My Worship Gatherings Need A Cool, Hip, Emerging Name

Posted byChaplainmikePosted inUncategorized

It’s time for audience participation.

At the school where I work, we have two weekend worship gatherings. These used to be led by a local church, and so we called them “church.” We have daily “chapel” in the same worship space.

These two worship gatherings need a cool, hip, emerging name. Like “Element.” 🙂

Gathering #1 is 9:15 a.m. Traditional worship with very light liturgy. Structured, and the kids are usually pretty quiet. 2-3 familiar songs alternating piano and guitar every other week. Will have some creative ministries stuff next year. Have a preaching team of 4 men, followed by small groups. We do basic topical/catechetical teaching. Cover Ten Commandments, Apostle’s Creed, Lord’s Prayer, various short Biblical series.

Gathering #2 is 7:00 p.m. Contemporary band that really kicks. Two of us preaching evangelisitically and in rotation. Very informal and active service. Kids love it.

We are a boarding school for grades 6-12. The gatherings are for the students, but some adults and visitors do attend.

OK. I need some name suggestions. Help me out. I’m thinking logos and t-shirts here.

By the way…”Law” and “Gospel” won’t be considered.

58 thoughts on “My Worship Gatherings Need A Cool, Hip, Emerging Name”

  4. No matter what name you choose, you have to make sure you misspell the words….use z’s for s’s, etc…kids really think that’s cool…Kidz Klub, etc…or you have to call it “The (something)” singular…now that’s hip…

    I agree with what others have already said…kids are able to see through all this false “hipness”…it just makes me tired seeing the “hip” names given to any sort of student ministry….and even adults are not immune to this…Sunday School must be “Life Groups”…must use the words “relevant” and “relationships” often…I find all this pandering insulting…

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  5. I need to call it something. Chapel is what we have during school days during the week. It’s not church and I don’t want to confuse my internationals that it is. It’s not worship to attend this, so calling it worship is Biblically wrong imo.

    I just want a name I can put on a logo, etc/

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  8. Morning: The Green. Not sure how you would make a logo with that…but the t-shirt color is easy.

    Evening: I’m sure you could get away with Xenos. My other suggestion would be Tribe.

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  10. Our youth use Amplified for high school, “the vox” for Junior high and my favorite “the well” for a monthly worship experience.

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  11. There was a BBC news show called “Man-Alive” back in the sixties.

    You can even use Tony Hatch’s groovy and bouncy theme song.

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  12. I understand why Michael doesn’t want to use “church.” My argument is that you can have a church service and not be a church, but the end result is the same: It’s not going to be called “church.”

    Our BCM meeting name I stole from BSU at college, Celebration. Our school also had a dramatic performance group called Impact. I think Impact might work for one meeting or the other. I think Fusion and Encounter were both good suggestions.

    Sunday a.m. Encounter
    Sunday p.m. Impact

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  13. Friends of many years ago began their Christian lives in the Boulder, Colorado of the early 1970’s, among lots of other recently converted hippies, led by sort-of elders who were referred to as “Heavy Brothers.” The church/gathering/fellowship was called, quite simply, “God’s Thing.”
    Not hip, but definitely hippie.

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  15. Because I am not trying to be trendy or cool. My students have to come. Attendance will be the same if I call it Jesus Rox or The Macarthur Hour. I like names as conceptual tools, and I want to do some shirts, logos, etc.

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  16. My kids, now young adults, weren’t in middle/high school that long ago. I can tell you they found hip-type names for worship and “way cool” worship services extremely lame. So how about you call it “Worship”?

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  17. Our Baptist College Ministry group’s meeting name is Impact. My church’s weekly young adult service was called Encounter. In college the Wednesday night college group was called Cross Training (albeit a slightly less exciting name, that one)

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  18. Tried to go with things that communicate what you are actually doing at the services.

