238 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Truth in Nomenclature”

  2. This is a title I thought of for an incident that happened to a friend not long ago…

    “If your hair happens to cover even the tip of your ear you can’t teach teach a Sunday School class to 2nd grade boys because you might be a bad influence on them Baptist Church.”

    Hows that for a concise title? 😀

  3. My old church:
    North Auburn Hills Baptist Church

    How I refer to it now that I made it over the wall:
    North Auburn Hell Baptist Church

      2. You went to First Baptist Church in Lake Orion, the offical BJU satellite in Oakland County. You now attend Faith Church on Airport Rd.(Jimmy Combs’ place) How did I do? :mrgreen:

        1. Correct on Lake Orion! Although I have to say I met alot of wonderful people there who I still respect and enjoy hanging out with. But when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Anyhow, I go to Baptist Fellowship of Waterford now (I know, I know, it’s still “Baptist”. It’s much different!! 😀 ).

        2. Jimmy Combs place seems to be the place for ex IFB’s in North Oakland County – I never really figured that one out. I mean the helicopter commuting pastor thing is pretty cool and all but…

          I drove past NAHBC the other day, don’t think I had noticed that one before.

          Unfortunately most of the churches I have attended would have to go by the label of Isolated Baptist Church – it went way beyond separation

        3. My church doesn’t have an “ex-IFB” flavor, which is just fine with me. It’s mostly older folks, but us young whippersnappers are working on branching out 😆

        4. [This was meant to be posted as a response to your comment, but ended up as a standalone post] 😳

          It’s been a while since I’ve been in MI, but I would think of FBCLO as being the DBTS satellite in Oakland County vs. BJU. DBTS grads cut across a wide swath, but the ones that I personally know, while being doctrinally fundy, don’t fit the mold of some of the wackiness that I read about here (they are definitely not KJVO, more 4-5 pointers on the TULIP scale, not necessarily pretrib/premil, but more likely to be separatist and conservative in their music).

          “Jimmy Combs place seems to be the place for ex IFB’s in North Oakland County – I never really figured that one out.”

          Me either. Jimmy still has fundy reflexes, but wants to be a seeker sensitive fundy. He’s like a hybrid of Hyles and Hybels.

          “I drove past NAHBC the other day, don’t think I had noticed that one before.”

          I know the pastor there, and it would bruise his ego to learn that his influence isn’t as widespread as he likes to believe it is. If I were to rename the church it would be “Come hear my daughter sing and hear a poorly constructed sermon baptist church”.

          “Unfortunately most of the churches I have attended would have to go by the label of Isolated Baptist Church – it went way beyond separation”

          Are you referring to churches in OC? My guess is that there are a handful of IFB churches there that sprouted out of Midwestern Baptist College in the 70′s, and they would definitely fit that bill. There are, however, a number of grads who have kept the good stuff and chucked the rest. They pprobably don’t like to broadcast the fact that they are alums of that place.

        5. You are correct. Lake Orion is not really a BJU-centric place, at least anymore. Lots of people definitely like the place and BJU teams travel there, etc. But probably only three or four kids a year go to BJU from Lake Orion nowadays. I think the expense, dubious educational value and the excellent local alternatives have changed things.

        6. BTW Clint, I went to high school with your former pastor (not sure if you were there when he was pastor). He’s a good guy.

    2. There’s a church in Troy, MI that might go by the name of

      We’re Better Than You Baptist Church

      1. 😀 It’s true! And Dr. Bob III just visited there and proclaimed it “one of the most balanced churches in America”! HA!

        2. HAHAHA! I don’t think Woodside is the one she was referring to. People may think they changed their name to get rid of “baptist” but they really did it to avoid confusion with that “other” church in Troy. Making a mistake and going to the wrong one would be a shocker, in either direction. Imagine your surprise when you arrived at Troy Baptist instead of First Baptist and discovered grace! Oh the Horror!

        3. I know of a sweet Christian lady who is evangelical who wanted her kids in Christian school. She visited BCS; she and her husband wore jeans and said they liked P & W music when asked. The principal flat out told them they wouldn’t fit in there. In a way, at least they’re upfront with their positions and don’t sneak people in and then hit them with their restrictions, but, still, my friend was really hurt.

  6. I’ve seen Heritage Baptist Church. I’ve always thought they should add the decade that they are memorializing in music style, dress code, and even auditorium decor: 1950s Heritage Baptist Church.

  10. It’s hard to beat Ray Steven’s church from “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” – The First Self-Righteous Church of Pascagoula.

    The “So Separated That We Only Have a Single Family in Attendance Baptist Church” also works.

  14. Minorities Welcome as Visitors Baptist Church

    Whitewashed Sepulchres Baptist Church

    Slowly Dying Out Because of Irrelevance Baptist Church

    **these would all be for the same church**

  15. We only went there once,but that was enough. The Open Door Baptist Church. The pastor suddenly turned bright red,then started screaming,” I wish I could show you hell! I wish there was a trap door in this floor right here and I could open it and show all of you hell!” So to us every time we pass the church or refer to it its, The Open Door (to hell) Baptist Church.

