The International Church Name Service (ICNS) publicly apologized today for the recent lack of quality church names.  “We’ve had some complaints,” said Hubert Smith, public relations officer for the ICNS.  “But we have been serving churches by creating and parceling out names for several decades, and we assure the Christian community that we will continue to do so.”

Many pastors, however, are calling for reform.  “My church is called RiverWild,” said Pastor Bob Frigate.  “They didn’t even give us a space between the two words.  And we live in the desert.  We’re sixty miles from the nearest river.”

The Cup in Portland, Oregon also complained.  “We’ve managed to build a compelling vision around the name, something about communion and the Last Supper.  But c’mon!  The Cup?  It really was a stretch for us.  On the positive side, it has brought in quite a few athletes.”

Meanwhile, Mars Hill church and Mars Hill Seminary in Seattle report continued confusion over their shared name, despite the fact that they are completely separate organizations.  “We had a surplus of pagan church names for a few years,” Smith admits. “But being named for the Roman god of war hasn’t slowed their growth.”  Meanwhile, Thor’s Hammer Presbyterian Church and Vulcan’s Forge Baptist have filed formal complaints against the ICNS. 

Vulcan’s Forge pastor, Sam Mitchell, said, “If one more Trekkie comes to my church dressed for a convention I don’t know what I’m going to do.  When they look at me with those expressionless eyes and say, ‘The name of your church is illogical’ I just want to bash their little pointy-eared heads in.  As if an alien planet named for the god of blacksmiths or whatever makes sense.”

“I implore everyone to remain calm,” Smith said, emphasizing ICNS’s satisfied customers, like Jeremiah Son, pastor of Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Korean Church.  “I especially like the exclamation points,” Son said.  “A nice touch and they didn’t charge us extra!”

Smith asks that churches remain charitable while they continue to iron out their naming system and the supply problems.  The ICNS has been experimenting with foreign-language names to increase availability.  “We started with simple languages, like pig Latin,” says Smith.  “But Irst-fay Ethodist-May found that it encouraged speaking in tongues, which made them uncomfortable.  So we’re working on popularizing Latin and Greek names.”

But even that innovation has been met with uncertainty.  Several members at Imago Dei expressed outrage that a dead language had been used to name their church.  One man shook his head and walked away, too angry to continue our conversation.  “I thought it was Spanish,” he said.  “What a rip off.” 

Currently Available Church Names:

Dead Water Assembly

Balaam’s Ass Community Church

Corbito Deo

(NOTE: Latin for “the slow-sailing merchant ship of God”)

Leviticus 21:20

Eighth Day Adventist

WalMart Presents: Your Own Personal Jesus

Thomas Haden Church

Shadow of Death Community Church 

Slightly misspelled (50% discount):

Gross Pointe Presbyterian

Mar Shill

Saddlebum

Harry Potter’s House

Prosaic Church

Bedlam Baptist Church

Widow Creek

Please contact you local ICNS representative if you interested in purchasing one of these names for your church or home community.