'Lots in a Name'

By Neil Earle

Regular readers of this website will notice the new name at the top of the masthead on our Home page – New Covenant Fellowship.

For years we’ve operated as “Worldwide Church of God – Glendora, CA.” The recent name-change of our denomination from Worldwide Church of God (WCG) to Grace Communion International (GCI) has necessitated this switch. There was nothing too traumatic about this change as many of our churches had already adopted their own local logo under which to operate such as New Hope Fellowship, Cornerstone Christian Church, etc.

This is now common across Christianity as the action really is in the local areas and churches are reaching out more and more across denominational barriers. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In this Glendora area we felt led in 2005 to plant a new church in the vibrant Inland Empire and we titled it “New Covenant Fellowship.” That church still remains as a house church/Discipleship Group currently meeting in Rialto under the name “Grace Communion Church.” This was a congregational decision made on Sunday, August 23. Meanwhile, the parent church back in Glendora voted on Saturday, August 22, 2009 by a 14 to 7 margin of the Deacons and Elders to give “Worldwide Church of God (Glendora)” the title New Covenant Fellowship – a congregation of Grace Communion International.

This will be our new local operating title for all bulletins, handouts, bank accounts, letters, etc.

This whole matter of changing our corporate title from “Worldwide Church of God” to “Grace Communion International” has caused a few ripples in our fellowship. A Canadian pastor related to me that he lost his most generous supporter simply from dropping the name, Worldwide Church of God. Others told me they felt like we were naming a senior citizens group – they mistakenly assumed it was now Grace Community International.

Hence this article. To shed a little light on this subject.

Whys and Wherefores

Many of you know that our church had its beginnings in the media work and outreach of a radio preacher named Herbert W. Armstrong. In 1931 he got enough support from a small group in Eugene, Oregon to launch a radio program he later titled “The Radio Church of God” but originally “his small band of supporters incorporated as the West Eight Street Church of God, Eugene, Oregon,” according to Dan Rogers, GCI Superintendent of Ministers who recently finished his PhD thesis on HWA. So “Radio Church of God” was actually the second name of our church.

After gradually expanding around the world beginning in 1953, by 1968 it was felt that “Radio Church of God” not only sounded antique and dated but also no longer fitted our mission. We had become worldwide with a diverse media thrust supported by 166,000 people and with international offices stretching from Jerusalem to Johannesburg. I well remember that night in early 1969 when Herbert Armstrong took the Bible Study at our English campus on the grounds of Ambassador College, 20 miles north of the center of London.

HWA had been a church pastor in the early days so he well knew the timidity and conservatism of church members about corporate change. Assisted by the fiery Charles Hunting, then an executive and minister with WCG, he carefully waded through all the reasons for the change. In this case, HWA was the innovator and the congregation the conservatives. Most people took it well and Worldwide Church of God we became from 1968 to this year 2009.

The Doctrinal Revolution

Our remarkable doctrinal upheavals of the 1990s are the stuff of much report and are described on our Grace Communion International web site (graceci.org). In brief, it seemed very evident to our church leaders from the sweep and scope of this massive reorganization of the church and its refocusing from a group focused on Law and Prophecy, tending strongly towards exclusivism and sweeping assumptions about being the “one, true church,” that a change was needed. After polling the church worldwide and navigating the legal and cultural hurdles involved, the name change to Grace Communion International is now in effect.

Here are some reasons we chose that name.

1. Grace is of the essence of the Christian life. The Greek word “charis” (Charisma, gift)  means “unmerited pardon” but even goes beyond that in biblical terms. It usefully describes the entire atmosphere, the ecology in which Christians live and move. Our God is called “the God of Grace” (1 Peter 5:10) and the Gospel is called “the Gospel of Grace” (Acts 20:24). By God’s good grace we are given the gift of repentance (Romans 2:4). We experience forgiveness, not according to our own works but by God’s gracious leading through the Holy Spirit. Christians have inscribed on their hearts that by grace they are saved through faith and even that faith is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith and he is much more in charge of our lives then we would even care to imagine. That’s good for us to keep before us. Almost the last word of the Bible is “grace” (Revelation 22:21).
2. Communion is a wonderful biblical and churchly word. It first relates to the Trinitarian relationship inside the Godhead where the Father, Son and Holy Spirit interact so harmoniously with each other in a network of divine love that only good things result. Their mutual interpenetration reaches us humans as an act of adoption as sons and daughters of the Living God (Ephesians 1:3-9). Unidad, communidad spills over into the unity Christians have with the Father through the perfected work of the Son and the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit as he leads the church. 2 Corinthians 13:14 puts it well: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

When Christians take part in “communion” they are joining in with and celebrating that divine unity emanating from the divine presence into every corner of this world (Acts 17:27-28).

3. The word “International” speaks for itself. Grace Communion International’s 40,000 people include believers and brethren in more than 100 nations and territories and is increasing and growing in many far-flung areas every day. We have always had an international dimension to our work  Even at Ambassador College (UK) in my door room in 1970 there were two Americans, two Canadians, two Australians, and two Englishmen. The student body eventually included a Palestinian Arab, an Israeli and an Iraqi. In our local Glendora church you may meet brethren from the Cameroons, Canada, Ireland and many other places.

This, then, is Grace Communion International, an orthodox Christian body standing ready to carry out, by God’s grace, whatever tasks he wants to charge us with in the future.