What's In a Name?

It has been almost a month since I last updated this blog. Saying I've been too busy would be an easy way to explain this lapse, but it would not fully rationalize it. I believe the reason I've been absent is because I've been setting a new course in relationship to our church planting efforts. When we began this process in earnest back in August of 2008, the Lord directed me to Matthew 9:35-38 as the key Scriptures for our church plant. In these verses, Jesus says the "Harvest is plentiful, it is the laborers that are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest." With this as our backdrop entering into this process, I was drawn to naming this new church Harvest Fellowship of Virginia Beach. However, in the middle of March, we began to seriously reconsider the name.

We attended Basic Training for church planters and developed our vision, core values, and mission statements which will guide us as we plant this church. As we examined these statements, we realized they reflected a Navy and nautical theme, but our church name was bringing up images of the farm. Others saw this and suggested we change the name, but you know me, I'm like a huge aircraft carrier that takes a long time to turn around. However, when I realized we needed to change the name, I imaged myself as being a ship that had set a new course with a new heading to a new name. I didn't know what the new name would be, I just new we were on a new course.

To make a long story short, we were in a Disciple Now worship service, and LuAnn leaned over to me and suggested the name, "True Course," for the church. This certainly fit with what I had been considering, but of course I have to think about everything. I Googled "True Course" and found out that it is actually a navigation term. For a ship to calculate its true course it must do so in relation to the geographic North pole and not the magnetic North pole. The geographic pole does not move, whereas the magnetic one moves from year to year.

Therefore, we are changing the name of our church plant to be True Course Community Church because we want people to see God as the immoveable foundation for life. We will be inviting people to chart a true course for life by answering God's call to serve. Pray that this name change will honor God and that it will communicate with our focus group.