This article is part of a series examining and considering statistical data regarding the Presbyterian Church in America. 

Anyone who has ever been part of the earliest stages of a church plant can tell you that deciding on a name feels like a weighty decision. With brevity, a church name communicates what it values theologically, geographically, and in terms of ecclesiological association. 

Every church chooses its name with a different point of emphasis:

• • Some churches choose a theological emphasis with names like Covenant, Trinity, or Grace. 
  • Other churches choose a geographical emphasis by including a reference to its location (ex: Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church) or its place in the community (ex: First Presbyterian Church). 
  • A less prominent choice is an emphasis on church history by naming the church after an apostle or historical figure.  

Most churches operate with a name that was chosen generations ago and rarely change them. While the impact of church names is experienced mainly at the level of the local congregation, it is interesting to look at the names of churches across our whole denomination to see what trends emerge.

Here are a few trends when it comes to church names in the PCA:

• • About 60% of the churches in our denomination have a biblical or theological reference in their name. 
  • About 40% include a geographic reference in their name. 
  • Just over 10% combine both a theological and geographic reference, such as Resurrection Oakland or Christ Church Katy. 
  • And under 5% have a numeral designation (e.g. First Presbyterian). 

If you search for the most common words in PCA church names, unsurprisingly, “Church” and “Presbyterian” lead the way by a wide margin. “Church ”is in roughly 90% of names and “Presbyterian” is included about 65% of the time. 

If you exclude those two words, there are 10 words that appear in the names of more than 50 churches in the denomination: 

1	Grace	180
2	Christ	152
3	Community	136
4	Covenant	116
5	Redeemer	91
6	First	78
7	Fellowship	71
8	City	60
9	Trinity	59
10	Reformed	53

What do we learn from this list? It certainly reflects some of our denomination’s theological distinctives, namely our emphasis on salvation by grace, Christ-centered preaching and ministry, and a covenantal understanding of scripture. “Community” and “Fellowship” are commonly substituted for the term “church,” such as New City Fellowship. 

Because the words on the list above can be combined in various ways, if you look for the most common complete church names, there are 10 names that are used by at least 20 different churches in the PCA: 

1	First Presbyterian Church	67
2	Grace Presbyterian Church	62
3	Redeemer Presbyterian Church	53
4	Covenant Presbyterian Church	48
5	Trinity Presbyterian Church	41
6	Christ Presbyterian Church	37
7	Westminster Presbyterian Church	33
8	Christ Church	30
9	Faith Presbyterian Church	26
10	Providence Presbyterian Church	22

The most common name, First Presbyterian Church, is a reminder of the many well-established congregations in the denomination, many of which date back to the 19th century.  

Westminster Presbyterian Church is the other name that stands out, a church history reference highlighting the confessional standards of our denomination. 

In addition to the Redeemer Presbyterian churches on the list, there are also another 11 churches that go by Redeemer Church. And in addition to those that go by Christ Presbyterian Church and Christ Church, there are also 17 churches that go by Christ Community Church. Christ Church is the only one of the top 10 not to include “Presbyterian” in the name. 

Of course, this analysis highlights English church names. There are churches in our denomination with Spanish, Chinese, and Korean names, among other languages. 

Your church’s name ultimately becomes synonymous with your church’s reputation in the community. But your name will not ultimately determine how people in your town think about your church. Instead, your church’s reputation is built through what people experience when they visit and the reports they hear from others. 

 

---

Hace Cargo is assistant pastor of Ponce Church in Atlanta.