Covenant Grace Baptist Church: What’s in a name?

Outline

  • Covenant
  • Grace

Introduction

These are the words of Juliet to Romeo in Shakespeare’s famous play:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

The original play was about two lovers from warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets, the point of the line is to show how names are irrelevant when the substance remains the same. If that is the case why did we change the name from Marchwiel Reformed Baptist Church to Covenant Grace Baptist Church?

Let’s make a few things clear. We are not renaming ourselves in an attempt to follow the marketing trick of rebranding. We are not seeking to use a new name, logo, vision statement and launch in an attempt to get exposure with the masses. We are avoiding the massive expense of a launch in an attempt to catch attention that we might increase awareness. We did not approach the new name with this marketing mindset.

A new name does not indicate a change of substance. There are many churches that have changed their names because they had changed their views. We have not removed the word Reformed from our name because we are changing what we believe, or are ashamed to own the label, the new name is an attempt to clarify what we are all about not change what we are all about. The word ‘Reformed’ has many misunderstandings attached to it and our new name clarifies what we mean by ‘Reformed.’

The new name is not an attempt to keep up with the latest trends. If you speak to marketing gurus about branding some of the advice you will be given is to go with pictures language not conceptual language. For example, Apple is thought to be better than IBM. We have unashamedly resisted the trends to use picture language and have a name which is still deeply theological. To use an example of what we did not choose is Cornerstone Baptist Church, our building is on the corner of Glen and Tyne Street, and we have bluestone in our building and it will also feature in any extensions, the Lord willing. Plus this is a word from the Bible which is used to describe Christ.

Instead we have chosen ‘Covenant’ and ‘Grace’ which are not picture words but convey large biblical concepts. We chose to monopolise on the truth of God’s word not simply stay in the neutral ground of geography. We are not attempting to say less but more about ourselves with the new name. Is it a good thing that we say a lot about ourselves in our name? Yes, I can’t stand churches that have names that tell you nothing about them. There is nothing worse than when you are on holiday and you go to the local community fellowship family church and it turns out to be Seventh Day Adventist or some other place you don’t want to be. When choosing to worship at a church I want to know what I going to. So you will notice that we have not removed content just misunderstood terms from our name.

Share