A New Name for Our Next Chapter

Even though the name of the new location in Leander was unexpected, this is actually the perfect time & great opportunity for us to step into our next phase as a church and establish an identity separate from Hill Country Bible Church. A new name accomplishes that. God had a plan ... we just weren’t fully aware of it. A unique name for our congregation is a foundational step for our next phase of ministry.

We want to avoid confusion with the new HCBC Austin location in Leander. We’re certainly supportive of another church coming to Leander! We are all reaching people for Jesus and the more churches, the better!

• This is a great connection to our history and is part of our identity—we’re proud of it!

• It is also clear affirmation of our ongoing commitment to the truth of God’s Word.

• North (geographic identifier)—we’re on the north side of Austin. “North” also has a connotation of going upward, which we like.

• “Way” communicates a journey of discipleship—what is your next step?

• It is connected to the current name of our Spanish ministry (Camino means Way).

• Early followers of Jesus were called “followers of The Way”.

• It’s easy to use in conversation (2 syllables + Bible).

• It’s a unique name!

• October 24 // landing page on the website with video and FAQ

• Week of November 28 // Communication to entire church announcing name change

• December 12 // Promo mailer to the broader community about Christmas Eve & the name change • Sunday, January 1 // Soft launch

• Sunday, January 8 // New Year - New Name launch of North Way Bible Church

Sure, but our leadership team had already been discussing a name change because we felt it was time for us to launch out with a unique identity for ourselves.

We’re incredibly grateful for our history and ongoing connection with HCBC Austin—we have no plans to change that. In fact, we believe a name change will help us better partner with Hill Country Bible Church and other churches in reaching our community with Gospel.

We will remain involved in the Association of Hill Country churches. Nothing has changed about our relationship and partnership with Hill Country Bible Church.

We simply feel we’ve reached the point in our development as a unique church that we should have a unique identity—a unique brand that’s distinct from HCBC Austin.

So, the fact that they’ve launched a Leander campus only sped up our timing a bit for something we were planning to do anyway.

Naming is always difficult, especially when it comes to organizations or churches. In order to keep the process more manageable, we limited the group to representatives from several groups—staff, elders, and congregation members. And the congregation members who were a part of the process have expertise in branding and marketing, which made them the perfect fit for the team.

The other thing to remember is that we’re not a church that votes on everything—that’s even in our Principles and Practices. There are really only a few things that the congregation votes on (i.e., elders, hiring/firing of senior pastor, purchase of property). Other than that, we make decisions using an elder-led system for these kinds of issues.

The group we hired has helped many churches and organizations with naming and branding. They guided us with what to expect during the process, asked questions and listened to us about what makes us distinct from other churches, and then researched current church names in Austin and the surrounding areas.

Based on all of that, they came back to us with many different options and just a couple of recommendations they thought would work best. North Way Bible Church was one of those recommendations. The team discussed it, prayed about it, discussed it some more, talked about it with the elders, then discussed it some more. After all of that, the group came to a 100% consensus that this was the best name for us moving forward.

Because our logo mark is already distinct and different from HCBC Austin, we felt from the beginning that we could probably keep our logo mark and colors unless there was some compelling reason to change them.

We like that the mark itself can stay consistent even as we change our name. It’s another example of the fact that we’re the same church with the same mission, values, vision, and strategy that we’ve always had—we’re just changing our name.

As a matter of fact, there is a legal option available to us that makes things easy in the short term—we have filed a “doing business as” brief (also known as a D.B.A.). For now, the legal name of the church (as far as the state of Texas is concerned) is still Hill Country Bible Church Leander. By filing the D.B.A., we can legally operate as or “do business as” North Way Bible Church.

Most likely we will go through the process to officially and fully change the name of the church in the future, but that is a more extensive legal process that isn’t necessary right now for us to move forward.

Our website and social media channels will change to reflect the new name, our signage and all of our communication materials will change to reflect the new name ... but that’s it for now!

If you hang around here long enough, though, you’ll soon realize that we’re always wanting to grow, adapt, and improve if it is going to help us to be more effective in pursuing our mission together. But we’re not currently planning any other changes to things like the name of the church.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT NAMING

• If it’s the right name, we will be emotional and excited about it.

• If it’s the right name, everyone else will be excited about it.

• If it’s the right name, we won’t have to explain why we think it’s a good fit for us.

• If it’s the right name, it will significantly increase the future growth of our church.

• There is one right name.