Naming A Church

Well, we’re in the middle of trying to figure out a name for the church we’re launching in KC. This has been unbelievably difficult, much more so than I ever would have thought. We’re going to head to KC to do some marketing research over some name ideas in the next couple of weeks. In doing so we want to have 5 or 6 names that we can introduce to real people to see what they think, whether they attend church or not. I’ve become increasingly convinced at how crucial branding is for us.

As we want to see a multi-site strategy in our DNA (more on that in our next post) we have the need to choose a name that will allow us connect throughout our city. For instance, we can’t really have something like North Kansas City Community of the Brethren Tabernacle Full Baptist Church because it would be extremely difficult to have a venue so tied to the Northland in Midtown. So I think it would be best for us to have a broad enough name that would allow us to locate throughout the city - one church many locations.

So here are a few name ideas.

MetroLife Church

The Pilgrim’s Way

CityLife Church

Cornerstone Church

City Church

84th Baptist Church

With all these I anticipate the brand will be a shortened version. For instance, MetroLife or CityLife or Cornerstone, etc. Also, I didn’t include some of the ideas we’ve scrapped from our list due to name conflicts in the city, etc. Churches have actually found themselves in litigation over a name. And I wonder in our world of the Internet if we won’t see more of that due to search engine rankings.

Okay, so I’d love to have your feedback on these names and any other ideas you might have for us regarding names.

What’s your take on these? Do you have other ideas?

Read about our journey:

The Big Reveal

The DNA of a Missional Church (of the Mind)