Churches seek new life under new names

For Living Faith Lutheran Church, the name change was as much about the future as the past. On the last Sunday of June, the Rockville, Maryland, congregation formally bid goodbye to its old name, Crusader Lutheran Church.

"We're not saying [Crusader] was a bad name," said Sandra Cox Shaw, the church's pastor. But now "our name will no longer be a stumbling block for people who want to visit us and get to know us."

Comments about the church's "militaristic" and "non-Christian" name reached a "critical mass" last year, said Michael Lidell, a former parish lay leader.