    Morning… Transformation, or Roots, or Rooted
    Evening… Come as you are, Chill

    🙂

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  20. I can’t even remember the current name of our youth and children’s miistries. But thanks for the light hearted posts on this one.

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  22. With dancing being out, (and my alma mater lost money from some churches when we allowed dancing on campus,) here are two more.

    For the morning one: Candle light
    For the evening one: Firelight

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  23. How about The Bread Line?

    Or ICHTHUS…I’m Captured Here Through His Unwavering Song?

    Sorry, another lame Anglican.

    Of course, our Episcopal youth ministry is called The Happening.

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  25. Over at http://www.youthpastor.com/names/ you’ll find an alphabetical index of names & slogans for youth groups / youth oriented services. The acronyms, puns and entendres never stop, and if it’s not exactly inspiring, it’s good for a laugh. My favorite bible study name/slogan:
    “Vigilantes!! Youth taking God’s law into their own hands.”

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  26. I heard of a Christian group called “These Are They”.

    (The KJV uses this phrase several times to refer to the followers of our Lord.)

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  27. To modify on a previous poster a bit, we had a young adult group that used BOX for a while (for Body of Christ, with the X taken from Xpistos).

    Our new group is actually looking for a name, but we seem to be doing rather well without one. Hard to call nothing a logo on a t-shirt, though.

    Xenos is cool, but my mind went immediately to Xenu, and I know y’all ain’t about to join the cult of Tom Cruise. There has to be something, though, that works as a play on traveller, alien, foreigner, etc.

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  28. Anna: It’s a pretty fundamentalist Baptist school, and dancing is illegal in the rule book (though we have it a lot under other names.) “The Dance” does have a Garth Brooks tie in….

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  29. Don’t know if these two images would help, but here goes. (At least they make spark someone else)

    Light

    Dance (or some sort of movement)

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  32. How about Via Magdala (“a high place, lifted up, exalted”)?

    One of the things I always appreciated about Mary Magdalene’s story is the way that Jesus lifted her up out of her crazy existence. And one of the things I appreciate about attending a weekly worship is that it lifts me up out of my own crazy existence. It’s accessible and apropos.

    But possibly also lame. 😉

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  34. I know my youth think anything involving a number is lame and mis-spelled words is to…they say thats so 2002.

    Hmmm.

    Undistract
    The vine
    rewired

    I would go for a serious cultural analogy…I don’t know the level that your students are allowed internet access, but I think anything involving contemporary youth communication would be fair game (just don’t try to play of myspace and say hisspace or something like that). To what I know of current youth culture they are pretty lactose intolerant, meaning that if it is cheesy they will sniff it out and turn themselves off real quick. I know the trend right now is to get out of the rhythm of things, and that act in and of itself has become the rhythm, so maybe you should try something really obvious (did that make sense?).

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  35. choorch
    Ch*rch
    worship God dot now
    Phat Gospel
    Faith Worx
    Mmmkay God
    BOC (say “bock”, Body Of Christ)
    WTL (say “wattle”, Worship The Lord)
    Living Watrz
    Heart Jesus

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  36. I don’t have a jazzy counterpart idea for the traditional service, but I kinda like Panorama for the second one. A comprehensive view of something. Could be used creatively for merchandise, I think.

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  38. iChurch, iWorship, iKingdom would work.
    The Worship Garden.

    Its late and I’m out of ideas.

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  39. Since you have so many international students, how about Xenos? It means stranger or foreigner, and it could even be an acrostic: X(Christ) – Every Nation, One Savior.

    (I’m Anglican like Ryan, so if this sucks you’ll know why.)

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  40. Eschaton. No, no, wait. wrong.

    7th Bowl. Okay, really, I’ll behave now.

    Grace 2.0. Argh, what is wrong with me?

    Ember. Prism. Facet. Epith. Hmm, I think I may have just named a new hatchback coupe.

    I do wonder how many youth groups should really have been called “Thunderdome”.

