We rebranded thankfully in 2008, and my primary concern was the elimination of all a.c.r.o.n.y.m.s. I hope you are not offended by this, but I hate all things acronym. I know that this is risky to put on a blog since the NSA will read this and they themselves are an acronym. It seems that the debate of rebranding is centered around functional vs. fun. We tried to accomplish both.
Here was my thought-process in our rebranding.
1. What is the direction of our church – Our church was about to rebrand and so we couldn’t name our kids church after our big church. Plus some churches should name their kids after their big church because, well, their big church name is a bit much (greater highway deliverance ministry kids?) I digress. What reflects the vision and values of the church.
2. Does it help parents? – When I took over our preschool we had classes like Navigators, Explorers and Discoverers. I for the life of me could not keep them straight and sent lots of kids to the wrong rooms. To fix this, when we rebranded and picked a theme for our kids church, I chose names that could have numbers. 2nd Ave. – 2 year olds, 3rd Street – 3 year olds, Rte. 5 – 5 year olds. our 5, 6, 7th grade Junction 567 … It makes sense to new people because they know how old their kids are. I haven’t misdirected a kid yet.
3. Is it fun? – Parents remember utilitarian names; kids embrace fun ones. So to have a combination of both, we did the practical names like 4th Ave. But I didn’t want kids to just invite other kids to their class — I wanted them to invite them to a broad-based experience. So we named the whole thing Uptown. Uptown covers everything from birth to 6th grade. It’s fun and it’s all kids have to remember. It also will be all they will ever have to remember.
4. Know your area – For us not being in the Bible Belt but in Crucifix Alley (being a protestant non-denominational church) having a different name than the name of our church is a plus in that we reach kids without preconceived ideas from parents.
It is our desire to preach Jesus to kids and parents alike. So rather than be cute, our goal is how can we be effective and glorify God in all we do. Far too many churches try and be cute because they believe that cuteness draws people. While this may be true, cuteness doesn’t transform lives and change hearts. That is a work that only Christ can do.
So name things and name them well.
