The Thinking Church: What’s in a Name?

I can still remember a commercial for a TV channel that aired during my childhood, well over 15 years ago.  Someone stands in the center of the screen and says, “Great minds think alike!”  The Genie from Aladdin sticks his head sideways in the shot and interjects, “Great minds think for themselves!”  

If you haven’t felt the love already, welcome to The Thinking Church!  As with any project, many discussions prior to the launch focused on what to call our blog.  Your blog.  How do we capture, in one short phrase, our community’s identity and our history and our intentions and our future and our aspirations?  It was a bit mind-boggling.  

The Thinking Church.

This name came out of our best efforts to articulate who we are and who we want to be.  It wasn’t easy.  Our congregation is home to Tea Partiers and former Woodstock-ers.  We have representatives from the Greatest Generation and the Millennials.  Some have their fingertips constantly tapping a smart phone, and others aren’t connected to the internet.  Some grew up in church with a vibrant, religious past, and others identify themselves as agnostics, searching for some sort of unknown meaning to life.    

We embrace our diversity, but it’s exactly what makes it hard to abbreviate our identity into one phrase.  Like Genie’s recommendation during my formidable years, we feel that what does unite us is our desire to think critically about our faith.  What that looks like, exactly, is slightly different for everyone here.  That means that our congregation consists of different opinions and preferences.  We see respectful debate and internal struggle as part of the continuous process of extracting truth and developing a greater understanding of God.  We don’t see the world comprised of black and white issues, but vibrant hues of cyan, magenta, and everything in between.  Our thinking will never end and we will never be finished understanding how scripture translates meaning into our everyday life.  

We are The Thinking Church, using our heads to lift the hearts of those in our community, whether inside or beyond our church doors.  No matter who you are or what you believe, we are glad you're here.  Welcome!  

- SP