Names and Perceptions

It is cute how easily some people get upset. We have a little bitty church, approximately 1/1,000 of the denomination. Sometimes I have commented that we would like to be the denominational headquarters and the center of the denomination. Now who would take that seriously? It sounds good to me because I live here and it would not be so far for me to travel. I like this city. There is less crime here than the city where the headquarters is now and prices are lower. The Assembly of God International Headquarters is already here and seems to do just fine and they send out many, many times more missionaries than our denomination ever thought of doing, so our airport is fine for travel anywhere. And, we are in the center of the US. In my mind, it is a good thought. Nobody else has to agree with me.

The name of our church is Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It has a "first" in front of it but nobody uses it. Since we are the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, it only makes sense that the denomination would center around us, right? Forget how small we are, how few financial resources we have (all of the money in all of the Presbyterial accounts magically vanished last year and our offerings are nothing to write home about) and how few of our denomination are in the state. We are less than a little hankie to a kingsize quilt or an ant next to a tree.

We plan to build a new church building soon and are adding a new name, in addition to Cumberland Presbyterian, like most other CP churches do. (White Oak Pond, New Hope, Orange, etc) That way, if there are several churches of our denomination in the area some day, (another dream) it would be possible to tell one from another by name.

I was at first surprised and then amused at a person who was worried that, if by adding more words to our name we would lose our Cumberland Presbyterian identity. Around here, very few people know that Cumberland Presbyterian is a denomination. They think it is the name of our church, named after either a road, a family years ago, something in the Bible they have never heard about or some other thing. Most people think we are just Presbyterian (PCUSA) with a quirky name, if they think about us at all. We are so small we do not make the radar of most people.

I guess the person, I can't remember who it was now, had a point (but they would not have been aware of it). If we are going to be the center of the denomination and the denominational headquarters, then we should remain THE Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Somehow, it isn't very likely that's going to happen but who knows? All things are possible with God. If it is His will, it will happen. Personally, it sounds like a lot of extra work to me. If it should ever turn out that God does this, that means He has work for me to do, and not something small. I will do whatever He wants but do I really want a lot of extra work?

In the meantime, we are THE Cumberland Presbyterian Church and life is interesting.