Although I would not make it into a national article my church changed it's name last year without losing a single person and we have grown by at least 20% since then.

What about a logo change? Anyone go throught a Successful transition from old to new. my church did it once and it wasn't done right and now we are changing the vision of the church. i think it's time for another one even if it's only been a year since the last one. anythoughts?

"First decide on the concept of changing the name. Don't let potential names muck up the process."

I would slightly disagree. Our church changed its name because of a change in the congregation. Our church has grown by leaps and bounds, mostly (but not all) by foreign nationals. Greater than half of our church was born in another country.

In respons to this we changed our name from "Boca First Assembly of God" to "Boca Church of All Nations."

I would discourage people for changing for change sake. But if the church is going in a different direction then it makes sense.

I'm trying to encourage my church to look at this issue. I attend a church of Christ, so there's a ton of baggage associated with that name. My church isn't the typical cofC (specifically we don't think we're the only ones who will be enjoying the golden streets of gloryland) so I don't see a significant reason to maintain the name.

The initial concern with changing the name is attracting cofC'ers who move to the area. While I'm not as worried about attracting them as those who are either unfamiliar or disenchanted with church, does anybody have suggestions on how to address this concern?

I have one question on the church re-naming. Is there a legal process that the church would have to go through to get the name changed or is it just a vote from the members then it is official? Thanks for the help.

Our 82 year old church just went through a name change. The ONE piece of advice I have for you is this: talk to the pastor/board about what they are wanting to change the name to and come up with a logo and branding BEFORE the name change is made official.

We had our members vote and the name became official in July. It is almost March and we are still trying to come up with the right look. So my advice would be that the pastor or whoever is making that call should absolutely fill the media/marketing team in on the change so logo and branding can be IN PLACE and ready to go before it's made official.

That's what we've learned through this anyway. :)

We just went through a name change last year. We are about 15.5 years old and we went from South Hill Christian Center to ExperienceChurch.tv - This helped our marketing emensely. When we were the other name our URL was www.southhillcc.org - next to impossible to related to the name. Now our name is the URL.

To change the name legally, we simply had to make a motion and vote on it. Then had to send the minutes to the state for their recognition of the change. Simple Skimple.

I agree with the logo and name needing to come together before the change. Our logo is just as much our identity as our name...

It went real smooth for us.

One piece of advice I would give is that church leadership should be sure that the congregation is o.k. with the idea of a name change. At our church a new pastor came in and within a matter of months he had changed the name of the church. There was no amount of significant preaching on the subject to prepare people. And the congregation was not involved in the process until the very last moment of the decision -- that is within a week or two of the change. This resulted in an "identity crisis" for various members. The church eventually had a minor split. Much turmoil resulted and he eventually stepped down. The name of the church wasn't the only issue, of course, but it played a big part in the crisis.

Once the name has been decided to change, then what? Can anyone provide thoughts or successful stories of how to communicate this and roll-out people. Where do we begin? What are next steps?

I'm against changing church names in general. I think people naively think that simply changing their name will bring people in the door, and in the short term, they may be right.

I imagine most advocates of name changes would say "we're only changing our name, everything else will stay the same". If that's true, why change your name at all? I asked my mom once what she thought about the church name changing phenomenon sweeping America, and she had a refreshingly honest reply, "it seems dishonest".

Seems like churches are afraid or embarrassed about who they are, so much so they are changing who they are to accommodate non believers. A Christian changing something about themselves to make their beliefs more palatable to non believers? Sad.

Church marketing, logos, names. Boy has the American church lost it's way.

Dave B. -

Are you serious? Are you even listening to what you are saying?
"A Christian changing something about themselves to make their beliefs more palatable to non believers? Sad."

Have you ever read the Bible? There was this guy named Jesus who changed something about Himself to be more "palatable" to non believers. I.E. he who was God became man...Wow, I think you are the one who has lost his way.

We changed our church name in 2003 and incorporated with the state. We are being told now that we have to petition the court in order to change the title. Can anyone verify this is true?

It think name changing is not in itself sinful, but the motives could be and thus it could be the wrong decision. Name change to be palatable is probably wrong. Your actions as a church should make you palatable. However, we can never lose sight that the world will reject the gospel. To change your name to hide your a "Baptist" or the like is deceptive. I have seen churches that grow keeping their denominational name even in an area not positively oriented to that denomination.
Most importantly, Brett Moore's comment,
"Jesus who changed something about Himself to be more "palatable" to non believers. I.E. he who was God became man.."
to argue for name change is an example of the legitimate fear of the many. Jesus did not come to be more palatable, but to be the substitutionary atonement for our sin. This above use is a gross Scripture twist to justify a position. The fear is just that, the gospel and God's word is lost in the need to be "palatable."

I'm less interested in the pseudo religous nonsense ("Change your name?! GASP!) than I am about DATA.

Anyone have reliable data on church growth (or shrinkage) after changing from a denominational name to a non-denom?

We go to a Baptist church which desparately needs a name change. BTW, before you flame me...last time I checked, Jesus wasn't a Baptist. I also seem to recall he changed the names of a few folks...