What's In A Name?

For four months a group of us have been "officially" dreaming of church in Strathcona. We have gathered together, we have prayed, worshiped, cared for each other, listened for God and to one another, played and blown bubbles together. We would consider ourselves to be church. You know, the body of Christ, the community of sinners and of saints, the family of God. I don't think that any of us actually doubt that we are a church. The trouble has been that we have not yet settled on a name. So, when we meet people in the neighbourhood and invite them to join us they say, "What's the name of your church?" We usually just refer to it as "Church in the Park". Then we have to explain which park, and since our park has no name, that gets kind of tricky unless you are someone who hunkers under the Georgia Viaduct to get some shelter from the rain or to turn a trick or shoot up lots of people have never really noticed our park. And when we say we have no official name and that we do not meet in a building right now, but under some trees as long as no one is sleeping under the tree we are accustomed to meeting under... well, then we start to get some funny looks and people back away slowly speaking in a soothing voice as though we were a dangerous bear whose irratic religious delusions should be avoided at all costs.

So, we have begun the search for a name in the hopes of lending some outward credibility to what we are experiencing as a beautiful, crazy, unpredictable adventure with the Spirit of the Living God.

Some of us were sent from a church (Kitsilano Christian Community), which has taken it's name from it's neighbourhood. It is a church that seeks to be located in particular geography and is committed to that place and to seeking the peace and welfare of that neighbourhood, not just the well-being of those who participate in the gathered life of that community. They are committed also to the idea of being a community, a fellowship, a people who belong to one another. And their imagination for doing and being these things is rooted in the tradition of Jesus, therefore they call themselves Christian (followers of Christ, a Greek title for Jesus).

But this is tricky for us in this new community because there are lots of different names that tell the story of this neighbourhood. In our 10 blocks by 4 blocks the names Strathcona, the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Japantown, The reserve off the reserve, Main and Hastings, or Hogan's Alley all describe aspects of our neighbourhood. What kind of name would speak of this place in ways that welcomes people who would identify with any of those descriptors of our neighbourhood? What name for our gathering communicates our commitment to this geographical space and to our neighbours who live within it? What name says that we are a people who are learning to love God and love our neighbour and that is what we believe it is to be church as opposed to church being the name of the building in which we meet (or not)? What is in a name after all? Footprints of colonization or memories of a history that only remains in place names since the people have moved on?

What is in a name? Stay tuned...