What's in a name?

They were staring at me like I was some sort of animal believed to be long-extinct but which suddenly turned up very much alive. Or maybe like they understood my words but couldn't make heads or tails of the way I arranged them into sentences when I spoke. And to me it seemed like such a simple question!

I was visiting with a few of the folks living in my head, and I innocently asked them where they went to church. I found myself wishing for the chirp of a lonely cricket to break the resulting silence. Sidelong looks and puzzled frowns were their only immediate reply. They all looked as though the answer to my question was so large and complex that they had no idea of where to begin or how to proceed with a response.

"Ummmmm," began a young lady whose facial features clearly identified her as a Campbell, "We don't ... that is, why would ... well, what do you mean, 'go' to church?"

"You know," I replied, "What church do you belong to?"

More confused looks and uncomfortable silence. I'm quite certain I did hear a cricket chiming-in to accentuate the dearth of conversation. The wind whistled a forlorn melody as it kicked a loose tumbleweed past where our little group stood miscommunicating. OK, that was just too much, even in my head. Mentally I told the wind to knock it off. Maria (pronounced like 'Mariah' of course) laughed, but she knocked it off. She knows I can always rename her Matilda, and then she wouldn't have that song ... but I digress.

"What's the name of your church?" I demanded desperately.

"Ohhh," smiled a nondescript fellow who looked like he could have been named Carl - or anything else, I guess, "That's what you mean! Our church doesn't really have a name."

"No," chimed in the Campbell girl, "Giving something a name is a way of owning it."

"Controlling it," added the young man standing next to her. Standing significantly close to her, in fact. He didn't look at all like someone named Carl. Why didn't I know these people's names?

In the background America could be heard singing, "I been through the desert in a church with no name..."

Campbell-girl's boyfriend continued, "Names can be really significant - more than we often realize. Names create an identity, which isn't always a bad thing. But that identity can become a way of separating one congregation from another, drawing attention to differences rather than likenesses. It can become a symbol of ownership - my church, my pastor, and so on."

"But when we say 'my church,' don't we mean that in a membership way, more than an ownership way?" I argued.

"Membership!" Carl spat. "We don't need no stinkin' membership!"

The background music changed suddenly to Billy Preston singing, "I know a church that ain't got no membership; How can I describe it to my friends...?"

The Campbell girl looked at the guy-who-might-be Carl and said, "Your name's Carl, right? How come I don't know that? Anyway, it isn't really like we don't believe in membership - we just look at it a little differently." Turning to me, she continued, "A lot of people define membership in terms of allegiance to a given set of doctrines and by-laws and rules and stuff. You have to give your time and money to that particular organization in order to be a good member."

"We," Carl broke in, "See 'belonging' in the sense that we belong to God. Sometimes the members of God's church serve God together in one place, and other times we serve Him together in all different places. But as long as we serve Him, we're serving together, even if we're ages and continents apart."

"So, you see," boyfriend said in a tone of voice that conveyed his certainty that I did not, in fact, see, "We don't go to church at all. Church is not somewhere to go, it's Someone to be a part of. Membership isn't by allegiance to the rules or doctrines of a group of people who meet in a certain building. It's participating in the life - work, play, thoughts and feelings, and so on - of the Body, which is Jesus living in the world. So we don't see a need for giving a name to the group of people who meet to participate in how Jesus is living around here."

"OK - so how do you handle offerings and salaries and stuff?" I wondered.

"We encourage folks to give their offerings directly to charities that help people physically and spiritually, as God directs them," Carl informed me.

"Some of us help others on occasion, and sometimes as a group we take offerings for particular needs we see. I know those gifts aren't tax-deductible, but that doesn't seem too important to most of us," boyfriend added.

The young lady finished with, "No staff. We let people lead with their gifts. Maybe someday we'll need to figure out how to pay some folks in order to free up enough time for them to use their gifts properly, but that hasn't happened yet."

Billy sang, "I seen a church that ain't got no staff...Gonna just let Jesus lead them around..."

"That's really getting annoying!" boyfriend snapped. "Who keeps playing that music?"

That comment drained the fuel, oil and water out of the engine that drove our conversation; it clunked to a fatal halt. They all looked at me suspiciously. I think the cricket was trying a chirped rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star." Where was that damned wind when you needed it? No, not in my face - blow the other direction! That's better!

"OK, that's just weird," the Campbell girl pointed out, unnecessarily.

"Hey," her boyfriend broke the eerie not-quite-silence, "You know who this is? This is the guy with the head!"

I had only a moment to be thankful that for once I was not the recipient of everyone's what-planet-did-you-fall-off-of stares.

"No, really," he continued, "This is the guy with the head we all live in. He's real after all!"

All gazes once again turned my way. This time it was like a group of intrepid Arctic explorers arriving at the North Pole to find Santa busy in his cheerful little workshop. A myth found to be true. Disappointingly so. Santa repackaging toys made in China.

And then they started debating boyfriend's theory. Maria and the cricket joined them. Even the tumbleweed got in on the discussion. I waited patiently, plotting out suitably vengeful literary fates for each and every one of them.

Finally, Carl said, "Wow, I think you're right. Who'd've thought the village was created by the idiot?"

"Give him a break," the young lady defended me, "He lives in the outside world. A church like ours would never work out there."

She's probably right. But I'm going to get Carl for calling me an idiot!