What Kind of Church Would Change the Name of Its Property?
I'm continuing this series on "What Kind of Church Would...?" You might be interested in why we are canceling a service for a football game, or why we meet in a casino. Today I'm going to talk about a change that we've been working on for more than two years. (For a little bit of background, you might want to read yesterday's article first). Nearly every church in America that has a building puts a sign on the property telling the world the name of the church. Nothing wrong with that. We've also done that for many years. But in our recent revisioning project, we intentionally decided to activate the campus. That is, rather than have a church campus that is primarily focused on weekend services for the congregation--we decided to turn the purpose of the property toward reaching the community. In truth, that has always been our heart. But we are now getting very intentional about making it a reality.
We realized one of the first things we needed to do was re-brand the entire church property. No longer will it be called Granger Community Church. Instead, we will call it the Granger Commons. We do this for two reasons...
- It communicates to our own congregation that the church is not contained in a building. Granger Community Church meets at the building. But the building is just a building. We believe this physical change on the sign will help reinforce this teaching for the regular attendees at Granger.
- It tells the community that this is a place you are welcome. It is a common place for the community. It is a place for weddings, for college graduations, for eating a meal, and for shopping. It is a place where you can get help managing your money or raising your kids. You can meet with a counselor or attend a Chamber of Commerce meeting. And every weekend, it is one of the places where Granger Community Church meets to worship.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this change. Please leave me a comment.