  17. I only went once. It was right when my wife and I got married and we were looking for a church and we landed at Clavary Baptist church in Urbana IL. It only took us 5 minutes to figure out that the entire pastoral staff was related to the head pastor.

    Inbred Baptist Church.

    I grew up in the First Baptist church

    First Baptist Church of Extrinsic Rules.

    First one, no sandals in church ever, not even if you just got off the plane the night before and don’t even know where your actual shoes are…better to miss church then to show up with sandals.

    2. I don’t think this is fair of Calvary Baptist in Urbana; I attended there and it was a great place (but I haven’t been there for a long time).

      1. Inbred in the sense that the entire pastoral staff is made up of the same family…I’m not referring to the people that attend nor speaking to anything else about that church. Inbred referring only to their pastoral staff…I’m using it only metaphorically speaking, not literally.

        1. Could be – their bulletin has the assistant Pastor as a “Tyson Olheiser” – is he related to the pastor? He doesn’t have the same last name, but I suppose he could have married the pastor’s daughter.

        2. Well I have absolutely no clue if they still are this way, but when we visited the youth pastor was a son of the pastor. The person leading the music was a son/inlaw and the pianist was a daughter/inlaw. In my book that equals scary weird. It was enough that we didn’t want to ever go back. More power to you if you did.

          We also didn’t appreciate an unannounced in home visitation call. In the 50’s that may have been ok, but not anymore.

        3. “We also didn’t appreciate an unannounced in home visitation call. In the 50′s that may have been ok, but not anymore.”

          *slapping forehead with hand*
          Now THAT brings back memories. Been on both the giving and receiving end of those. NEVER again.

        4. @jons yea we had just sat down to eat dinner..or maybe just finished (and we had run that night so we were in workout clothes) and suddenly we got a call that said, “we are at your door.” What are we supposed to do tell them they waisted their time please go away? The funny thing was that I was much nicer about then my wife. She hated it. She scrambled to get the house in decent order and put something decent on while I went and let them in. We sat and talked for a bit. The whole thing was just really awkward. We didn’t know these people.

          A couple of weeks later we visited another church, the church we ended up attending. We were greeted by one of the elders at the end of church who, per their outreach, asked if they could treat us to dinner sometime in the city. The contrast could not be more stark. The first church invaded our home without warning. The second church scheduled a time to meet us in a neutral place (a restaurant) and paid for our meal. We got to know them and immediately were plugged into the church as a result. The first church the conversation had some small talk, but basically for the purpose of figuring out if we met the standard of that church, the second church had small talk for the purpose of really getting to know us and where, not if, we could fit within the church and its ministry.

          Which would I recommend for a church? The latter for sure…that was no small part of the reason we ended up attending that church.

  18. One of the churches I attended was New Life Church. It got to be such a joke we started calling it the New Laugh Church.

  20. When I was in college, we used to refer to independent and GARBC churches as “First ‘Come Ye Out From Among Them and Be Separate’ Baptist Church.”

  21. Where I grew up there was a local Baptist call Anchor Baptist Church. It was started when few uneducated hillbillies at my church thought our pastor had “too much education” and had gone too liberal. I was only 10 years old at the time. I not sure what their disagreement with our pastor was, but I am sure it was something trivial. Anchor Baptist Church soon began to attach other dissatisfied fundies from other local Baptist churches. My parents and their friends use to refer to it as Anger Baptist Church.

  22. No sandals. Umm okay, that leaves out Jesus, all twelve of the disciples and Paul the apostle. No wonder the atmosphere seems a bit stilted.

    1. No doubt that’s a translation error. The original text said “wingtips” instead of “sandals.” :mrgreen:

      2. Wing tips? I guess they bought the Children’s Illustrated Bible without ever looking at the pictures.

  25. I often drive past “The Church of the Apostles”. I have a small bit of dyslexia. Each time I drive by the words pop out to me as “The Church of the Apostates”.

  26. There’s a church in my area named Landmark Baptist Church. The are big on judgement and boycotts. I refer to the people there as Landmarxists.

  28. Pastor is an insecure dude who wants the staff to worship the very ground he walks on because he is the managawd Baptist Church

    If you get saved you better have a dress on next Sunday Baptist Church

    Teens don’t need doughnuts and juice on Sunday morning because that is just entertainment Baptist Church

    Bill Gaither is straight from hell Baptist Church

    The louder and the crazier the evangelist is, the better the service is Baptist Church

    The deacons are so far up the pastors rear end Baptist Church

    All of these are describing a church known to the common public as Faith Baptist Church in Greenbrier, AR

    1. I must have come from a conservative rather than fundamentalist background because our church was the “Bill Gaither Is the New Messiah Baptist Church.”

  29. “Come As You Are Baptist Church”

    (Though we’ll have a suit and tie ready for you in the foyer closet just in case)

    1. Nice, Stan. My IFB parents commented awhile back that they bought a man a suit so that he could come to church…it irritates me to no end years later.

