Six Considerations for Naming a Church-Based Adventure Sports Ministry
Or for naming any ministry that is targeted to attract non-churched or non-Christian people before they become interested in following Jesus.
Ray Johnston, Founding Pastor of Bayside Church, author, former teacher and Youth Specialties core team member, taught me something years ago when I was the Men’s Pastor at Bayside. He told me that if I make some embroidered hats for our Men’s Ministry that say “Bayside Men’s Ministry”, he would not wear one. But if it just said “Bayside Men” or something like “Men Of The Rock” or anything else without a churchy word on them, that he would wear it. He explained that he meets lots of non-churched men, businessmen, athletic men but that none of them who are not Christians are going to ask about a hat with something churchy because they don’t want to start a conversation about religious stuff.
That conversation inspired me to really think through what to change the name of our Adventure Ministry to after originally naming it the “Extreme Sports Ministry” (breaking all of Ray’s rules!). Below are the six considerations I mention when I talk with pastors who are starting adventure sports ministries.
Don’t use religious words. If you are attempting to attract irreligious people or non-churchgoers, don’t use religious words in the name. An irreligious person is not going to sign up for the “Christian Adventure Ministry” or for the “First Baptist Adventure Ministry”. There was a mountain bike group started by a church in our area that called themselves, “BOMB” which stood for “Believers On Mountain Bikes”. A non-believer would probably not think they were welcome in a riding group started for believers.
Tie it to your location. It is nice for people to know that the group is local. Using the name of your county, city, or general area makes sense. People who live in Bend, OR naturally would feel welcome with “Bend Adventure Sports or Bend Outdoor Sports.
Possibly tie it to your church name. This works if your church name is not overtly religious. We had started ours with the name “Extreme Sports Ministry” and then realized we didn’t want the word “Ministry” so we changed it to “Bayside Adventure Sports” (BAS). This was over 20 years ago. We did end up with a problem with this name when Bayside grew to be the largest and most influential church in northern California. People from other churches in the region knew about Bayside Church and they were worried that if their people went to BAS, they wouldl get pulled away from their church into Bayside Church. Have we changed the name? No. But we have heard of people from other churches that hesitated to tell their friends about our ministry. Plymouth Covenant Church runs a ministry called Plymouth Adventure Sports (Plymouth is the city). District Church in El Dorado Hills calls their ministry, “District Outdoors”. Bridgeway Church started “Bridgeway Active”. Creekside Church in Elk Grove, CA started “Creekside Outside”. All very good names!
Keep it short. If it can’t be said or written quickly and easily, then people will start abbreviating the name and you’ll lose the recognition factor. All of the names mentioned above work as short names. Speaking of keeping it short, make sure that if the name is abbreviated that it doesn’t spell something embarrassing, like “Adventure Sports Sacramento”.
Make it Descriptive. If you use just the word “Sports” in the name, people will naturally think of traditional sports, especially the sports hosted by churches in the past like Softball or Basketball. If you use a term like “Cycling” in the name, then you limit your sports to just cycling. If you just use the word “Adventures” people may mistake the ministry for being limited to just doing trips they would consider “adventures”. That’s why we chose to use the words “Adventure Sports” together. Bridgeway Church calls their ministry “Bridgeway Active” because it is going to be a complete Health & Wellness ministry combining traditional sports, adventure sports, coaching for healthy eating and holistic living.
Make sure it can work as a Domain. It’s a good idea to check to find out if the name is already being used somewhere online so there is no confusion or issues if your ministry grows and you want to build a website specifically for it.
Whatever you name your ministry, please let me know about it! My mission is to help churches grow adventure ministries that will attract and attach more people to Jesus and His Church. My hope is to, someday, see all of these ministries put into a G1 Outdoors database available through an App so that, in the future, when you are traveling the country, you can find a ministry near you offering an outdoor adventure available for you to participate in!