You might be asking why have you changed your name to Grace Church Bothwell?
A really quick answer would be because we want you to know about God’s amazing grace! That’s what is really behind the name refresh. But, I suppose there is a little bit more to say than that. So, for our opening blog on our new website, I thought it might be helpful to give a few thoughts on why we have refreshed our name to Grace Church Bothwell.
First, to be really clear, we are the still the same church. We are still the same people. We still believe the same thing as we always have done – no change there. But, we did think that the term ‘evangelical’ is maybe not the most helpful term to have in our name (we were previously called Bothwell Evangelical Church). The term ‘evangelical’ simply means a commitment to believing the Bible and sharing the good news about Jesus. We are still very much all about that. Again, no change there! However, over the years we have all had fairly awkward conversations where people struggle to pronounce the term evangelical – let alone know what it means. So, we thought a change of name would be a good move. As a church, we want to remove any possible barrier to people coming around and we want people to understand what we are all about. That’s one of the reasons for the name refresh!
Second, we think the name Grace Church Bothwell is bright, fresh and biblical. We are a growing church in a new chapter of our life and we thought a change of name seemed the right thing to do. One thing to stress, it’s not a gimmick; we are not trying to create a change by changing our name. You could change the name of something and that would change very little – as they say: ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. But, the important thing is that the last few years have witnessed a really positive change in the life of our church and because of that we believe that we can refresh our name with profit.
Third, and perhaps most importantly: Grace Church Bothwell captures what is at the centre of our church – God’s amazing Grace! If you ask why we have changed our name, the best answer we can come up with is because we want you to know about God’s amazing grace in Jesus. As a church, we exist only because of God’s grace. As Christians, we are certainly not better than anyone else. To be a member of our church – you need to know that you are a sinner! We are all sinners, guilty people, who have come to know the grace of God and we want to share that good and life-changing message with you. This is the heart of the Christian gospel – God’s undeserved kindness and forgiveness to guilty people! We have grace in our name to define us, to humble us and to sharpen us in sharing this news good news with you!
So, Grace Church Bothwell – we like it, we hope you do too! We have had lots of positive feedback about it from the community and other churches like us. A bit like a new pair of shoes we are just getting used to it! But, we think that it does what it says on the tin and we hope that it makes you think about maybe coming along!
Richard Gamble
Pastor, Grace Church Bothwell
