Articles
What Should the Sign Say?
Note: Changing our assembly times necessitates changing the sign. When the elders asked me what I thought the sign should say, it reminded me of this article I wrote a number of years ago.
Every few years, a movement makes the rounds in which some brethren get all excited about what we put on the sign in front of the meetinghouse. Most of us use the designation Church of Christ. It is a descriptive one, denoting Jesus’ headship or ownership (Matthew 16:18; Romans 16:16). We recognize that it is not the exclusive Bible name for the church; nevertheless, it does accurately depict who we are.
For a while, the “in” thing was to replace Church of Christ with Christians meet here. We were told that would be more accurate, that people would not confuse the church with the building. To be sure, people often refer to a building as a church. Yet despite sloppy terminology, who does not understand that it is people’s beliefs and practices, not their buildings, that make churches Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, etc.? The difference is not so much in the structures, it is in what goes on inside them.
The latest fad is to drop the of Christ description and just call it the [local name] Church. This is following a trend in human churches, where groups are shedding their denominational designation in order to avoid prejudice one might have toward their particular group. It is also reflective of a greater trend: to deemphasize doctrine and focus on services offered. Why would a group boldly proclaiming Baptist doctrine object to folks knowing they are Baptists? Likewise, if we are unreservedly teaching the doctrine of Christ, why would we not want to be called a church of Christ? This, I suspect, is the heart of the matter.
To my simple way of thinking, we are either a church of Christ or we are not. If we are, we should not be ashamed to put it on the sign. If we are not, why not say so? Why not make the sign say Not a Church of Christ or A Church Not of Christ? Doubtless that would be far more accurate in some cases! The truth is, those who have departed from the faith do us all a favor by removing Church of Christ from their name.
Have you considered the irony of this concept, that we can improve the church by removing Christ’s name from it?! Hmm.
