Your Identity and Your Name

An article by Matt    2 Comments

The rumbles that you heard last night were not an earthquake or runaway freight train, they were in fact the twitterverse exploding with the announcement that Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright has formed a task force to study whether or not the SBC should change its’ name.

What happens over the course of this task force’s lifetime will be fascinating to watch because a name is a big deal.  A name, defines an organization, and tells its’ story far sooner than any of your team can.  As one who has planted a church through the Southern Baptist Convention, I am one of many who avoided mention of the SBC as much as possible.  While some may be offended by my lack of “denominational pride” the simple reality was that planting a church in an urban environment is hard enough, publicly identifying ourselves with a name associated with an unfortunate racial history in a 60+% African American city was an extra challenge that we just did not need.

Earlier this month Jeff Brooks posted on his blog about branding being disconnected from the real world.  While the story that he shares is slightly different, the point is the same.  If you are intending to serve the community that you are working with, your name needs to communicate the story of your organization and what you are about.  If your goal is to bring hope to the world it is far better to identify yourself with where you are going, instead of with by what you are not.

In 2008 the Baptist General Conference changed its’ name to Converge Worldwide.  You can read the reasoning behind what they call their missional name on their website, but I was taken by this summary statement:

In an effort to articulate the mission and message of Jesus in a more effective way all over the world, Converge was adopted as the missional name of our movement in 2008. Converge is the name that best captures for us the three-fold strategy of connecting God’s people around God’s purposes, to ignite a passion for God and His Spirit, in order to transform lives and communities all over our world.

My hope for the SBC is that the name change conversation is productive and avoids politics.  I hope that they use this time to think about who they are, where they are headed, and what they value… and then name themselves in a way that shares that story with the world around them.

What does YOUR ministry’s name communicate about you?