February 6th, 2025
by Dr. Spencer Plumlee
by Dr. Spencer Plumlee
Over the past three months I’ve interacted with hundreds of our members about the potential name change. One series of questions that’s emerged is this: “Are we catering to the world by changing our name? Are we really trusting the Holy Spirit to grow the church? Are we taking things in our own hands instead of trusting God by changing our name?”
The root issue in these questions is cultural engagement: How do we engage the world with the gospel without being compromised by the world? Listen to the words of Jesus from John 17:14-16:
I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
We are called to engage the world as people who are not “of the world.” In other words, we are to reach out into our community without being tainted by the sin and darkness of the world. In this post, I’d like to take up the issue of cultural engagement by talking about two ways we must not compromise. I’ll end with some reflections on the heart behind a name change.
Compromising the Message of the Church
The primary form of compromise is altering the message of the gospel. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:1-8:
Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
Jesus died for our sins, just as was promised in the Old Testament. He was buried and three days later he rose from the dead. He appeared to not just the apostles, but over 500 other people. Paul says many of them are still alive, implying that you can go find and confirm the resurrection with these eye witnesses in his day. Churches that compromise the gospel change or alter this message.
Throughout the last hundred years, many denominations have done this very thing. Mainline denominations like the Episocpal Church, Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America have all made significant changes to the message they preached. Why? As culture became more secular and thus resistant to the truth, they felt the need to modify their teaching to appease their audience.
Does a name change alter the message of the gospel? Well, that depends on what you change the name to! If our name communicated something contrary to the gospel, then yes, we would compromise the gospel. “Buddha is Lord Church” would indeed constitute a departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Not only can I assure you that “Buddha” will not be in our name, I can go a step farther and say that we actually plan to exalt Christ in our name. Yes, as I’ve said in other places, “Baptist” is a confusing name to many in our community. While we want to eliminate confusion, we are not are not seeking to eliminate the offense of the gospel. The gospel is only good news if it confronts the problem of sin. Consider 1 Corinthians 1:22-25:
For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
I would rather people be offended by “Christ” than confused by the word “Baptist.” The goal with a name change is not to obscure who we are. The goal of a name change is to clarify our core commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe our new proposed name will actually strengthen our commitment to Christ through clearer communication about our identity as a church.
Compromising the Nature of the Church
The second area we must guard against is compromising who the church is. The local church is a group of baptized believers covenanted by God to make disciples through the ministry of the word and administration of the ordinances.
“Baptized believers” means we are not merely a group of people who are fans of Jesus. We are a group who’ve been saved by his grace and professed that publicly through baptism by immersion. Immersion is more than just checking a box, it’s affirming the truth of and identifying with Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection. Consider 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises, of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
In Christ Jesus, we are “God’s people.” We are people saved and gathered together by God’s grace. We don’t create the church, God does. He saves us and then graciously connects us to one another as His people.
Church membership is a tool that encourages and protects the nature of the church. Who you allow to join the church as a member either reinforces or undermines who the church is. If you allow people to join who do not know Christ, you undermine the nature of the church. If you allow people to join the church who say they know Christ but don’t affirm the gospel, you undermine the nature of the church.
“You can belong before you believe” is a slogan I’ve heard churches use over the years. They want lost people to feel loved and welcomed in the church before they trust Christ. But to say they “belong” before they “believe” begins to shift God’s vision for the church away from the "people of God.” The church is not meant to be a group of Christians sprinkled with the lost. It’s meant to be a group who is professing through their lives and their mouths that Jesus is Lord.
Yes, the lost are welcome to come and see the worship, hear the preaching and interact with our people. But we must never lose sight that they are not truly a part of the church until they accept Christ and identify with him publicly through baptism.
Why is this compromise so dangerous? Because the church declares the gospel not just through proclamation and confession of our faith but also through our community as well. How our fellowship loves one another is meant to be a visible demonstration of the gospel. Consider John 13:34-35:
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Love among the believers of a church demonstrates our identity as the “people of God.” Forgiveness, service, bearing burdens, and confessing sin are all examples of love in action in a church. It’s impossible to love like this without the power of the Holy Spirit. Until the love of Christ has displaced love of self, I can never truly love others. But, when believers empowered by the Spirit love like this, people begin to see that the only explanation for our love is the presence of God.
