fear of the word "Baptist"

I appreciate your perspective, and some of it makes good sense.

I understand. But it's another way of saying it was a marketing decision, which is a way of describing the image your church projects, as well as how to best reach the people for Christ.

 

Jesus is a 2000 year tradition.Making disciples is something Jesus taught. Any church that makes disciples cannot vaporize so quickly and be so easily misled by the latest guru.

 

I was in a church once, years ago, that wanted to remove "Baptist" from it's name. It almost tore an otherwise good church apart.

I don't judge anybody who chooses to do it, but I wouldn't do it.

Baptists have a long history and I think we should honor that.

As for our church, we're not really a "marketing" church. Our attitude is that we're there to feed the sheep, not to worry about making ourselves more attractive to the goats.

To borrow a line from Popeye, we am what we am.

 

What will those churches do when they decline because they have not been making disciples but playing church?

 

We are called believers in God's Word, not Baptists. In fact, the true church is not a religious organization with a sectarian name outside the "temple". Our modern view of the church more closely resembles the Roman Catholic Church than the church of Scripture. Although many are attempting to escape what we have become by leaving existing sects(denominations), they are still making the same mistakes: authoritarian structure, preaching in lieu of Biblical teaching & equipping, no focus on training men for eldership within the congregation, teaching from extra-Biblical books, etc.

 

Why focus on training elders when they have not been tested by meeting the first requirement of making disciples?

 

Good stuff.

I sometimes wonder if some churches' marketing--scuse me, outreach--strategy totally excludes the work the Holy Spirit.

 

In fact, the true church has a sectarian name--it's called Baptist, given to us by our enemies.

The church I serve does not fit any of the descriptions in your post.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "preaching in lieu of Biblical teaching and equipping..." I didn't know we could choose between the two. I thought we are to do both.

 

The sign really is there. You can see at on a page at the Met Tab's own web site: http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/Basic-Policies-of-the-Church

However, the name of the church is still "Metropolitan Tabernacle"; I imagine the words "Baptist Church (Spurgeon's)" were included on the sign as clarification.

 

No, I haven't noticed that here. There are baptist churches that have never had the word "Baptist" in their church name, like Falmouth Evangelical Church in Cornwall, and the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, but I can't think of one church which has dropped the word "Baptist" from its name.

I do know of several Plymouth Brethren assemblies that now call themselves something like "Thistown Christian Fellowship".

 

Great Commission chairman Dr. Ronnie Floyd has recently renamed his northwest Arkansas chain of megachurches. No longer "First Baptist", now it's "CrossChurch Springdale", "CrossChurch Fayetteville", etc.

New slogan is: "Changing Our Name, Strengthening Our Identity"

http://crosschurch.com/portfolio/changing-our-name-strengthening-our-identity/

 

If that's not a marketing strategy, I don't know what one is.

Strengthening Our Identity? How about obscuring our identity?

But, I have an open mind.

 

If I wasn't a Baptist, I would be ashamed of myself.

Cheers,

Jim:sleep:

 

Very good work Salty!

Changes were incremental, the new pastor was an engaging speaker, we had friends that attended there, there was a comfort level, etc.

 

This isn't just an SBC thing. The BMAA, of which the church I pastor is a part of - many of the new church plants - most often out West and North - are not putting "Baptist" in their name. And there are some fairly long-established churches even here in the "Bible Belt" or Arkansas that are changing names to remove "Baptist".

I have heard many efforts to defend the practice - and while I understand their reasoning - too many presuppositions about the term "Baptist" (and we can thank many yahoos for that, not the least of which, the Frank Phelps-types who have stunk up the title) - and the reality, in practice - our church plants have shown time and again that "Baptist" on the sign = closed minds among the unchurched they are trying to reach.

Do I like it - NO. But I also have chosen to not get too worked up, so long as the teaching and preaching is 100% scriptural and thoroughly conservative Baptist.