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Message from the Pastor - Dr. Ken Radant

Hi everyone!  I trust your week is going well.

For a while this afternoon I’ve found myself humming “What a Beautiful Name It Is” quietly in my office. (I try not to disrupt colleagues by humming too loudly when they’re busily at work.)  It’s a great song with a wonderful message. It also has me thinking about names.

In the Bible, names are treated as very important things. Often a name was chosen, not just because it sounded nice or honored a family member, but in the belief that the name was a reflection of the character and destiny of the person to whom it belonged. So names were chosen carefully and sometimes changed in light of developments in someone’s life. You could also speak of someone’s “name” as a way of talking about the person himself/herself, which is why it was considered such a serious thing to honor God’s name and not to take His name in vain. A name wasn’t just an arbitrary label; it was treated as more intrinsically connected to the person.

I wonder what would happen if we adopted that practice today? I’ve also wondered what would happen if we applied it to the names of business and organizations as well as to people. Hmm – that might be a source of some interesting conversation.

On this matter of names, did you know… that it wasn’t always obvious that our church would be called “West Vancouver Baptist”? This name was actually formally adopted at a church business meeting on January 25, 1967, after months of formal discussion and debate. The name discussion coincided with the purchase of our current property and the building project that resulted in the sanctuary where we now worship, which was also completed in 1967. As far as I can tell, the church felt that the significant move to a new location and the construction of a new place of worship made it important to select an appropriate name for the congregation. So in early 1966, a committee was formed to identify and propose possible names, with a letter sent to all attenders to gather their input.

Initially, there wasn’t a clear winner in the naming process. Possible names included Forest Park Baptist, Cedardale Baptist, and Capilano Baptist, as well as West Vancouver Baptist Church. If you’ve seen some of the pictures of our property from those early days, you’ll understand the logic of the tree-focused options. Capilano obviously, connected with that nearby landmark. In the end, though everyone decided that even if we adopted a different official name, people would just refer to the church as “West Vancouver Baptist” anyway, so that might as well be the formal title. And there we are!

(Incidentally, a similar discussion about formal names took place earlier, in 1947. At that time, the official certificate of incorporation and Constitution and Bylaws identified our congregation as “First Baptist Church of West Vancouver.” That discussion also came shortly before the construction of a new building in 1949.)

We’ll talk more about building projects and such in the coming weeks. But this week I was intrigued to think about the names we’ve had, as well as the ones we almost had, and to imagine the kinds of conversations that must have surrounded these decisions.

We’re going to think about a different kind of building project this coming Sunday. This week we’ll continue our short series in Psalms with a message on Psalm 127. The first verse will probably be familiar: this is the psalm that begins, Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.  It’s a short psalm, so if you’re reading ahead in preparation, it won’t take long. If you want to dig in deeper, you might also consider doing a little reading in Genesis 12, in 1 Samuel 1-2, and in 2 Samuel 7 to provide background. No pressure, of course! 

In the meantime, have a wonderful week, filled with God’s blessings on all fronts.