Can a new name compromise the nature of the church? Again, “Buddha is Lord Church” would muddy the waters a great deal. Joking aside, in light of the nature of the church it does matter how we choose to identify ourselves through a name. If we adopt a name that’s too trendy, yes, it could obscure the nature of the church. “The Overflow,” “Awaken” or “Vibe” may be good for marketing purposes, but they send mixed signals about what the church actually is. I believe it will be critical to not only exalt Jesus in our new name, but also a sense of the deep, rich community our church enjoys as a fellowship of believers.
The Heart of Engagement
You can do all the right things outwardly, but if your heart is in the wrong place, you still sin. If I say that I forgive someone but in my heart still actively hold onto resentment and bitterness, constantly rehearsing the ways this person wronged me, I’ve not really forgiven them.
When the Bible talks about “the heart,” it speaks to the deepest part of you. It’s the place of desire and longing. Consider a few verses about the heart:
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Mt 6:21)
For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mk 7:21–23).
I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Ga 5:16–18)
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. (Pr 4:23)
We are born with hearts that long for sin. The list in Mark 7 comes to fruition in our lives because our hearts want these things. Coming to Christ changes our hearts. God’s Spirit resides within us, slowly changing and redirecting our desires for Christ. Still, the Scriptures are clear that while we have the Spirit, we need to vigilantly guard our hearts. We need to live with a spiritual self-awareness to discern if we are longing for the wrong things.
Does a new church name constitute a desire to compromise? Does a new church name represent a lack of trust in the Spirit’s work?
That’s a penetrating question that requires humble reflection about our heart movitation. Despite everything I’ve said about our commitment to the message and nature of the church in our new name, if our heart is in the wrong place, it absolutely could constitute a sinful exaltation of our kingdom above Christ’s kingdom.
To that end, our elders have been in a season of prayer and fasting, asking the Lord to sift our hearts of any motive but the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve also sought to lead with humility and openness before you as a church. Our elders do not believe that this name change is motivated by sinful exaltation of human means nor compromise of the gospel.
What is our heart in proposing a name change? A brokenness for the lost. We are asking you to consider a name change not out of compromise of the nature nor message of the church. We are asking you to consider a name change because we genuinely believe our current name is a confusing barrier to our engagement of this community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Spencer Plumlee
Senior Pastor
The root issue in these questions is cultural engagement: How do we engage the world with the gospel without being compromised by the world? Listen to the words of Jesus from John 17:14-16:
I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
We are called to engage the world as people who are not “of the world.” In other words, we are to reach out into our community without being tainted by the sin and darkness of the world. In this post, I’d like to take up the issue of cultural engagement by talking about two ways we must not compromise. I’ll end with some reflections on the heart behind a name change.
Compromising the Message of the Church
The primary form of compromise is altering the message of the gospel. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:1-8:
Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
Jesus died for our sins, just as was promised in the Old Testament. He was buried and three days later he rose from the dead. He appeared to not just the apostles, but over 500 other people. Paul says many of them are still alive, implying that you can go find and confirm the resurrection with these eye witnesses in his day. Churches that compromise the gospel change or alter this message.
Throughout the last hundred years, many denominations have done this very thing. Mainline denominations like the Episocpal Church, Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America have all made significant changes to the message they preached. Why? As culture became more secular and thus resistant to the truth, they felt the need to modify their teaching to appease their audience.
Does a name change alter the message of the gospel? Well, that depends on what you change the name to! If our name communicated something contrary to the gospel, then yes, we would compromise the gospel. “Buddha is Lord Church” would indeed constitute a departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Not only can I assure you that “Buddha” will not be in our name, I can go a step farther and say that we actually plan to exalt Christ in our name. Yes, as I’ve said in other places, “Baptist” is a confusing name to many in our community. While we want to eliminate confusion, we are not are not seeking to eliminate the offense of the gospel. The gospel is only good news if it confronts the problem of sin. Consider 1 Corinthians 1:22-25:
For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
I would rather people be offended by “Christ” than confused by the word “Baptist.” The goal with a name change is not to obscure who we are. The goal of a name change is to clarify our core commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe our new proposed name will actually strengthen our commitment to Christ through clearer communication about our identity as a church.
