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Names are a central characteristic of our lives. In a really actual sense with out names we’re unknowable. Names inform us Who and What, typically even The place.
Use of an individual’s identify indicators some contact with or data of that particular person. To “know” an individual is to know their identify, even when prefaced by “Mr.” or “Miss” or “Mrs.” To know an individual nicely is to make use of his or her first identify. To know an individual very nicely is to make use of a nickname or another endearing private time period. Individuals identify folks, locations, issues, and organizations for deeply philosophic causes, frivolous functions, and sensible considerations. We typically give organizations multi-worded names as a result of the phrases create a significant acronym, e.g., Moms In opposition to Drunk Driving, MADD. Or we select a reputation just because it is distinctive and we just like the sound of it, e.g., Google.
For many Individuals, names are sensible if not all the time philosophical.
In historic occasions, folks bestowed names for all these causes too, with the potential exception of acronyms. However normally folks in historic cultures gave names as a result of the identify had some particular that means. Names had been greater than a label.
Names had been typically given as a logo of some important occasion or attribute within the lifetime of the particular person. Names regularly represented the important nature of an individual and will reveal some side of an individual’s innermost being. Eve was the “mom of all dwelling.” Names had been typically modified in Bible occasions to suggest some new starting. Abram grew to become Abraham, and Sarai grew to become Sarah. Jacob grew to become Israel. A new child child was named, Ben-oni, “son of sorrow” by a dying mom, Rebekah, however rapidly renamed Benjamin, “son of the fitting hand,” by a loving father, Jacob. Jesus renamed Simon, the tough fisherman, Peter.
Identify adjustments had been a part of the historical past of the faculty I used to be privileged to steer for a couple of years: Grand Rapids Baptist School and Seminary (GRBC&S). In 1941, a night Bible college was based with the identify Grand Rapids Baptist Bible Institute. With progress in college students and the tutorial program the identify was modified in 1959 to Grand Rapids Baptist Bible School and Theological Seminary. Later, the time period “Theological” was dropped when Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary was established as a separate however associated graduate college with the identical Board of Trustees and president.
In 1972, the faculty’s identify was modified once more from Grand Rapids Baptist Bible School to Grand Rapids Baptist School. This new identify described the enlargement of the educational program from a Bible school curriculum (that includes Bible and Music majors) to a Christian liberal arts school curriculum (that includes Bible, Music, Historical past, Biology, English, Enterprise Administration, Schooling, and several other different majors). However the brand new identify nonetheless suffered some limitations. For instance, it was geographically restricted to at least one metropolis. The college’s long-standing nickname continued as “Baptist School,” which tended to ship the message that non-Baptists needn’t apply. And the college’s identify was nonetheless recurrently confused with the previous identify or a spinoff, Grand Rapids Bible School, or the extra convoluted Grand Rapids Baptist “Church.”
This identify confusion was significantly problematic as a result of it tended to perpetuate the sooner mission of the establishment as a Bible reasonably than Christian liberal arts school. So in spring 1992, the Board of Trustees as soon as once more licensed a research for the consideration of an institutional identify change. Following a preliminary evaluation, the Board of Trustees within the fall 1993, voted to implement a course of for figuring out the perfect identify for Grand Rapids Baptist School. At the moment, the Board additionally voted to take care of the identify, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary.
One of many wisest selections the Board ever made was to permit me, the president on the time, to announce the Board’s resolution instantly, to announce it as a “research” versus a name-change fiat accompli, and to announce it as a research to contemplate what could be the “finest identify” for the college. On a political stage this meant a number of issues: that constituents heard a few potential identify change with out being reduce out of the method, which gave a lot of them time to acclimate, and that individuals who thought the outdated or present identify, GRBC, was the “finest identify” weren’t reduce out of the method, as a result of it was nonetheless potential the Board would in the end reaffirm that identify.
Throughout the subsequent a number of months, college students, personnel, constituents, and the general public had been invited to submit identify concepts or strategies. Maybe probably the most amusing submission was the identify “Hobbes,” for the political thinker Thomas Hobbes. This created a neighborhood joke in that Calvin School, a top quality establishment of upper studying, is situated simply three miles from GRBC&S on the identical highway. Had the Board chosen Hobbes as the brand new school identify, locals would have without end referred to “Calvin and Hobbes” on East Beltline Ave.
In March, 1994, the GRBC&S Board of Trustees reviewed about 100 and thirty names in 4 classes: geographic, theological, historic, denominational, diminished the record to a few names together with GRBC, and at last determined to rename the faculty, “Cornerstone School.” The identify Cornerstone School achieved the sensible want for a reputation that diminished confusion in regards to the school’s mission. Nevertheless it was additionally philosophically anchored in Christian symbolism and biblical that means.
In Ephesians, Paul refers to Christians as “members of God’s family, constructed on the inspiration of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself because the chief cornerstone. In him the entire constructing is joined collectively and rises to grow to be a holy temple within the Lord” (2:18-21). Jesus is the “examined stone” who makes “justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line” (Isaiah 28:16-17). Jesus Christ is the “dwelling Stone” and Christians, “like dwelling stones, are being constructed right into a non secular home…by means of Jesus Christ…a selected and valuable cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:4-9).
A cornerstone can also be the important thing constructing stone or block in a basis by which all different stones or blocks are measured. A cornerstone speaks of the permanency of values like reality, religion, magnificence, advantage, righteousness, justice, liberty, peace, and love.
By any goal measure the brand new Cornerstone identify was an unqualified success. It was rapidly if not instantly embraced by college students, and the realm enterprise group and the general public responded to it with admirable enthusiasm. Alumni response was at first combined, as is to be anticipated for any collegiate identify change, however in a comparatively brief time most alumni signed on. The first worth within the new identify was its message {that a} new wind was blowing on the establishment, one which regarded ahead and positioned the college for the long run.
In fall 1998, after an inner tutorial course of and interplay with applicable state authorities, the Board of Trustees voted to alter the identify of the college once more, this time from Cornerstone School to Cornerstone College. In the identical assembly the Board and administration agreed to announce the brand new standing in April, 1999, not figuring out the college’s basketball workforce would win the NAIA Division II Nationwide Males’s Basketball Championship in March of that yr. This unplanned public relations reward created a media platform a lot bigger than would have in any other case been accessible as a result of a nationwide championship is notable and rightly attracts consideration on any stage of sports activities.
The college prevented a backlash from those that might need dismissed the change as an inexpensive seize for the brass ring, in all probability as a result of, in the long run, it made sense. The college had been rising, the nationwide championship did not harm, and a well-conceived advertising and marketing marketing campaign attracted optimistic consideration. The marketing campaign featured billboards across the metropolis exhibiting one small shoot of inexperienced springtime corn in a plowed subject, the brand new identify, and the phrase “Assume Large, Assume Larger.” Easy. Folks understood it, and so they appreciated it.
Organizational identify adjustments are to not be entertained calmly. Nor ought to they be prevented in any respect price, as a result of the price could also be misplaced potential and even untimely demise of the group. Identify adjustments supply an un-matched alternative to ship a message to constituents, shoppers, or most people. New initiatives, new merchandise, new companies, or higher but, a brand new and worthy imaginative and prescient will be writ massive in folks’s minds when a company adjustments its identify.
What’s in a reputation? Your group’s future.
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Source by Rex Rogers
