The name game

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:00

Foreign. Welcome to the Unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stevenson.

I have the joy of being a church planter and executive director of church planting with Converge. And say hey to my co host here.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:18

I'm Danny Parmelee and I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:23

And we're just having real conversations today and excited to talk about church planting and specifically, I think one of those challenging points that every church planner has to wrestle with and it's simply, how do I name my church? Like, what should I name it? What should I call it?

And you feel somewhat locked in, like this is a big deal, whatever I name my church year one, maybe the name year 30, year 40, you know.

And so it's one of those things I know for me when we were naming our church the first time, like there was this unsaid pressure, like don't screw, screw this up. And so I curious just about for you, Danny, like, what did you wrestle with when it came to naming church plant?

And why did you land on a Greek name versus any other name? And would you doing it again? Would you do it the same or would you do it?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:11

Oh yeah, I've got lots of opinions and wisdom, maybe advice on it.

And for those that don't know, the name of our church is Epicos Church and it is a Greek name and it's actually pronounced properly in the Greek Epicos. It just didn't catch on that way. Which is part of what.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:28

Not everybody in Milwaukee spoke Greek.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:29

Yeah, exactly. So. And, and there's there was some advantages to the name that we had and some major disadvantages as well.

So let me start with this and start with just the way that we named our church, just so you kind of understand the background and the process. What we. We kind of just use a generic operating name when we first kind of started and then as we kind of developed a little.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:50

What do you mean by generic operating name?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:52

Generic operating name. Like it was, I think it was called Eastside Project. We were on the east side of Milwaukee.

And so even our tax forms that it was Eastside Project because we were kind of coach, like don't pick a name yet. Just kind of, you know, it's like a pet. Bring it home and let it kind of grow and evolve, that type of thing.

I actually disagree with that because it creates problems later when paperwork and all of that type of thing. So more church planners now are actually picking that name before there's ever a launch team.

And that's the other thing a lot of people say, well, we'll have other people kind of speak into it. But the thing is, most people don't understand naming, branding, the significance.

So what we did is we actually went around to public places, to coffee shops, places where people were hanging out. And I gave a list of like five or six names that I thought were kind of neat and had people. I said, just choose a name that you like.

Because we really were trying to name it for non Christians. And they would say, well, what's this for? And I didn't want to say it was for a church because I didn't want them to pick a church name.

I just want them to pick a name. And the name that got chose was epic 242.

And we realized that that sounded pretty much like a youth group because that was kind of like the number thing back then. And, you know, off of Acts 242, but epic. And then we realized, well, Epic is kind of generic.

There's this Epic software, there's Epic records, Epic whatever. So we didn't want confusion there. And we were in an area of the city where everything was just ethnic names.

And so that's why we know we'll just take the Greek form of it. And the advantage of that is that when people talked about the church, like, hey, have you gone to that church called Epicos?

People knew there was never confusion. Like, hey, did you hear about that new church, Grace?

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:37

It's not too Epicos, right?

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:38

Yeah, there's not two. So in that it had a great advantage. The problem is it did create a lot of confusion.

Even after being established for like eight or nine years, we would be at festivals or parades. People like, oh, that's that Greek church. You know what I mean? And they actually thought we were like Greek Orthodox. Greek Orthodox Church.

And so for us, the creativity. Actually, I should say this, our real name was actually just Epicos. We did not want to have church in the name because why did we.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:08

Want people to know?

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:09

So we were edgy and we were a Christian spiritual community. We were not a church. And then so many years, people are like, so what is. Is it? And it's like, well, because I'm looking for a church.

It's like, oh, well, that's what we are. We are a church. So I.

I really do encourage people to put church actually in their name and especially in their logo because you don't have the advantage of Pepsi or Nike that people are just going to see, you know, whatever they're.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:35

And you also don't have $100 million to put into marketing.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:38

To put into marketing. So when people see it and then they see, you know, church, they, they actually understand. So that's why I just say go, go with clarity on it.

And sometimes you want to be the most creative. But like you said, longevity wise, you got to be thinking of that a little bit. How about you? What was a little bit of your journey and process?

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:57

Yeah, I mean, when. Same similar time frame.

We were probably just on the tail end of it, but there was still this popularity of kind of coming up with a cool creative going with Latin or going with, with Greek. And you know, first church we planted in Phoenix, it was pretty adamant.

