Fair Haven Church, an 8 year old church in Middletown, DE, where I’ve been for just about a year as pastor has baggage. Anticipating a move to a new location and the need to update and redo our bylaws, we’re also looking at changing our name. This will essentially be a restart - new name, new location, etc.
I’ve talked with a couple of guys from our denominational office and asked them about the pro’s and con’s of doing this as it was suggested by one of these same people just before I came. The conclusion? You lose what credibility you had as well as the baggage you had and if you do change the name, move, don’t stay where you are, because people will catch on pretty quick.
Have any of you made a name change like this? If so, I’d like to hear your results.
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Changing our Name
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June 6th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
We’ve discussed a name change at our church (Calvary Baptist Church), but we haven’t done anything about it yet. I don’t even know what name we would change it to.
June 6th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Steve,
Our area is known as MOT (Middletown, Odessa and Townsend). I’m talking it over with our leadership team, but part of what we’re thinking of is Midtown Community Church playing off the Middletown and Townsend areas. You might consider looking at something your area is known for and work that in., ie Saddleback for the area in California, Northpoint for that area in Northern Atlanta.That’s just an idea. There’s a church in Birmingham, AL that actually created an area. The area around them was Brook Highlands and they called their church The Church of Brook Hills (brookhills.org). The church has become so influential that the area is called Brook Hills, not Brook Highlands…
June 16th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
david, good meeting you this past week… nice blog. hope the “name change/restart” thing works out…