Jonny Baker has convinced Bill Millar of Knox United Church in Winnipeg to start blogging at The Old Bill.

I don’t actually know Bill, but since we’re both in Winnipeg it just seems neighbourly to give him a plug… and after all, we trust Jonny Baker’s recommendation. Who knows, maybe we’ll gather up a bunch of EC-Bloggers in the Winnipeg area, aggregate them on a site called, I don’t know, maybe we’ll call it Reverberate. Maybe we’ll link a couple of bloggers from other provinces in Canada and then call it representative of EC in Canada… but probably not. (Yes, this is a backhanded way to suggest that another site of a similar name is really not representative of EC in Canada.)

Speaking of the urge to organize, my wife did some bedtime reading with our oldest daughter, then brought the book out to read me this tidbit: “‘From what I’ve seen,’ Pa went on, ‘the trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they’re organized for.'” …this from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town on the Prairie; you find good stuff everywhere if you look. From what I’ve seen, (over?)organization is one of the primary problems with the church anymore.

In the non-official non-organized “church” (aka small band of friends who gather semi-informally) of which we’re a part, I’ve suggested a few names should we wish to cross that line in the sand at some point. So far this is all mostly in jest, but we’re enjoying kicking it around – I said if we’re going to name it, we needed one of those “cool names” like some of the other EC’s have (hint: to qualify, you can’t have “Christian” or “First” or “Fellowship” or “Church” or the name of the street or town where the church building is in the name). Top names suggested so far:

• Fiat Lux
• Basin & Towel
• Spikenard
• Linda’s Church
• The LC
• Iconic Pony
• The Table

Alright, can you do better? And you have to know that one of these was suggested by someone named Linda… whose idea was shortened to “The LC” because “LC” is also in the local vernacular meaning “Liquor Commission” which is the authorized seller of liquor… because unlike the USA and other places, you can’t buy booze at 7-11 in Canada. “The Table” has a meaning, it’s not just a flippant idea; Iconic Pony otoh also has some weird significance to us as an inside joke, but instead of being adopted it was voted best name for a punk band.

There, see what kind of claptrap you get caught up in when you start to organize?