{"id":8926,"date":"2007-03-04T14:07:33","date_gmt":"2007-03-04T20:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=8926"},"modified":"2019-09-02T14:10:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T19:10:41","slug":"what-should-a-new-congregation-be-called","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-should-a-new-congregation-be-called\/","title":{"rendered":"What should a new congregation be called?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>I am starting a small church in my home. I have attended the Church of Christ here most of my life and preached there as well. I greatly value your site. I am starting this church because the two churches of Christ here have a nasty reputation around town. They make the church of Corinth look like Heaven. Greed, luke-warmness and such like run deep. They won&#8217;t associate with each other because one has Sunday school and the other doesn&#8217;t &#8212; kind of stupid isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, I am still going to teach the values of the church but had to name it differently due to this conflict. I am naming it The Church of The Holy Sacrifice and I was wondering if you thought that name was biblical enough.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>Unfortunately, just because a church claims to be of Christ, it doesn&#8217;t necessarily make it so. We can read Revelation 2 and 3 and see that many churches had to deal with many internal problems.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in staying with biblical names, you won&#8217;t find &#8220;Church of the Holy Sacrifice&#8221; in the Bible. Nor will you attract people interested in dealing with life in a biblical way with such a name. The church in the Bible is called by a variety of phrases, each emphasizing a particular spiritual aspect of the people who worship God as Christians. You will find:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Churches of Christ (Romans 16:16)<\/li>\n<li>Church of God (I Corinthians 1:2)<\/li>\n<li>Church of the Living God (I Timothy 3:15)<\/li>\n<li>Church of the Firstborn (Hebrews 12:23)<\/li>\n<li>Or just plain Church of [name of some town] (Colossians 4:16; I Thessalonians 1:1; II Thessalonians 1:1; Revelation 2:1; 3:14)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 4:20)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Christ and God (Ephesians 5:5)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Colossians 1:13)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (II Peter 1:11)<\/li>\n<li>Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:27)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know of a congregation whose sign simply says &#8220;Christians meet here.&#8221; They have a legal name to satisfy the government&#8217;s requirements, but their attitude is that one single name is not an adequate description of who they are.<\/p>\n<p>Why not for the moment simply focus on teaching the ancient gospel? As a group of like-minded Christians join together, you can discuss as a group by what legal name you wish to be known.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: I am starting a small church in my home. I have attended the Church of Christ here most of my life and preached there as well. I greatly value your site. I am starting this church because the two churches of Christ here have a nasty reputation around town. They make the church of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-8926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":67110,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-the-churches-of-christ-the-only-correct-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":0},"title":"Are the churches of Christ the only correct church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeffery, In the article \"Wasn't Babel the city of Eridu?\" you mentioned, \"You will not find any claim that the churches of Christ are the only correct church on this site.\" Do you no longer believe in the one true church? I understand that not every church with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27182,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-the-church-both-the-body-of-christ-and-the-bride-of-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":1},"title":"Why is the church both the body of Christ and the bride of Christ?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Please, why is the church called the body of Christ and at the same time called the bride of Christ? Thanks. Answer: People are known by a variety of names and titles because one name doesn't completely describe a person or his relationship with other people. I'm known as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36670,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/am-i-considered-a-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":2},"title":"Am I considered a Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I believe in God, read the Bible and try to abide by it. When I was a baby I was baptized. I have not gone to church since I was very young, mainly because I can't seem to locate one that I am comfortable with. A friend of mine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19349,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-kind-of-church-i-should-attend-to-learn-the-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":3},"title":"What kind of church I should attend to learn the truth?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was wondering what kind of church I should attend to learn the truth. I used to go to the Salvation Army. I just want to make sure that when I start this path I take the right road. Answer: I don't know how well you'll accept my answer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61067,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-i-am-a-member-of-the-church-of-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":4},"title":"Why I am a Member of the Church of Christ","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Irvin Himmel via\u00a0The Voice of West End, Vol. 5, No. 23, Feb. 16, 1964. People have offered a variety of reasons for their religious connections. I am here to present my reasons for being a member of the church of Christ; but, first, some negative thoughts: Not because of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39096,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/you-dont-know-everything-so-you-cant-say-denominations-are-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":8926,"position":5},"title":"You don&#8217;t know everything, so you can&#8217;t say denominations are wrong","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am responding to your slander against other churches. It is pretty sad that you talk about things you don't really have all the answers to. Some of the things you talk about I do agree with, but other things you need to get the facts because your facts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}