This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Church Name Quiz
Jul
3
2013
It was around this time a few years ago that I sent my first guest post submission to Jon Acuff. I titled it “Classifying Church Names”. Jon was positive in his email reply, but it never was published. After about 40 months of waiting for it appear on Stuff Christians Like, I am giving up on it and am publishing it here for you, dear reader. Enjoy!
When looking for a church, they key element to get right is the name. After all, a good name is to be more desired than great riches. But what makes a name good? As with many issues within Christianity, there are two camps on church names: descriptive or aesthetic.
The descriptive names include either the denomination or part of the doctrinal statement (or both). Some people say that the descriptive church names are bland and restrictive, but at least you know what you are getting when you go there.
And you know it’s a church. You don’t see businesses with traditional church names, like “Calvin Reformed Flower Shop” (specials on tulips!) or “Freewill Baptist Golf Course” (so that’s why the ball never goes where I want it to go…)
The aesthetic names include either a geologic feature or a direction (or both). But sometimes you need to do a little research before visiting the aesthetically-named church, in order to find out what kind of church it is and, more importantly, if it is a church. To help SCL readers hone their church-detecting skills, I present:
The Church Name Quiz
I took a sampling of names in my local area. For each name given below: what type of establishment is it?
1. Oak Pointe
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
2. NorthRidge
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
3. North Point
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
4. The Father’s House
A. Church
B. Rehab center
C. Restaurant
D. Bookstore
5. Stillwater
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
6. Woodside
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
7. Brookside
A. Church
B. Subdivision
C. Restaurant
D. Mall
Answers
1. A (you can tell by the extra ‘e’ on the end)
2. A (there’s an ‘e’ on the end of that one too)
3. C (these names are from my local area, not Jon’s)
4. A (no, it wasn’t a trick question)
5. C (at least they have “Grill” in the name)
6. A (see, it ends in ‘e’ again)
7. B (trick question)
If you want to total your points, go ahead. Each question is worth one point, but there’s no score chart to judge you.
I’m not going to try to settle the descriptive name versus aesthetic name debate. And I’m definitely not going into the topic of renaming existing churches. But if you want me to take a side…I’d vote for descriptive names. I mean, if you name a church something meaningless like “Willow Creek”… who would want to go there? That would never work.
For further reference: Adding ‘e’ to church names
saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Revelation 1:11
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:40 am and has been carefully placed in the Fun category.
July 3rd, 2013 at 7:03 am
I got every one wrong!
July 3rd, 2013 at 10:10 pm
Churches we tried here, that I remember:
Summit Ridge
Canyon Ridge
Grace Point
Northpointe
July 5th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Superfluous e : church names :: superfluous u : Canadian words