THOUGHT - What's in a name?

I'll be honest with you - this is something that's been bugging me for a long, long time. Those of us who follow Jesus often refer to ourselves as 'Christians' or 'the Church', or in more specific cases we use the name of a particular organisation - 'I'm a member of the such-and-such church'.

This troubles me because I really don't want to make any distinctions of this sort. We are all one in Christ, though we may have different gifts and abilities (Eph 4:1-7). We are one body and we should learn to see ourselves that way, not merely in terms of the Church Universal (although that is true and important) but in practical terms, in our daily lives and thinking.

The Bible recognises one church in different locations, it does not recognise different churches. Paul is emphatic on this point (1 Cor 1:12-14). The New Testament distinguishes church by province, city, and meeting place. We read of the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria, the church in Ephesus, the church that meets at the house of Priscilla and Aquila. The idea of distinguishing churches on the basis of leaders, doctrines or traditions is completely alien to the writers of the New Testament. In fact they always opposed any such move very strongly.

I am entirely happy to be known simply as someone who follows Jesus and is part of the church in Europe, the UK, England, the East of England, Cambridgeshire, St Neots, or Eaton Ford. I'm happy to be regarded as part of the church meeting in my house, or Jim's house, or Sean's house.

But there is a practical issue when a name is needed in, for example, a list. What I would prefer is to state that I'm a follower of Yahshua (Jesus) in St Neots. And if there's room, that might be acceptable but it will be confusing. So in a list like 'Eynesbury Methodist, Open Door, River Church, St Mary's Eaton Socon' what should I write?

Currently I use terms like 'organic church', 'house church', or 'simple church'. But these are not accurate or complete and they act to divide - which is the very thing I want to avoid! I'd like to write 'the church in St Neots' but that will not be understood.

Suggestions are welcome. Does anyone else worry about these things?

There doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer. I don't want to be seen as set apart, I want to be seen as I see myself, part of the one body of Christ here in the town where I live. But there doesn't seem to be a word or simple phrase for that!

Perhaps it's better to avoid being listed and just get on with living as a follower of the King. The very existence of a list implies that the items on it can be distinguished in some way.

Where next with this blog?

This is the first post since 23rd June. I've been busy with 101 things and have failed hopelessly in my attempts to keep things up-to-date. In particular a family holiday in North Wales and work leading to the opening of a coffee/book shop on 14th August have demanded a lot of time, and the holiday was in an area where internet access was rather problematic.

As a result I've been thinking about ways of restructuring what I do. Currently I manage four blogs and a variety of other sites. The main parts of my online presence are...

• All About Jesus (AAJ) - which you are reading right now. This blog is a record of meeting notes, thoughts, announcements and more. It centres on my spiritual life and those of my friends. AAJ developed from online meeting notes and goes back to 2001.
  
• The Scilla Blog - this is a series of posts about other things that interest me - science, technology, thoughts about life, things I have read, things I have noticed, photography etc.
  
• My personal 'home' page - also called 'Scilla', it has a little information about me and links to the other websites.
  
• The Cornerstone website - the internet presence for the Cornerstone Cafe and Bookshop in St Neots.
  
• Sundry other sites -  blogs, wikis, Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter. Some of these are for personal use, others are part of my public presence on the web.

What I think I might do is collapse all these down into just two main sites, AAJ (this blog) and the Cornerstone site. I will also retain some of the wikis and other sites as glue and to communicate with close friends and family.

The main impact of doing so would be more frequent posts here on AAJ and on a much wider range of topics. I'll make sure to provide links to the old sites so it will be easy to read older items.