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TechnoratiSome evangelicals believe the drop of denominational labels from church names is a growing trend today. Others don't really take note of it since it has gone on for more than a decade. Either way, both groups say denominational titles are insignificant when it comes down to the bottom line of the church's mission.
The Rev. David Pickney pastors a nondenominational congregation of about 160 people in Concord, N.H. He originally planted the church four years ago and called it River Church under the Conservative Baptist Association of America label. After merging with another church, the name changed to River of Grace Church and became non-affiliated.
Before that, Pickney had led a Baptist congregation just 15 miles away from his current church. Ten years into his pastorship at Contoocook Baptist Church, the congregation changed its name to Countryside Community Church.
The Baptist church that Pickney grew up in – Epsom Baptist Church – had also ended up dropping its Baptist title and is now called Epsom Bible Church.
And just around the neighborhood, First Baptist Church was renamed Centerpoint Church earlier this month. It was only one of at least five other churches in the Concord region that changed their names.
Dropping denominational labels seems like a growing trend today but Pickney's life points to an evangelical movement that was sparked decades ago.
Twenty-six years ago, Rick and Kay Warren moved to Southern California where they started a new Baptist church called Saddleback Valley Community Church.
"There was a move among Christians in trying to reach the secular community that found denominational labels confusing or frustrating," Kay Warren told The Christian Post. "So we did not put 'Baptist' in the name. We used 'Community' because at the time, that was considered more generic."
Being more generic, Warren explained, was telling the community "that we weren't about a denomination. We were about Church."
Brand loyalty has become a thing of the past. Younger generations are no longer following their parents to church or continuing worship in the same church they grew up in.
"I think people are tired of brand," Pickney commented. "I think they're looking for the authentic thing. They're looking for Jesus, for the authentic gospel, an experience with God, and they don't really care what label it's under."
Still, some people describe Baptists as "stodgy," Pickney said, so he decided to take off the label so as not to be identified in such a way just by name.
But for the most part, people are indifferent to the label, especially the people in New Hampshire where less than 10 percent go to any kind of religious church, according to Pickney.
"Most of the people we're supposed to be trying to reach really don't care about the label on the church," he said.
On a similar note, Warren said denominational names are not that critical. But she and her husband had decided not to include the label and would do the same today in order to attract nonbelievers as well as people that were tired of denominational politics.
Saddleback was one of many new church plants that chose to omit affiliation in the church name.
"I think [omitting denominational labels] is more important for new church plants than it is for established churches," said Pastor Lance Claggett, who took pastorship of Countryside Community Church three years after Pickney left. "If I were to be starting a new church in the community, I probably would be less inclined to have a denominational label on the name." Continue >>
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