Q1: WHERE DID THE NAME PEOPLE’S CHURCH COME FROM? (5 BIG QUESTIONS IVE BEEN ASKED ABOUT PEOPLES CHURCH, by church leaders) *Short Answer: God. *Medium-Play Answer: Do you know people who always play the “God-told-me” card? As if God verbally directs their every step, their every move—what to say at all times, what kind of toothpaste to use, what to wear on Sunday. I don’t throw this card down often, but I think I rightfully can for just a handful of important decisions in my life. Around twelve years ago, Jen and I were traveling on a summer tour of churches, and for a week we were appearing in Canadian churches. One night we sang and taught in a beautiful Toronto church. The following day, for fun the pastor drove us to a nearly two-hundred year-old church called the Jarvis Street Baptist Church. That day we drove by the large, famous People’s Church of Toronto, founded in by Oswald Smith in 1928. (At one time People’s Church invested more money in evangelistic missions than any other church on the globe. Gipsy Smith, John R. Rice, Harry Ironside and many other famous men of God in their day spoke there.) I didn’t hear an audible voice, but while passing the building I heard a distinct verbal impression upon my heart: “One day when you’re a pastor, your church will be called the People’s Church.” A few years later, in the fall of 2006 I was at the clerk’s office in White Plains, NY, filling out legal paperwork to establish our new church. I remember looking at the blank on the legal form for the new organization’s name. I stared for a moment and thought: Well, God told me to call it ‘People’s Church,’ so I guess I’ll call it People’s Church. I braced myself a little, because I knew that some important people in my life would be appalled that I didn’t use a denominational name. (Some people still won’t speak to me.) But I also knew well that I wasn’t starting a new church for them. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about how to name churches. (Actually there isn’t one church in the New Testament that had a name, as we know it today. It was the church at Antioch, the church at Jerusalem, the Ephesian church, the churches of Galatia.) Now for nearly eight years we’ve leased space for our services, in the absence of a traditional owned church building. It seems that the name “People’s Church” has been especially fitting, because a biblical church isn’t a building anyhow, but the people.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015