Like you can't name something with a Latin name because, you know, Spanish speakers don't know what it is, but everybody else that's an English speaker is going to think you're a Spanish language church. And so you have to really be deliberate on the, you know, does this connect specifically to our culture and our society and our community?

And for me, the, you know, passage in the New Testament about the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few, therefore pray to the God of the harvest.

Like that always has just been one of those verses for me that's always motivated me, moved me when it came to ministry and kind of even getting up in the morning, doing what I do. And so there was just this instant connection going, man, maybe we need to connect to that.

And then there was this wrestle like, well, there are, there's a couple big harvests. You know, you've got a big harvest in California. You got this big harvest as well known in Chicago. Are people going to associate us with them?

And yes, there was some of that, but there was an element kind of going. I think it has a greater appeal to that. We just tell people it's a word from the Bible.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:18

Right.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:18

And gives us an opportunity to kind of explain who we are and kind of where we're going. We intentionally put community church into our name because we wanted people to know, like, we are a part of the community.

This is who we are, this is what we bleed. And we're here to serve and to be a part of their world.

We've had people that were coming to our church because they went to a previous church that had harvest in their name. And so there was an element like, oh, it must be safe. And they come and like, are you guys connected? No, we're not connected.

So there is still a level of that explanation that goes. But you know, specifically, like I think about who we were connecting with in The Phoenix metro area.

We were in a part of town that had a lot of Midwest transplants.

And so there was some thinking in our name and in creating a name that would it have a tie in roots to people that just had this familiarity with rural living. Midwest living. Harvest seemed to be an appealing name that could fit any context.

And so that's one of the reasons we chose that name and similar here. We, when we planted again in, in Florida, we really debated on, you know, changing it up. This is our opportunity to do it differently.

But then we, part of our vision is to reach into rural Florida and we thought, you know what, Harvest people get it and so why, why change it?

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:41

And I thought you kept it because you had some leftover Newcomer mugs and you just wanted to squeeze that extra.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:46

We totally redid logo, website, all that kind of stuff. And, and so even vision statements, all those are, were new. So yeah, unfortunately it didn't work out that well.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:56

I do want to mention a little bit, one of the things to consider is if you put the name of the city in it, and this is not a hard and fast rule, but you do need to think about it. So there's a lot of guys that will start out and maybe they're in, you know, a suburb and it's, you know, Richmond or whatever.

And so it's like Richmond Community Church or Richmond whatever. Fill in kind of the blank.

The advantages of that is that you obviously really show your commitment to the city and kind of depending geographically where you are, or even neighborhood specific where it's like this is a neighborhood within a larger metro area.

The downside is if God ends up moving you because of opportunity, whether it is facility, whether a lot of church planners start out in kind of an area and all sudden, for whatever reason, God provides a whole bunch of people from the launch team there on the other side of the city know that doesn't have that same, you know, identity. So it is something definitely to just to kind of like think or even.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:55

If you end up multi siding down the road. Yes.

You know, that can become a hindrance to you as well because all of a sudden you're this community church and you're moving into another community and they're going, that's not us. That's going to detract from your ability to connect to that community.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:11

I know too. I, I've, I've seen, you know, planters be creative on this front.

I, I know one planter that landed in the community and similar to you, like they refused to name the church. But then they use that as a marketing ploy to get people to come to the first week.

And it's kind of like this is your church, we're a part of the community. You come and name it.

And so the first Sunday, our launch Sunday, we, you get the opportunity to actually name the church, which, you know, and then they just gave them three options.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:39

Right.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:39

You know, kind of like we can live with all three of these. And then the community voted those that came and then, you know, they of created a different level of ownership or buy in.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:48

Right.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:50

I don't know if I can recommend that. It's like just, just pick something that works and lead and get moving forward. But it's okay to be creative. But I said don't get too creative.

Like if your name needs too much explanation behind it, you're. You are losing the opportunity to connect with just the normal person in your community.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:09

And I know we're not talking about logos here, but I say the same thing because I have a lot of guys where they're like, oh, like this logo will see how the three different points on this tee are the Trinity. And all of a sudden you're like, no one's going to.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:24

Nobody knows that.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:25

And it makes it look messy and it makes it look horrible. You just need something that looks good and clean and professional enough that people go, oh, that reflects who we are just by the feel of it.

More than some sort of secret code that buried into it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:39

Yeah, it's got to flow well into a logo. And then I would say as well, it's got to be able to flow well into a URL.

So those are the two things to help you think through, you know, a potential strong name to name your church.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:53

Yep. And the other thing is if you are going to a new area, doing the research before you go.