    1. Wouldn’t it be better to stop whining about your church and do something to make the church grow?

      1. Unfortunately, the only ideas that the deacons will approve haven’t been too successful recently: door to door visitation – allowed, having a picnic in the park sponsored by your church where you give out free food and meet your neighbors – not allowed.

        Also who wants to invite someone to come to a church where the focus is man-made standards or Bible versions instead of Jesus Christ?

        2. I was using it more as an example of how new ideas are often shot down in traditional churches, but we really did do the picnics although some people were uncomfortable with them because 1) we weren’t in the church building on a Wed. night the way Jesus commanded us to be (oh, wait — you mean He didn’t?) and 2) we weren’t preaching or giving a devotional, just getting to know people.

        3. There’s a church in our town (maybe Assembly of God – I can’t remember) that does that on Wednesday during the summer. I was volunteering at a community clinic and saw a flyer so I thought I’d take my daughter to the park that day and see what kind of proselytizing they were doing – they weren’t. They were just handing out lunches (with really nice fruit) and bubble solution. The pastor came over and introduced himself, but there were no tracts and no mini-sermon. The part that really blew my mind was when they passed out flyers for the Methodist church that was going to start a similar “picnic at the park” outreach the next week on Thursdays. They were seriously just being nice and even advertising for what most of our churches would have seen as “the competition”.

      2. Clearly coming from someone who’s never made a suggestion to church leadership as a mere congregation member.

  31. “Seriously–how many IFB churches have you ever seen actually grow?” Well, if we can’t convert them, we’ll outbreed them. Women, do your duty by your husband! Barefoot, Pregnant, and in the Kitchen Baptist Church. This applies to Catholics, Mormons, and others as well.

  38. The First Funless Mental Baptist Church

    Pastor’s Will Baptist Church

    Missionary Position Baptist Church (I’ll leave this one without comment)

  39. This would apply to all of us who spent time in IFB churches run by dictators. Let’s just change the name of each to Libya.

  40. The church of we’ll give money to help the poor in India or Africa but sniff our noses at the needy in our own neighborhood.

    2. My boyhood church would have sent the poor in Africa or India tracts and Bibles, and maybe, if they had a nice white missionary doctor, medicine and bandages, but food? Forget it.

  41. It’s been a while since I’ve been in MI, but I would think of FBCLO as being the DBTS satellite in Oakland County vs. BJU. DBTS grads cut across a wide swath, but the ones that I personally know, while being doctrinally fundy, don’t fit the mold of some of the wackiness that I read about here (they are definitely not KJVO, more 4-5 pointers on the TULIP scale, not necessarily pretrib/premil, but more likely to be separatist and conservative in their music).

    “Jimmy Combs place seems to be the place for ex IFB’s in North Oakland County – I never really figured that one out.”

    Me either. Jimmy still has fundy reflexes, but wants to be a seeker sensitive fundy. He’s like a hybrid of Hyles and Hybels.

    “I drove past NAHBC the other day, don’t think I had noticed that one before.”

    I know the pastor there, and it would bruise his ego to learn that his influence isn’t as widespread as he likes to believe it is. If I were to rename the church it would be “Come hear my daughter sing and hear a poorly constructed sermon baptist church”.

    “Unfortunately most of the churches I have attended would have to go by the label of Isolated Baptist Church – it went way beyond separation”

    Are you referring to churches in OC? My guess is that there are a handful of IFB churches there that sprouted out of Midwestern Baptist College in the 70’s, and they would definitely fit that bill. There are, however, a number of grads who have kept the good stuff and chucked the rest. They pprobably don’t like to broadcast the fact that they are alums of that place.

    3. “Come hear my daughter sing and hear a poorly constructed sermon baptist church”.

      I think that one has branches in many other towns.

  43. Worst Baptist Church (inspired by jokes about train companies, one of which is known as Worst Late Western)

  45. Okay, now see what y’all have done to me? My niece referred to me on Facebook as “a Baptist minister” and I wanted to say, “NO! Don’t tell them that! I’m not Baptist, I tell ya! I’m normal!” (Apologies to all normal Baptists out there….)

      1. Hey now, I’m normal and I agree with most Baptist churches’ doctrinal statements; so I guess that makes me a normal Baptist lol. 😉

  48. My former IFBX “pastor” would give loving nicknames to all the other Baptist churches in the area from the pulpit. There was Outhouse Baptist Church, No Hope, Faithless Baptist, Graceless Baptist. I refer to my old church as Farthill Baptist but that is being way too kind. :mrgreen:

  49. First We Don’t Fellowship With Anyone Baptist Church
    (But we worship Lester Roloff, Curtis Hutson, Oliver B. Greene, and Charles Finney)

  50. Calvary Baptist Church = Calumny* Bad Taste Church

    (*The making of false and defamatory statements in order to damage someone’s reputation; slander; but giving you this definition probably ruins it, oh well.)

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