THE
NAME?

The day started in a relaxing and peaceful way. My wife and I were on our summer vacation to the city of Nashville , Tennessee visiting my wife's aunt and uncle and their family.

 

The Saturday turned out to be just beautiful with the perfect temperature and clear skies. We spent the day shopping and eating out and ended it with an outdoor music festival called WayFest sponsored by WAY-FM. As we approached the entrance to the festival, the energy and atmosphere seemed electric. This was my first time at this type of festival and I found myself constantly looking around trying to take everything in. I watched crowds of visually diverse people, listened to up-and-coming bands, and noticed the facility workers who seemed quite interested in what was going on. It was then that a passion that God had put on my heart a few months earlier began to blaze again.

 

When my wife and I headed to Nashville I’d already begun a spiritual journey that placed within me the desire to use my design talents to plant seeds in the hearts of others. I wanted to create a company that would give my family and my finances more options. Since I’d been serving teenagers at our church and becoming very familiar with youth culture, I wanted to create my own line of Christian merchandise with materials that teens could proudly wear or carry to spread the love of God.

 

I had already bounced this idea off trusted and very successful people I knew in our church. After taking time to hear what people had to say, I started off with the sense of excitement over what God could do through this opportunity. I began to rush through things as quickly as the ideas raced through my mind. But then I began to lose the blaze of passion that I’d had for this adventure.

 

One of the steps that I rushed through was naming my company. I wanted a name that people would recognize and that would communicate that our designs were clean and "soul safe." The name I came up with was "Dirtless." (Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you). With this type of haste, you know why my blaze was being snuffed out. The name didn't seem to have that "etched in stone" or "anointed" dynamic. In the couple months prior to the Nashville trip, I couldn't escape the feeling that this wasn't exactly right. Needless to say, this uneasiness leached its way into all parts of the journey.

 

While walking through the festival, I found myself looking at t-shirt designs that I passed and that excitement began to grow again. The vendors grabbed my attention as I watched them interact with people at a customer level while having spiritual concern for them. I started day dreaming about doing the same in such an awesome atmosphere.

 

As the day progressed, the hot sun made us all quite thirsty and my wife's cousin Joseph and I were sent on a mission to find cool refreshments. While standing in the loooong line, Joseph and I began to talk about stuff that youth would buy and I saw an opportunity to pick his brain a little. He was a prime example of my target audience. As we were talking he suddenly said, "I have a cool t-shirt idea." He then described a design that consisted of some murky substance passing through the cross and becoming "purified" on the other end. It was like a lightning bolt hit me in the back of the head. Joseph continued talking and sharing ideas, but all I heard was the “wahwahwah” of the Peanuts’ teacher as the word "purified" monopolized my thoughts for the rest of the night.

 

After we returned to the house that night I grabbed some paper and began to write out “purified”. Knowing that the spelling "purified" would be used by every water treatment company under the sun I sought something unique. What I do is all visual, inspiring me to choose "Purifeyed.”

 

Since that trip, God has really blessed and opened many doors for Purifeyed. When I hired an attorney to trademark the name, I was quite nervous about the results of the trademark search. I thought for sure someone had thought of that name before me, but the results came back all clear leaving “Purifeyed” open for me to own. What a blessing!

 

That is the story of how the name came. It all goes to prove that God is still in the business of taking our passions and talents and transforming them into vehicles for His glory.