wack?
haha if I said "I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' over the weekend," I'm pretty sure my friends would actually be more interested in what I'm saying. They'd probably look at me like I was strange but I've been known to be a bit of a lunatic at times.
basically
"I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' over the weekend,"
"what? fo' cereal?"
"Yeah, man, isn't that, like, the coolest name you can have for a church?"
"haha, what'd you do there"
which at one point from a to b would find itself on a large tangent but that's besides the point.
I've found that people name youth groups or buildings where the youth goes trendy things. I know I misplaced my modifier but I am striking out against the injustices of the English language. Or maybe I can't figure out how to say it.
i had a really weird conversation with someone a few weeks ago along these lines. A local young adults ministry has the same name as a clothing store. She was thinking of one, i was thinking of the other.
I go to Blue Mountains City Church.
Aptly named, seeing as it's a Church in the city of the Blue Mountains.
But we do have some pretty trendy names:
our Youth Ministry is called ONE, and the "creative ministries" department is just called "Creative". woah. the slickness is blowing me away.
How about Overcoming Faith? Hmm, do I need to overcome it?
How about Inspiring Body of Christ, and IBOC for short?
There are times when a "trendy name" can be nice. I get a little tired of telling people I attend First Evangelical Free Church of Austin or Boulder Chinese Evangelical Free Church.
Thankfully EFree churches tend to abbreviate very well (FEFC, BCEFC for example).
'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' -i literally laughed out loud at that!
my church is called Portico. which creates a problem in our area because about a year ago a restaurant opened up in our city called The Portico. many times people don't even bother to ask what Portico is anymore because they assume that we are talking about the restaurant. it's pretty funny. we want to make a t-shirt that says Portico on the front and THE CHURCH on the back. haha
Step Off Ministry...that is the bomb. Not the smoke kind
We have a "GUTS" church here in Tulsa. I'm afraid I haven't had the guts to visit.
@savinggrc: I go to Guts (which is what it takes to follow Christ). It's pretty awesome.
Also, my parents go to what is now called "Discovery Bible Fellowship" which used to be "Westport Mennonite Bretheren Church" and "Collinsville Mennonite Bretheren Church" before that. I have no idea where the whole "Westport" thing came from (since there are no major bodies of water that the church is close enough to be a "port" of).
Hi there :) Another "Porticorican" here. Like Katie, I go to Portico, (THE CHURCH), not the steak house. At least we're not nicknamed "Six Flags Over Jesus".
Oddly enough, I recently stopped attending a church nicknamed "Six Flags Over Jesus." Also affectionately (and mockingly) known as "Fort God." Now I'm involved in a church plant, and tonight we're voting on a name. We're torn between traditional and trendy. Not sure which side of the line we'll fall on, but maybe "God Is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral" should go on the list before the vote. Ha!
Wow. . . comments here have gone for well over a year!
I work for a church called Liquid Church, and the conversations that can move from that are pretty awesome.
-"Why is your church called 'Liquid'?"
~"Well, for starters, liquid refers to Christ's reference to 'living water' in the book of John."
-"What is 'living water'?"
~[Hehehe. I got 'im!]
I go to All Saints. So lame. You'd never buy jeans at a place called All Saints. Then again, you won't mistake my church for a shopping center.
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