by Phil Davis

Naming a child is difficult. It’s a significant, decisive act, and everybody wants to weigh in with their ideas and opinions. But at the end of the day it’s usually two key people who make the decision; the parents. When my wife Shanna and I picked out the name of our first child—Lucia Hope, meaning “light of hope”—we sought to choose a name that captured the great longings and dreams we had for her life. Things are not so different when naming a church.

Three years ago, Shanna and I moved with our children and teammates from North Carolina to Prague to plant a church for internationals. Now, on the one-year anniversary of our first official worship service, I can hardly believe all that the Lord has done. Looking back, there was a certain brainstorming meeting that contained a lot of foreshadowing.

It was a little over a year ago that we found ourselves brainstorming church names with those who’d been meeting at our home in Prague for 18 months. Each of these dear souls had taken unique and significant ownership of the work that God was building. Thus, they each had strong feelings about what was becoming such a personally important entity. This was not just “our baby” to name. This was a community effort. I should have seen the name coming…

A strong early contender in the naming process was “Crossroads.” We envisioned our church being a place where lives could converge for a time, however long or short that might be, and then be sent out again—and hopefully, they’d be a little different than when they arrived.

But our community is not just marked by lives coming together for a time. Our true distinction is the foundation for our community—that we belong permanently to a Savior, who enables us to live in true community with one another, in and through Him. “Community” therefore, became a non-negotiable part of the name, and only strengthened our conviction that the church be a place where diverse people could gather and worship the same Christ.

We eventually settled on “Faith Community” because “faith” in anything here is a rather foreign concept. It’s intriguing, very counter to the culture, and utterly central to who we are: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Our theme verse, Hebrews 11:1, would call us to its embodiment from the outset—confidence in our unseen God and His faithfulness.

We knew there would be people here to support us last spring for our very first church service, but we weren’t really sure who would commit as regular attendees. Summer is always slow for churches here—some Czech churches even take the whole summer off. We had a big dip in numbers, but it gave us time to figure out how to “do church” and renewed our “faith” in the One who authored the idea of church in the first place. Once fall rolled around, and new people started moving to Prague, we saw new faces at church; people who have now become church fixtures and have given of themselves to the community.

Now at one-year, Faith Community is like a one-year-old child—learning how to walk and talk. Walking: Where will we go? Where will God lead us? What parts of Prague society do we need to enter into? Talking: As a church, what will we say to the world around us? How will we communicate the gospel to this dark city?

I am humbly delighted to report that Faith Community is becoming a place where true, redemptive community happens! Phillip Haberkern & Danielle Dong, who moved to Prague for dissertation research, shared, “Faith Community has provided us with a supportive, caring home that has nurtured our spirits and faith. It’s been the most obvious place where we can see God working in us and around us. The members of the church have become the family we needed when we came to Prague.”

We also had our first baptism last summer: Ondra, a young Czech man who came to faith several years ago through Athletes in Action, but had never settled on a church home until now. And, we have received many e-mails of encouragement from people who have either never attended church before or learned something new about the gospel when they visited.

As we move into year two, my hope is that we would begin to understand our identity as a church, much like parents begin to understand a child’s personality as it develops. I hope we begin to find our place in the city—possibly even a permanent building, so that we can continue to establish ourselves as a positive influence in Prague, redeeming culture through arts, mercy, and family ministries. And, I pray that we would grow up into our meaningful name—Faith Community Church—where hoping for what we do not see is evidenced among those we do!