Removing or Omitting "Baptist" From Your Church Name

If you're sure that the average person knows nothing of good ol' baptist politics, why would you expect them to know the finer nuances of doctrine and distinctive that might be conveyed in the name?

For us, we're in the heart of the Bible Belt, and there are Baptist churches on almost every corner. We're really not interested in attracting saved people. We're here to reach the lost.

 

Your not in kentucky. I did say, HERE. Meaning adding or using the words from my list and a lot of people automatically stay away, it does not help them attract, it repels.

 

I remember well the first time I attended a church with Baptist in its name. I would not go to a Baptist church for over ten years later based on my only experience. My first experience was that the Baptist church was charismatic. Later other Baptist experiences were with people coming through town. At the time I lived in a evry nice town on the water and people would coime through on a bicycle trip. Often they asked where they could stay and I would invite them to my house with my roommates. It gave us a chance to witness to them. So often we noticed that the Baptists were not saved. They grew up going to a Baptist church but did not know Christ. That served to reinforce my views of Baptists. When I first my roommate two years earlier he also attended a Baptist church and was saved but acted more like the world. Each time I visited him he often had Pink Floyd playing. I worked for a man who was a member of FBC . . . . He regularly cheated customers. That served to further reinforce my views of Baptists.

I think a lot of what Baptist means depends on the person's personal experience with Baptists.

 

After reading threads on this forum for almost two years, it appears to me that many of the members here would affirm that the Baptist distinctives lie in three areas: [1] how the church is constituted and govern itself; [2] the qualifications for and the doctrines defining church membership; and [3] the work, business, and ministry of the church.

[1] Most Baptist churches where I have held membership or that I have been familiar with use a Congregational form of government in which the congregation, assembled and voting in a proper business session (according to that church's by-laws), is the final arbiter of all matters before it. The church establishes its own constitution and by-laws and is responsible to itself for adhering to them. As for external relationships, the church, if it so desires, can associate with other like-minded churches at the local, state, and national level. As we have seen in the recent past, it can change its affiliations as it desires to.

[2] Here again, the individual church establishes these requirements for itself. Usually, these would include believer's baptism by immersion, the absence of the use of creeds, and the practice of the principle of the priesthood of the believer. Also, there may be limits on Christians from other denominations who desire membership. They may have to be immersed even if they were baptized but in a different manner (e. g., sprinkling).

[3] Again, the individual church will establish its own priorities for what it will do. The church covenant of the church where I am a member calls on us to maintain a ministry of worship, evangelism, education, and service. That covers our worship services, Sunday School, music programs, missions organizations, and projects in the community done by the church itself and by individual members.

I want to mention one other thing that I think is pertinent to your question. Walter Shurden's book The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 1993) is a fine summary of Baptist principles. Here are the statements that begin the four chapters:

Bible Freedom: . . . the Bible, under the Lordship of Christ, must be central in the life of the individual and church and that Christians, with the best and most scholarly tools of inquiry, are both free and obligated to study and obey the Scripture.

Soul Freedom: . . . the inalienable right and responsibility of every person to deal with God without the imposition of creed, the interference of clergy, or the intervention of civil government. [also called "soul competency", "the priesthood of the believer", and others]

Church Freedom: . . . local churches are free, under the Lordship of Christ, to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, to ordain whom they perceive as gifted for ministry, male or female, and to participate in the larger Body of Christ, of whose unity and mission Baptists are proudly a part.

Religious Freedom: . . . freedom OF religion, freedom FOR religion, and freedom FROM religion, insisting that Caesar is not Christ and Christ is not Caesar. [Emphasis is Shurden's]

Tim Reynolds

 

That is true of any church. No church is perfect because it is made up of people.

 

I serve in a church that is a plant which never included the label "Baptist" in their name. We don't believe for a second it is disingenious. Where we are located the term Baptist is a loaded term and for the unchurched and dechurched people we are trying to connect with it is a hard enough sell to get them into a church environment much less an environment that has a particular name attached.

Now in all of our publications and in our membership process we state explicitly that we are a Baptist church and hold to Baptist distinctives. Here's the thing...the truly unchurched and dechurched don't care about most Baptist distinctives they just want to know how to love Jesus better.

