What’s in a name?

I believe it was Rodney Dangerfield that posed that question.  Names are powerful.  Names are meaningful.  Names set us apart.

One of the most memorable moments of Lifepoint Church was the day that we landed on a name.  This is a big deal.  If you have ever had children than you know that names are extremely important.  You don’t want to just pick one out of the air and then regret it.  I think it is interesting how people seem to grow into their names.  I’m sure it’s just a psychological thing but when you hear someone’s name I instantly begin to picture what they look like.

So how do you pick a name for your church?  I think there are many ways.  You have geographical names, where you pick a name that reflects your community like, Cleveland Community Church.  You can pick a name that is Biblical like Beulah Baptist Church.  You can pick a name that is denominational.  You can pick a name that is trendy like, Velocity church.  You get the point.  There is no wrong way to pick a name.  At Lifepoint we knew that our mission came from John 10:10 Where Jesus says that He came to give life and to give it to the full.  We knew that if Jesus was about life that we wanted to be about the same thing.  Before we had a name we had a mission, “to point people to life.”  This phrase rattled around our head for a few days.  “We want to point people to life and life comes from Jesus.”  Point People To Life…wait a minute, what about Lifepoint.  That’s how we came up with our name.

However, that isn’t the half of it.  The more we thought about the name, the more it became clear to us that this name not only was cool but also captured the essence of our mission.

So what’s the Lifepoint?  I’ll tell you that tomorrow.