What’s in a Name?

The name Freedom Ascent is a constant reminder that this experience is much more than a one-time event; rather it is a discipleship and growth process to victory over the burdens and chains in people’s lives.

A well known fact in commerce and industry is that naming a product or a blockbuster movie is a challenge if that name is to be more meaningful than just a simple identity—especially a foreign identity. This is particularly true for a ministry that needs to be natively rooted and “owned” in a host culture, which of course is our approach for biblical storyweaving in general, but addiction recovery in particular. This fact requires making a choice between a name that provides unity with an international identity versus a name with a strong in-culture identity that communicates the vision and nature of the ministry. Ideally, one name could have it all, but usually this isn’t possible.

It was decided several years ago that for the Spanish-speaking world, we would follow the convention of re-naming for meaningful expression rather than a form-oriented literal translation. Freedom Ascent is therefore called “ReViVe” in Spanish (pronounced “ray-BEE-bay”), which is short for “Renovación, Victoria y Verdad” (= Renewal, Victory and Truth), and which is a form of the verb “revivir” meaning to take on a new life. Thus the name “ReViVe” reminds Spanish-speaking participants of several core concepts of this purpose-driven process of addiction recovery—being made new, experiencing victory, and being grounded in God’s Truth as communicated in Scripture.