We don't throw arrows at the numerous Baptist churches in the area, frankly we love them and have (and will) partner with them in ministry to reach those outside the church.

Now one unique slant on this argument is that Baptists have, historically, had an amazing doctrinal influence on how we do church. Take any number of "unaffliated" or non-denom churches (whether they are or just state it that way) and look at their polity and beliefs and most fo the you'll find a Baptistic church. That is pretty huge.

I honesty don't care if your church carries the name of the particular brand of denominational polity to which you subscribe. I do care about how you are reaching or not reaching the community around you and the unchurched and dechurched in your midsts.

A label is just that, a label. Having it cool if that is how you want to roll. If you don't, no big deal for us. What really matters isn't the sign on the street it is the Spirit within.

 

Hi everyone


I agree with Tom Butler and donnA:

It all has to do with marketing:

In other words, this is just one more side, of “The Church growth movement”!

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i.e. Seeing “Church Growth”, as “the most important thing”.


But John the Baptist didn’t think so.......

(Please see the context)

 

Not sure I know anyone who's part of the "church growth movement", but for my church, and for others like us that I know of first hand, growing our church is not the most important thing. For us, the most important thing, and really the only thing is reaching the lost and making disciples. Funny thing is, when we reach the lost and make disciples, our church grows!

Thanks for looking into my heart and checking my motives though.

 

Thom Rainer, in Surprising Insights from the Unchurched, shows that having a denominational name makes virtually no difference to the unchurched.

 

To my unchurched family of 6, it made all the difference in the world.

I remembered how much I liked hearing the traditional hymns from next door to a Baptist church when I was very young.

When we left the RCC, we were unchurched for a time and when we decided we needed a church, I looked for the name 'Baptist'.

I didn't know the difference in the churches, but we visited an IFB. Dh, myself, and all four of my children were saved and scripturally baptized within a month.

That was 35 years ago and we're still there...seeking the lost and discipling the saved.

 

Again, I'll team up with a First Baptist Church of Anywhere that is reaching people who need Christ and seeing lives changed over a community church or denomationally neutral named church that is holed up and inspecting their navels any day.

The name means nothing. How we reaching people means everything.

 

Thom Rainer.... couldn't possibly be any bias there, huh? Barna research shows differently.

 

Most of church membership is not about new Christians but transfer membership. How they see themselves will be demonstrated in their outreach, discipleship, and advertising. Most websites are about giving information to the person looking for a new church rather than dealing with non-believers.

Fighting will foil anything the others who are living for Christ try to do. Until the fighters are gone then there is little hope for the church which is like concrete--all mixed up and permanently set.

 

:thumbs: - there ya go...

 

Titles

I understand the mixed emotions on the issue.

On one hand the name Baptist leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths because a particular baptist church or individual did something to them. So some churches are trying to distance themselves from the stigma attached to the name baptist.

But at the same time I am not going to change my last name just because a person with the same last name as me did something horrible. That would be crazy! No I am going to set to to prove that I am much different from some others who have the same name that I do. Baptist need to be honest and admitt that we have many flaws; one we embrace it we can correct it. I think that is what the unchurched need to see; honest people (honest about who they are and where they are coming from). So i say lets keep Baptist in our church names and try to correct some of stigmas out there attached to that name.

 

Not if you understand the methodologies involved. Barna has a very open ended methodology. Rainer was surveying certain types of churches. If you read the book, you will see that he has a very wide spectrum of churches that he is talking about with very narrow qualifications.

For instance, to be considered for his book, a church had to have at least 26 conversions a year and a conversion ratio of 20 members to 1 convert. He did not survey formerly churched people who were changing churches, but rather unchurched people who were finding churches for the first time.

These things make a difference. It is a book that is well worth reading.

Interestingly, the most attractive thing to an unchurched people was the pastor and his preaching along with doctrine. The "big things" like music was important only to 11% (if I recall correctly). So it really gives a different perspective than most people think.

 

Some of the people surveyed in Thom Rainer's book felt they had more faith then the preacher they heard before they found a solid church.

I think his book reveals what scripture teaches about following Christ. Too many people think that any stronger than a watery milky substance will scare off people. When in fact non-Christians who come to church do not want colored water but the real substance. It is too often the pew siters who cannot handle the truth. The are like the old wineskins.