31st January 2016 marked the launch of our Durban Site. We had been running pre-launch meetings for a few months when we stumbled upon a problem: a church in Durban that not only had the name ‘New Covenant Fellowship’, but also branded themselves as ‘NCF Church’. In addition to this they have a Site, which they also called NCF North – just like us! This NCF Church has thousands of members and also runs a TV program. If our values were similar, it may not have been a problem. We are, however, decidedly different to them and so to honour this church and to enable us to pursue our mandate of planting Sites in Durban we needed to change our name. Our Durban North Site was only the beginning. We anticipated that a university site would follow shortly as well as many others.
The process of choosing our new name began in earnest in August 2016. The selection process was led by the 52 elders of NCF Church and their wives, but not exclusively so. Extensive polling of views from the staff, various church members, both young and old, as well as un-churched friends was carried out. The elders were asked to list those of our values, which they felt needed to be encapsulated by the new name. Based on these values leaders were then asked to submit potential names for consideration. Discussion began around the names in elders meetings, informal gatherings and on social media. The elders fasted and prayed as a shortlist was created. This shortlist then underwent a similar scrutiny of opinion. Ray Oliver was asked for his perspective and a search was done through all the prophecies NCF had received so that we could compare the shortlisted names with what we believe God’s plan for our church is. Once the list was down to ten names they were put through a series of tests.
Remembering that any name would sound hollow at first and that until the associations of who NCF is are properly tied to it, it would be nothing more than a collection of letters, and bearing in mind that a church makes a name and not the other way around, we finally settled on ONE LIFE CHURCH.