What's in a name?

With a sense of marketing akin to corporate research, a conservative congregation may seek to soften its image by switching from "Bible Baptist Church" to "Grace Fellowship." A Michigan church with 4,000 members changed from Temple Baptist to North Ridge Church three years ago. "People thought that the word `temple' meant that we were some kind of Jewish Messianic Baptist conglomeration," pastor Brad Powell told the Detroit Free Press.

Few Episcopal parishes excise the denominational tag. One exception is the Church of the Apostles in Lexington, Kentucky, which started with five people and now has about 110. It took over a seven-building campus, a former residential complex for people with disabilities, and has a ministry that tries to build bridges between disparate communities.

"Within a mile of us is the largest housing project in the city and one of the most affluent suburbs," said Martin Gornick, the rector. The church recently received a Lilly grant for pastoral renewal for hosting twice-yearly pastors conferences based on a book on "hospitality" by church member and seminary professor Christine Pohl.

The rector said he was looking for a nontraditional name for the unusual church when his then-bishop, Don Wimberly, now in Texas, came up with "Church of the Apostles." Operating in the South, Gornick added, "Every, once in a while someone asks us if we are Pentecostal or charismatic because the word `Apostolic' is associated with some of those churches."

Even one of the old nondenominational favorites, "community church," can cause interpretive difficulties, according to Lyle Schaller. Since its founding by Troy Perry in 1968, the gay-oriented Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches and its expanding network of local congregations have kept that neutral, nondescript name. But among other Protestant churches, Schaller said, "I see now some reluctance to use the word `community.'"

COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning