For us, the journey to a name has been long. Remember, the vision for this church plant is over 20 years old. So, dreams for the name have been numerous. Today, I am glad to join with our launch team in announcing our official name as Journey Church.
This name comes to our team after a long time of wrestling through mission and vision. We wanted to ensure that our name fit well with the mission that God is calling us to (helping people take their next step toward Christ). We also wanted to assign a name to this local body that doesn't prohibit future movement of the congregation as we settle or expansion as the idea of multi-site church develops in our area.
We did wrestle for some time over the simple reality that there are many churches called "Journey", but the reality is that churches popping up (and pooping out) all over the world and coming up with an original name is a USELESS venture. In all honesty, I wrestled with the mission statement of "helping people take their next step" because it was what we settled on at New Hope (a decision that I played a significant part in) - the truth is that it works now as well as it did then - it's hard to improve on the road that God has brought you down. :-)
Rick Warren said it best telling a story of a man he knew who insisted that he "would be ORIGINAL or NOTHING!" - he wound up being BOTH!
The simple truth is that the most important thing about both mission and name is that we OWN that name. It's not enough to come up with a great marketing brand, we need to WORK to ingrain the name and vision into our Church's DNA... so that the reality of helping people take their "next step" on the journey is both seen on a sign and an "unseen" part of what makes us tick!
The simple truth is that the most important thing about both mission and name is that we OWN that name. It's not enough to come up with a great marketing brand, we need to WORK to ingrain the name and vision into our Church's DNA... so that the reality of helping people take their "next step" on the journey is both seen on a sign and an "unseen" part of what makes us tick!
Pray for us as we work to that end... (by the way, for the time being please continue to make checks payable to "Fellowship Christian Church" until we get our paperwork back from the state.)
Jeremy
1 comment:
I like the name....it implies adventure, progression, exploration. I like Journey. I will be watching your Journey and hope it will continue to impact mine! I miss you!
Post a Comment