It’s Not All in a Name for Some Churches : Denominations: Affiliations and locations may be dropped from congregations’ titles to avoid images that turn off potential parishioners.

When Van Nuys First Baptist Church acquired land two years ago for a new building in Chatsworth, the congregation also decided that it needed a new name.

After surveying people in movie lines, ballparks and shopping malls, members settled on Shepherd of the Hills Church. “We’re interested in the people who don’t go to church and may have an aversion to church,” said Pastor Jess Moody.

Other congregations, such as Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego and Celebration Center in Colton have even downplayed their identity as churches.

It’s all part of a spreading trend, especially among evangelistic churches, to choose pleasant-sounding names that avoid images that many pastors believe are turn-offs. The congregation may be Baptist or Pentecostal or something else, but you often can’t tell that by the name.

Newly formed or relocating churches are also picking names that will not limit their drawing potential to one city. Seabreeze Community Church and Mountain View Friends Church, for instance, felicitously fuzz over their locations in Huntington Beach and Upland, respectively.

“The idea is that people shouldn’t trip over your theology because of what your name suggests,” said business administrator David Pollock of the Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth, a congregation once known as Faith Evangelical Church.

Because Protestant churches are remembered by some people as solemn places with long lists of “don’ts,” some pastors pick cheerful names to suggest a different image. Examples are the Community Church of Joy in Phoenix and Happy Church in Denver.

Many churches with unconventional names are among the fastest-growing Protestant churches in the country. That success, church leaders say, invariably hinges on an engaging pastor and church programs geared to educational and counseling needs. But a marketable name is considered a good start.

Some experts, however, believe that leaving off the affiliation is a mistake and that many people are drawn to a church by the denominational tag. And some denomination officials bridle at new congregations that obscure their brand of Christianity.

“The careful calculation not to offend anyone borders on false advertising,” said historian Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School.

However, Senior Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Mission Viejo found a decade ago that most people held no denominational allegiance. Like Moody’s church in Chatsworth, Saddleback Valley is affiliated with the Southern Baptists. His fast-growing church now packs an average of 4,000 people into Sunday services held in rented high school buildings.

“Some people who have come here a year do not know that we are Southern Baptists,” said Glen Kraun, executive pastor for Saddleback Valley Community Church. “We don’t hide it, but we do not make a big thing of it.”

“Unfortunately, Southern Baptists have been stereotyped,” he said, referring to the political infighting between fundamentalist and moderate leaders.

“The name Baptist seems to turn a lot of people off,” Moody said.

The trend toward non-traditional names is evident in California and Arizona, areas with relatively low church affiliation. Yet churches independent of one another and calling themselves New Life Christian Fellowship can be found everywhere from Mission Viejo to Grand Rapids, Mich., and Wilmington, Del.

“The name says it’s not some place where you’ll be bored out of your gourd,” said the Rev. Scott Linscott, associate pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship in Biddeford, Me.

Thus, instead of Trinity, Our Savior and St. Mark showing up in the names of newer churches, words like “Life” are used to convey vibrancy--as in the New Life Church of the Nazarene in Poway, the Life Church of Saddleback Valley in San Juan Capistrano and Creative Life Community Church, a Religious Science congregation in Las Vegas.

But specialists in church growth said they are disturbed over some of the strategies being pursued to attract inactive Christians.

“I think people are making a mistake in shying away from the word ‘church,’ ” said Prof. C. Peter Wagner of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. “Gallup polls say the church is one of the most admired institutions in this country.”

Lyle Schaller of Napierville, Ill., an author and lecturer on church growth, conceded that a church busy all week might prefer to call itself “Christian center” rather than “church,” which may suggest activity only on Sunday. He also agreed with the step of avoiding names that tie an ambitious church to one city.

“But, personally speaking, I would encourage mention of the denomination, even if it is underneath in smaller letters,” said Schaller.

Editor John N. Vaughan of Church Growth Today, a newsletter published in Bolivar, Mo., cautioned that “some people look for the denomination’s name so they won’t get caught in a cult church.” And most experts agree that a new Lutheran church in the Upper Midwest or a new Baptist congregation in the South would be wise to display its denominational colors.

At Saddleback Valley Community Church, Warren’s decision to keep “Baptist” out of his church’s name drew flak from some fellow Southern Baptist pastors. But his church’s rapid growth and creation of new congregations, such as the Seabreeze Community Church, has silenced most critics.

The move toward unconventional names was already at work in 1973 within the Assemblies of God, based in Springfield, Mo. That church body’s General Council passed a resolution urging local churches to retain the Assemblies name and not represent themselves as nondenominational churches. But scores of congregations have ignored that advice.

Some of the largest Assemblies of God churches, for example, are Capital Christian Center in Sacramento, Crossroads Cathedral in Oklahoma City and People’s Church in Fresno.

“The bottom line is that denominationalism is dying,” suggested the Rev. Jason Garcia, associate pastor at Newport-Mesa Christian Center in Costa Mesa, an Assemblies of God church. “We’re proud of our denomination, but we’re trying to open it up for anyone searching for the Lord.”

The pacesetter on church naming is generally acknowledged to be Southern California’s Robert H. Schuller, a Reformed Church in America minister. When his surveys in the late 1950s indicated confusion over the denomination’s name, Schuller called his congregation the Garden Grove Community Church. The 10,000-member congregation was renamed the Crystal Cathedral upon the completion of his much-publicized, glass-exterior building in 1980.

Schuller’s attention to image has been enormously influential among fellow clergy--even as detractors have lampooned his grandiose projects, celebrity-studded televised services and self-esteem theology.

But what about Happy Church in Denver? That name was adopted about 14 years ago when visitors kept calling the Full Gospel Chapel “that happy church.” Pastor Wallace Hickey says the name has its pluses and minuses.

“For some, it’s too flip, too frothy. But it draws people,” said Hickey, who preaches to an average of 2,000 on Sundays.

“They think, ‘If there’s anything I need, it’s a touch of happiness,’ ” he said. Happy Church recently began services in a renovated shopping mall purchased for $7.8 million in a bankruptcy sale.

Another smiley-face church, the Community Church of Joy in Phoenix, is the fastest growing congregation in the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said the Rev. Walt Kallestad. The membership has gone from 200 to 5,000 during his 12-year pastorate, and at least 75% of the members do not have Lutheran backgrounds, Kallestad said.

“Diehard Lutherans are offended that we don’t have Lutheran in our name, but we are Christian first, Lutheran second,” he said.

Kallestad also stirred up Lutherans last May when he espoused “entertainment evangelism” in his denomination’s magazine. He wrote that people who come to his church have “fun” at services that may have a band, comedians, dramas and “high energy choreography” in addition to the “changeless message” of salvation.

“Jesus was not crucified for being Henny Youngman!” said Steven A. Sathre of Bismarck, N.D., one of 100 unhappy readers who wrote to the magazine. On the other hand, the worship was praised as “inspiring and meaningful,” by a winter churchgoer from Minnesota. “I have never seen a circus there . . . .”

A similar debate swirls around the new Celebration Center Seventh-day Adventist Church in Colton, which draws at least 1,500 people each Saturday.

“Some people on the right see something very sinister in what we are doing,” said Pastor Dan Simpson. Band music and dramatic skits are featured in every service.

“We chose a name that expressed what we believe about God and his love,” Simpson said. “It’s a real movement among serious leaders to be relevant. Too many times, churches have been heavenly minded (but doing) no earthly good.”