So I recently had a planter that did all of his naming and branding and logo and found that there was a similar name, almost exactly the same name. It was just out of order. Like the church, you know, whatever city name, church or. Yeah, yeah. Type of thing.

And he just for whatever reason missed that, missed it in the Google searches. And the other thing that you, if you're going to an area is to talk to other pastors because there could be.

That was the name of a church that no longer exists. And you're, you're all sudden taking on someone else's baggage simply because you haven't done the research that way.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:39

Yeah. And you may be in the same location in the same location.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:41

It's like, oh, wow, I didn't know they were restarting. I thought that so of just being careful of those types of things, I think that's great.

I do think that to take some pressure off is that it's not the end of the world if you do have to rename the church and if you have to rename it because of location or you come up with a better name.

I definitely, like I said, had regrets of the name that we ended up choosing, but for us, we ended up having enough brand recognition over time, and people recognized it was a great reputation within the community, so we chose to just kind of stick it out. But if things aren't going well, sometimes it's a relaunch opportunity and you just change the name.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:24

And sometimes even when it's going well and you realize, man, maybe we can actually get more ground with a new name change. Or you realize, you know what, the name we originally named our church and the name behind that has changed.

It's shifted, and now we're more this that can leverage, you know. And again, it comes back to how you cast vision and help people understand this is why change is happening.

You'll always have people that will push back against change. But it is easier if you have the same pastor, the same team that launched the church, do the name change. For sure.

It's not going to be quite as big of a headache.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:55

Yeah. Lee, what trends are you seeing trends now?

s,: 2000

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:14

I think it kind of almost depends on which tribe you're a part of. Like, I do notice, like, naming is now kind of blending itself to the tribe. Yeah, I do see, like a lot of redeeming redemption.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:29

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:29

You know, those type of words being used when it comes to the church, especially of a certain vein, theologically, tend to move that direction. A lot of E words, evidently, elevation, elevate. You know, that. That seems to be kind of an in thing right now.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:45

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:46

What about for you? What else are you seeing out there?

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:47

Oh, yeah, I see obviously there was a big. When there was a big push for urban and for city. That city was in the name of city church.

I mean, even if it was a rural church, I feel like some of them still like whatever city church type of thing. So seeing. Seeing a lot of that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:02

Yeah. And I always say ones that depict some Level of movement. Movement, you know, it. Pipeline, church, you know, depending on where you're at in the city.

Gateway. Hear that one's still being used quite a bit.

I think it comes down to find something that works for you, works for your community, that your community can naturally understand without a big explanation.

But I think you lended yourself well in talking about the fact that it's important to put church in that name, because that's what you are and that's what you're doing.

Danny Parmelee: 00:14:32

Yeah. Cool. Final. Just kind of thought or question. How much should other people speak into, do you think?

I mean, what is the advantage of either a team or even going to the point of hiring a marketing firm? Is it more of a this is between you and God, you know, type of thing? What's kind of. What would you say is kind of the balance?

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:53

Yeah, I don't think you need to go hire a marketing team for the naming piece. I think you know what resonates in your heart. Like, I would never name my church a name that my wife hated.

And so I'm definitely going to run it through her spectrum and then probably a handful of just trusted people that kind of know the community and know kind of my heart and where we're wanting to go with a new church to speak into that. But I think it would be important to have both men and women speak into that because we may have different perspectives of the same name.

And so it's helpful to get that differing perspective. But I think that's an area where you can save a lot of money. Then instead of just going out and hiring a firm to do that.

Now when it comes to logo development, those things that'd be. That's where I would. If you're gonna spend the money, use it there versus on just coming up with a name.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:43

Yeah. And I know you said it before, but just saying again, as far as website seeing the availability and what the availability is, even.

Even if that is not the name of another church in the city that you're planting, chances are it's another name of a church somewhere. Just to kind of know. And it may, especially if you're down to just two or three, and it's like, well, hey, this one's available and it works for us.

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:07

Yeah. And there are some names that people need to be aware of that are trademarked.

And I know of churches that have been sued because they chose the same name. And so you do want to be careful and do your homework even on that aspect of. Of what legally can you actually name your church to.

Well, guys, this has been fun. Great conversation just talking about naming that church. And so good luck as you're kind of wandering through that. That phase.

And if you're beyond that, congratulations. It's good to kind of get over that hump as well. This has been just Real Conversations, the unfiltered podcast. Thanks for being with us.

Until next time, keep it real.