Compromising the Nature of the Church
The second area we must guard against is compromising who the church is. The local church is a group of baptized believers covenanted by God to make disciples through the ministry of the word and administration of the ordinances.
“Baptized believers” means we are not merely a group of people who are fans of Jesus. We are a group who’ve been saved by his grace and professed that publicly through baptism by immersion. Immersion is more than just checking a box, it’s affirming the truth of and identifying with Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection. Consider 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises, of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
In Christ Jesus, we are “God’s people.” We are people saved and gathered together by God’s grace. We don’t create the church, God does. He saves us and then graciously connects us to one another as His people.
Church membership is a tool that encourages and protects the nature of the church. Who you allow to join the church as a member either reinforces or undermines who the church is. If you allow people to join who do not know Christ, you undermine the nature of the church. If you allow people to join the church who say they know Christ but don’t affirm the gospel, you undermine the nature of the church.
“You can belong before you believe” is a slogan I’ve heard churches use over the years. They want lost people to feel loved and welcomed in the church before they trust Christ. But to say they “belong” before they “believe” begins to shift God’s vision for the church away from the "people of God.” The church is not meant to be a group of Christians sprinkled with the lost. It’s meant to be a group who is professing through their lives and their mouths that Jesus is Lord.
Yes, the lost are welcome to come and see the worship, hear the preaching and interact with our people. But we must never lose sight that they are not truly a part of the church until they accept Christ and identify with him publicly through baptism.
Why is this compromise so dangerous? Because the church declares the gospel not just through proclamation and confession of our faith but also through our community as well. How our fellowship loves one another is meant to be a visible demonstration of the gospel. Consider John 13:34-35:
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Love among the believers of a church demonstrates our identity as the “people of God.” Forgiveness, service, bearing burdens, and confessing sin are all examples of love in action in a church. It’s impossible to love like this without the power of the Holy Spirit. Until the love of Christ has displaced love of self, I can never truly love others. But, when believers empowered by the Spirit love like this, people begin to see that the only explanation for our love is the presence of God.
Can a new name compromise the nature of the church? Again, “Buddha is Lord Church” would muddy the waters a great deal. Joking aside, in light of the nature of the church it does matter how we choose to identify ourselves through a name. If we adopt a name that’s too trendy, yes, it could obscure the nature of the church. “The Overflow,” “Awaken” or “Vibe” may be good for marketing purposes, but they send mixed signals about what the church actually is. I believe it will be critical to not only exalt Jesus in our new name, but also a sense of the deep, rich community our church enjoys as a fellowship of believers.
The Heart of Engagement
You can do all the right things outwardly, but if your heart is in the wrong place, you still sin. If I say that I forgive someone but in my heart still actively hold onto resentment and bitterness, constantly rehearsing the ways this person wronged me, I’ve not really forgiven them.
When the Bible talks about “the heart,” it speaks to the deepest part of you. It’s the place of desire and longing. Consider a few verses about the heart:
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Mt 6:21)
For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mk 7:21–23).
I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Ga 5:16–18)
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. (Pr 4:23)
We are born with hearts that long for sin. The list in Mark 7 comes to fruition in our lives because our hearts want these things. Coming to Christ changes our hearts. God’s Spirit resides within us, slowly changing and redirecting our desires for Christ. Still, the Scriptures are clear that while we have the Spirit, we need to vigilantly guard our hearts. We need to live with a spiritual self-awareness to discern if we are longing for the wrong things.
Does a new church name constitute a desire to compromise? Does a new church name represent a lack of trust in the Spirit’s work?
That’s a penetrating question that requires humble reflection about our heart movitation. Despite everything I’ve said about our commitment to the message and nature of the church in our new name, if our heart is in the wrong place, it absolutely could constitute a sinful exaltation of our kingdom above Christ’s kingdom.
To that end, our elders have been in a season of prayer and fasting, asking the Lord to sift our hearts of any motive but the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve also sought to lead with humility and openness before you as a church. Our elders do not believe that this name change is motivated by sinful exaltation of human means nor compromise of the gospel.
What is our heart in proposing a name change? A brokenness for the lost. We are asking you to consider a name change not out of compromise of the nature nor message of the church. We are asking you to consider a name change because we genuinely believe our current name is a confusing barrier to our engagement of this community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Spencer Plumlee
Senior Pastor
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