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Just for a fun exercise I took a look in our telephone book, for the names of different churches, of various denominations...what a hoot...

I live in a more rural area, the south end of South Sound in Washington state, and am surrounded by of course, the ‘metropolis’, of Lacey, Tumwater and Olympia, which is surrounded by lots of small towns, and lots of rural land...

Still, we have a huge number of churches all around, so I thought it would be interesting to see what different names, from all the different denominations are involved here...

Here is just a sampling...OK, let us get the Catholic Churches out of the way first....there is Sacred Heart, St Columbian, St John’s, St Michael’s, and St. Peter’s....ah, but then let us look at the Anglican church in this area...there is St James Anglican...what about the Episcopal...there is St Benedicts, St Christophers, St Davids, St Germains, St Lukes, and St Timothys, all Episcopal churches...

Now what about the Jehovahs Witnesses...we have about six in this general area...the Jehovahs Witnesses, themselves, would tell you, that they are using God’s actual name to identify their church...

What about the Mormons...officially they declare themselves officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...we have several of these churches in the area...

What about the Christian Science church....we have but one of those in this area...

Then there are the usual churches identifying themselves by their denomination name...Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc....they all use the name of their denomination in the name of their church....some are creative and tack on other words...things like Sunbreak Missionary Baptist, Gethsemane Baptist, ah, the Lutherans have St. Marks Lutheran church, there is a Mt Olive Lutheran Church, there is a Westminster Presbyterian, we have a Pentecostal church called Water of Life Church, another Pentecostal church called Abundant Life Apostolic church, Fountain of Truth Pentecostal, this is just a brief sampling...

But what about those churches that declare themselves to be non-denominational, let us look at their names....there is Church of the Harvest, the Faith, Hope and Love Ministry, Flood the Sound(I must say, I have no idea what this means), R.O.C.K.(I have no idea what this one means either)...and then there is wide variety of seemingly non-denominational churches, billing themselves simply as ‘community churches’, ‘neighborhood churches’ (insert the name of any surrounding town)chapels, etc. etc. etc.

The name of the small Catholic country church, next to the cemetery where my son is buried, is called the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church....the big Catholic Church that my friends went when I was a kid, in Chicago, was Maternity Blessed Virgin Mary, or Maternity B.V.M. for short....I belonged at the time to a Methodist church, and we operated in conjunction with 4 other small Methodist churches, all which named themselves after the street name they were on, such as First street Methodist, or Canal Street Methodist....

I would challenge everyone on this thread, to just open their phone books, in the yellow pages, to ‘churches’, look at many, many denomination, and then look at the ‘names’, those various churches adopt for their own, to identify themselves....if you have a half hour to waste on this silly exercise, you might actually find it quite fun, and rather enlightening..

I live in an area, tho rural, with no big metropolis around, for miles, still has a wide abundance of churches, of many different denominations, all using for whatever reason, various names, with which they identify themselves..

So, the question is, what is in a name?....In this quite silly exercise, I would say, NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH, ZERO...the name by which a church calls itself, is of no great importance to me....tho my Jehovah’s Witnesses acquaintances tell me, it is of great importance to God, thus they all call their churches, by God’s name Jehovah and identify themselves, as worshippers, in Jehovah’s church, and these JW’s are adamant that this is important...or Herbert W. Armstrong, insisted that all true churches, would call themselves ‘Church of God’. for that is the only name they should be known as...I assume, that the Mormons, also believe the name is important, as they identify themselves, as the Church of ‘Jesus Christ’ of Latter Day Saints....and then of course, there is the Christian Science Church...

Many denominations, use the words or phrases, ‘Christ’ ‘Jesus Christ’ ‘Jehovah’ ‘God’ in the name of their church, to identify themselves....among them, would be the JW’s, Mormons, the Christian Scientists, and the Herbert W. Armstrong followers...so if you go strictly by name, I suppose those on this thread would be happy going to a JW’s church, a Mormon church, a Christian Science church, a Herbert W. Armstrong following church?...

So what is in a name? Again I would say, NOTHING....

But hey, I had loads of fun carrying out this little exercise, and as I said if you have an half an hour or so, to waste, open your local phone book, and have a peek, you may be quite surprised at what you find...