Living Word...?
For all sorts of reasons, I’ve recently been thinking about name changes. From inventing nicknames (e.g. to avoid confusion over all those ‘Daves’ or ‘Mikes’) to changing the name of a church, name-changing can get controversial and raise strong feelings. That's no surprise when you consider names express identity - they describe a thing, or at least express an aspiration. (Perhaps we also instinctively appreciate that the act of naming is an expression of authority, as seen in the early chapters of Genesis and elsewhere in Scripture.)
Well we’ve just changed the name of one of our churches from ‘The Plant Church Salford’ to ‘Living Word’. So why drop the old ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin’ name? Basically, it’s because we wanted a name that expressed something about our church's identity to someone who doesn't already know what ‘The Plant’ is. Like ‘Grace Church Manchester’ does - it clearly expresses it's identity as a church, in Manchester, that is founded on and proclaims God’s grace. Well the Salford guys wanted something like that too, so after much prayer, deliberation and consultation we came up with ‘Living Word’.
Why? Our church is called ‘Living Word’ because we’re about Jesus, his Bible and its life-changing message:
Jesus – In John 1:14 Jesus is described as ‘The Word’ – God’s message personified. In Jesus, God’s ‘Word’ lived and walked on this earth. He sacrificed his life, but God raised him from the dead so ‘The Word’ is still living today. This is who our church is named after because this is who we worship.
The Bible – According to Hebrews 4:12 we experience the Bible as God’s ‘living’, ‘active’ word. That’s why our church meetings centre on gathering to read the Bible together – we long to hear what God has to say to us. Some of us have been trained to teach the Bible, but everyone is encouraged to chat about it together so that we can help one another live as servants of Jesus Christ.
Life-changing message – Through God’s living word, our lives can be so transformed that it’s like being born all over again. This new life is characterised by self-giving love inspired by Jesus’ own example. So we want to share Jesus’ amazing message and live lives that are consistent with it:
Love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again… through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:22-23)
Of course there's also a strong subjective element to names and it's been really interesting hearing people's reflections on 'Living Word', both believers and not. The name-changing process has certainly made us think again about what church is and what - or who - it's for.
Phil Keymer
