Sometimes a name gets ruined and you've got to get a new one. Take Hudson foods, for instance. After the E.Coli scare they recalled 25 million pounds of hamburger only to have their name ruined anyway. They lost their biggest customer, Burger King and few shoppers would purposely buy Hudson hamburgers even today. The Hudson name is ruined. James (Red) Hudson apparently knows it. Recently he sold Hudson Foods to Arkansas friend-of-Hillary Tyson Foods. Presto, Hudson hamburgers will now sell under a label more known for chicken than E. Coli. The Hudson name will join the Hudson automobile in the graveyard of useless names for now. Getting a good name is a long and hard process. Losing it happens fast.

Remember when this happened to ValuJet? After the May 1996 crash in which all 110 people aboard died, this company ditched its name by simply buying another company with a clean name. Presto, ValuJet becomes AirTran and the same equipment, pilots and maintenance staff now has a reputation that is at least neutral. (For, where names are concerned, it is better that the public know nothing of you, than know something bad.)

Have you ever seen a church ruin its name? Even God's name? I have. We are like the Hudson employee we kept seeing on TV whose job was to scrape globs of hamburger with his hands off the grinding outlet into the cart below. We work up close in the church. And, we've got to admit that sometimes the batch get infected with a spiritual strain of E. Coli. Often the world never sees the inside of our factory so we get away with it. But churches sometimes let spiritual E. Coli spread like yeast through the entire congregation, and the public finds out and is sickened.

Have you seen this happen? A church gets its name ruined. Even after E. Coli has moved away, quit the church, or been transformed by grace, the town still remembers. For years. The church's name is ruined. Even if they build a new building in a new location, their reputation follows them. It is harder for a church than a business to recall a bad batch, or get a new name. They often live with their E. Coli reputation for decades. I heard of one pastor who had a wonderful experience candidating at a delightful Pennsylvania church . He was almost persuaded to accept their call until he visited several local diners incognito on the way out of town. Asking the patron of the diners one by one what they thought of that particular church, he repeatedly heard a ten-year-old horror story the elders had left out of their interview. He decided not to go, pleading he was not ready to give ten full years of his life to get the church's reputation back up to neutral.

So, are there any church names that are better ditched today? How about movement names? Would you drop Presbyterian? Methodist? Charismatic? PTL? National Council of Churches? Holiness? Evangelical? Protestant? What? Are there local church names that ought to be ditched in a day like ours?
What names are sullied or ruined? What names are better to use today?

So what do you think?

By Keith Drury, 1997. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.