Essay #3 - Church names that sound like designer clothing stores.
My cousin attends a church called "Warehouse 242." There's another church in his area called, "Elevation." In Durham, North Carolina there’s a church simply called "The Summit." I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point we started naming our churches after stores that sell designer jeans. And I'm cool with that. I don't think you have to name something the "Back to the Bible Holiness Church" which is outside of Atlanta in case you want to attend.
I think it might be a great thing to have a funky name because it opens up some good conversations with people. Imagine you're at work on Monday and someone says, "What'd you do this weekend?" You can reply "I hung out at Elevation." Your friend will then say, "Is that the new salsa/techno/hip hop/Southern Cambodian traditional dance club? I've heard the girls in that place are ridiculous." At which point you can then say, "No, it's a church" and then proceed to share the entire gospel with him and possibly baptize him in the break room sink.
OK, it might not go down exactly that way, but at the bare minimum, saying you went to "Elevation" is going to at least keep the conversation rolling and possibly even raise some questions. If you said, "I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral of Hope and Light' over the weekend," your friend might throw an imaginary smoke bomb and climb out of a window to get out of the conversation. Which is never a good thing.
