Name Recognition

We did a fair amount of advertising about our church before our first service by passing out thousands of door-hangers. We also placed an advertisement in our local newspaper which went to 10's of thousands of homes but by far our most effective advertising to date has been our name recognition. We have had several visitors now who have attended our worship services because they saw that we were called The Rock Church. They have associated our church with The Rock Church in San Diego, which is a huge mega-church. It isn't bad to be associated with a great church like The Rock Church in San Diego that has volunteered nearly 1,000,000 community service hours this year and is attracting 1,000's of unchurched people but we have no direct relationship with them what so ever. We didn't name ourselves after them but people have had such a positive experience with The Rock Church in San Diego that they want to check us out. I never would have expected for that to be the number one reason why people visit our worship services but so far it is. I am glad we didn't name ourselves "Church of the H1N1," we definately wouldn't have had any visitors. I guess the lesson of this is be careful what you name your church because it might help or hurt you.