Surfing the Inner N8

We have got to get a church name.  For the second time in four days, I woke up this morning at 3:30 a.m. with my mind racing, trying to think of the right name.  It makes for a long day when you sleep for three or four hours and wake up at 3:30!

Here’s the deal: our name right now is Ocean City Mennonite Christian Fellowship.  Yeah.  I couldn’t fit it on our tithe check on Sunday.  Here are some of the guidelines for the name search:

• It must be short–three words tops.
• It must have the word “church” in it–that kind of helps people to know we’re a church.
• We’re dropping the name “Mennonite.”  We’re glad to be Mennonite, and we certainly aren’t trying to hide it.  But for a first impression, people easily mistake us for the Amish.
• It should mean something.  Metaphors are great things.

God has impressed on me that Matthew 22:37-40 should be our congregation’s focal passage.  In this portion of Scripture, Jesus says that it’s all about loving God and loving people.  In fact, that will probably be our vision statement: “Loving God, Loving People.”  I’ve spent many, many hours trying to think of a good church name stemming from this theme, and haven’t thought of one single thing.

There are some cool names out there, but they’re only indirectly related to the vision.  My favorite is probably LifeSpring Church, and we may even end up going with that, but it would be so excellent to have a name directly connected to the “Loving God, Loving People” theme.  One thing that makes it difficult is that anything with the word “love” in it would probably sound hokey.  Remember, we’re going to be stuck with this name for a long, long time!

Another acceptable option would be to have something related to our locale.  You know, something with a beach/ ocean/ coast/ etc. theme.  (But it’d be hard to include “Ocean City,” since with “Ocean City” and “Church” we’re already up to three words.)

Once we have a name, we can then proceed with so many other things that are necessarily held up until then: we can get a new road sign, letterhead, website, business cards, email, promotional materials, shirts, stickers, logo–plus we can actually invite people to church by name instead of saying “that church down by….”

Maybe we could just have a symbol, and be The-Church-Formerly-Known-As-Ocean-City-Mennonite-Christian-Fellowship.

As you can see, I’m totally at a loss.

 Anyone got any ideas?

By the way, there’s a $100 gift card to Outback Steakhouse for the person that submits the name we choose.  I don’t care who comes up with it–I just want the name.  It’d be great to sleep peacefully up to the moment my alarm screams at me.

We’ve announced this contest in church and are hoping to choose a winner next week.  Please help!  There’s a lot at steak–if you come up with the winning name.