One of our favorite camp ministry stories is one about a little girl who told her counselors, "I used to be a Christian, but now I'm a Baptist."  This is particularly funny because the camp I direct is owned by the American Baptist churches of Aroostook County, Maine, and in typical, no frills, northern Maine practicality, the camp's name is 'Baptist Park'.  I confess I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this little girl's quote when joking around with Baptist friends and coworkers.

This little story is also cute because the child put her finger on something that adult Christians know all too well:  There's a lot of labels out there, and no one really knows what most of them mean.  Strange, considering Christianity was once the faith with no labels.  At first Christians weren't even called 'Christians'.  The early believers  were called the disciples of Christ.  In other words, they were simply referred to by the name of the Rabbi they followed.  They were Christ's students, not the students of some other Rabbi.  What mattered was their teacher's title, not theirs.  These were the people who followed the Rabbi who claimed to be the Messiah, the Rabbi who had reportedly risen from the grave, the Rabbi promised and prophecied centuries earlier.

Then, in the city of Antioch, Greece, people began calling followers of Jesus "Christians".  I've heard that this translates into 'little Christs'.  Not that they were all considered dieties or Messiahs, but they were sort of Jesus' Mini-Mes.

But now, after two millenium, there's no shortage of labels for the church.  Denominational labels, admittedly, have some very real value.  'Baptist' means the church practices full immersion baptism.  'Congregational' means the governing of the local church is done through Democratic processes by the congregation, not denominational leadership.  "Roman Catholic" means the church comes under the authority of the Vatican.

Also, there are assumptions we can make about churches based on their labels and they're often true.  In a nearby town in Maine, I have a friend who is an Episcopal Priest and another who is an Assembly of God pastor.  Guess which one likes his wine.  Guess which one votes Republican.  Assumptions like these about denominations are not always true, but, at least within certain regions, there are traits associated with certain church labels.  These traits may vary somewhat by ethnic group. - The Assembly of God leadership on the Crow Reservation almost unanimously approve whole heartedly of the Obama Presidency.  Black Baptists are often demonstrative and liberal; White Baptists are known to be conservative and stoic.  For us in rural and suburban Maine, churches aren't all religious right, but we are overwhelmingly religious white.  That means our Baptists are conservative, our Congregationalists are traditional, and our Episcopalians are Democrats.

These stereotypes are so accepted that sometimes when churches are booking us the pastors themselves will allude to them.  "We're a Methodist church, but feel free to go a little past 12:00 anyway."  "We're UCC, but we're evangelical."  You get the idea.

I know Scriptures tells us that every tribe, nation and tongue will be represented at the throne of God, worshipping Him in Heaven some day: Pakistanis and Indians, Jews and Palestinians, Crow and Lakotah, all side by side.  What may be even more remarkable, though, is that every denomination will be represented, too.  This I gotta see.