HAHIRA, GA — The leadership of a newly planted church was unable to come up with a suitable name and will instead be forced to settle for being named "13,487th Baptist Church." A number of alternative names were considered, but following in the long tradition of numerical order was agreed to be the only option.
"We tried to think of so many other options, but we kept coming back to this," said Pastor Dale Hollingsworth. "It definitely makes it seem like we rank really low on some sort of church totem pole, but when you're planting a Baptist church, you just have to take your place in line, I guess."
Leaders of the church plant had met multiple times over the course of several weeks to choose a name, with other, "more hip" names being discussed. "Yeah, we looked around at other church names to see if anything sounded appealing," said Associate Pastor Ted Mason. "All these modern churches have such weird names, though. ‘Vibrant Life Church?' ‘Energize Church?' ‘River of Yeet?' Or what about these vague, one-word church names? ‘Emerge.' ‘Catalyst.' No thanks. We'll be happy and content as 13,487th Baptist Church, thank you."
Denominational leaders were said to be happy with the church's decision, hoping to maintain their sizeable lead over the Lutherans, whose last church plant in the area was named "592nd Lutheran Church."
At publishing time, the church was eagerly awaiting its inaugural service on Easter Sunday, and the Baptist denomination continued to prepare its grand prize for whatever church plant would be lucky to be named "14,000th Baptist Church."
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