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  41. We just started one we called “Kainos”–Greek for “new.” Our theme verses are Colossians 3:9-11, in which the related word anakainao is used, translated “renew.” We are the “new humanity” Colossians 3 style.

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  42. As a Calvinistic Presbyterian, I am not allowed to have fun. But if I were to try a name for this entirely misguided event, I’d go with something real cheesey, like: Rock This Age, Kingdom Come, or something real missional like GO!

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  44. Emmaus Road is overdone, but if you make it M.A.S.rode, or “rod” with a little thingy over the ‘o’, that would be coolhip.

    Axiom.

    Zenith.

    Panasonic.

    No, no, cool is out, ironic is in. Don’t be short and cool, be long and wordy and ironic, like, “The Place Wherein Many Shall Come – a House of Worship consisting of Many People, who desire to Worship God in a manner which suits their generation.” No? “Wittenburg House of Worship from All Nations,”

    How about “Gathering of people who shall worship the Lord Jesus” You would need long sleeve shirts for that.

    Or maybe nonsense – “Bill Grasshopper’s Ninja Dancing Church”

    Classic – The Pewter Lamp. Kind of like the Boar’s Head Inn, but, you know, real. And with people.

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  45. A local place here uses “Analog.”

    Other local names include “Parallax” (yes, Parallax) and “oneeighty” was something I did (leaving the decision for the name up to vote gave us that name).

    Runners-up included “Manna” and “r12” (Romans 12)

    Man we Christians can be lame sometimes.

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  46. Well I have a room full of pagans, and calling it “church” is misleading, because we’re not one. Some kind of name will allow us to do, as I said, some promo and graphic things that the kids enjoy.

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  47. Matt wins. i.Worship is really funny.

    But I also agree with Dave. I always thought the names were a really cheesy attempt at “cool-ness”.

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  48. We started a worship gathering for college students a couple of years ago and we named it The Real Zoo, zoo coming from zoe, for life. Real Life.

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  49. Sure, take Element. What do I care?
    All the cool kids are doing it.

    Another local gathering (for singles only) is now calling themselves Element. I was a little torqued at first, but it’s not like we invented the word.

    Seriously, though, if you want to see Element Nashville’s rejected name list, I can send it to you. But it had stuff in there like Elevation, Catalyst, Meta, and Arboretum.

    Yeah. I know.

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  50. The ministry I was involved with in college gave all their churches names like “The Rock,” “H2O,” and “The Revolution.” However, I think I’d avoid that. I think that’s pre-Emergent “Seeker Sensitive” stuff, and I think most kids these days see through the attempt to be “hip.”

    Hmm… that was all negative. I guess I don’t have any positive ideas.

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  51. One of my former colleagues sat me down and asked me the Greek word for about a dozen words. He settled on “logos”. I tried to get him to go with “skubala”.

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  53. When all else fails steal a book title.

    Submerge: Living Deep in a Shallow World

    most excellent book. I think you would enjoy it.

    submerge would be the name.

    the rest would be the slogan

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  55. Clark: I was thinking about what we can do with graphics, shirts and logos. So “church” would really suck 🙂

    I actually thought about “X Church” with the X being a big Chi (Greek symbol for Christ.)

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  56. Jacob’s Well

    Encounter

    Those are both really lame, sorry

    oh Noel says “SONday Service”

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  57. Our Sunday evening became L.I.F.E. Service a few years back. It’s about half and hour of contemporary worship followed by half and hour of preaching. L.I.F.E. stands for the Lord’s Invitation For Everyone. (It’s very emerging, BTW)

    I’m somewhat familiar with the school you work at, and personally I have no problem calling the Sunday services church. But I know you like giving meetings names the way most Baptists enjoy naming buildings (The Bridge). So, you know…whatever.

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  58. Morning – Ekklesia (kinda touches on the whole traditional connection)
    Evening – i.Worship (something that connects with the contemporary interactive side of things)

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