From the Pastor’s Desk (275)
I would like to ask all the house churches to change their names to make them more appropriate according to these new guidelines. The ones that fall under these guidelines don’t need to change their names.
(This hypothetical scenario is used to show the principles that we will use going forward.)
Let’s hypothetically say that it is 1997, and New Life starts out with six house churches. And we will use the nation of Russia as an example to explain the principles of naming our house churches.
1. In choosing our house church name, we will first use the name of a nation where the missionary is serving to show and remind ourselves where our missionary’s work (prayer, financial support, and possible short-term trips) is being done, broadly speaking. Hence, this house church will be called Russia HC.
2. Once the name of a nation is taken but a newly multiplied house church will support a missionary in the same nation, then that house church will name itself after the city where the missionary is serving, hence, Vladivostok HC. The key is to make the name of the house church reflect the missionary’s serving area as closely as possible.
3. Once the name of a city is taken but a newly multiplied house church will support a missionary in the same city, then that house church will name itself after the state/province where the missionary is serving, hence Primorsky Kray HC.
4. If the missionary that a house church is to support is serving in a closed country where there is severe persecution against Christians (extreme forms of Islam, Communism, Hinduism, etc.) and the missionary is “ADAMANT” about us not using the name of the city where he is serving for the security purpose as our house church name, then “WE” will tell them that we will use the name of the state/province where he is serving. For the most part, this should be okay with almost all the missionaries. However, if the missionary is still “ADAMANT” about us not doing this, then I will personally talk to the missionary to come up with a solution.
5. If the missionary’s work area is very vast and it can’t be reflected with just one city or province, then we can use the terms that describe the regions of the nation, such as East Russia, North East Russia, Central Russia, Southwest Russia, etc.
6. I would like to give all our house churches until the end of this year to take care of this.
7. Once the new name is established, then each house church will need to do what needs to be done to update the information on our web, app and with church office.
The key is to be as specific as possible to avoid vagueness so that we will know where our missionary’s work is being done.
So, we will use the names of the nations first to know broadly where our missionary’s work is being done. After this, we will follow in the order of the cities, provinces/states, and regions in naming our house churches.
Your pastor,
Eric
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