Grace & Peace Magazine - Summer 2020

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Ministry in a Connected Culture A QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF THE USA /CANADA REGION CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE Grace & Peace Summer 2020, Issue 23 www.graceandpeacemagazine.org Bob Broadbooks USA/Canada Regional Director Associate Editor | Jeanette Gardner Littleton > GPmagazine@nazarene.org Layout & Design | Robin Black, InspirioDesign This publication is a dialogical resource for pastors and ministry practitioners affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene. Its purpose is to increase ministry effectiveness, stimulate theological and missional reflection, and promote healthy dialogue among its print and online readership. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission. Among other things, Grace & Peace Magazine commits to the following priorities for its readership: leadership development, theological identity, new church development, missional outreach, and church renewal.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the NIV: From The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® (NIV), copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Our Perspective: We seek to continue the tradition of the early Church of the Nazarene that sought to integrate the diverse theological and methodological voices in the church.

We seek to be a movement of people who care about the same things, but not in the same way.

Yet, always maintaining that difference is not the focus—Christ is.

We seek to be informed by missiology and cultural anthropology, which gives permission to innovate and seek renewal. We want to be open to listen, value, and pay attention to a variety of structures, missions, and programs, while affirming our commitment to the Wesleyan theological tradition. We seek methodological innovation in response to a changing culture as we work to make Christlike disciples in the nations.

Questions? Email GPmagazine@nazarene.org.

Endorsed by: Wesleyan Theological Society, Wesleyan Holiness Consortium USA/Canada Regional Office Church of the Nazarene 17001 Prairie Star Parkway Lenexa, KS 66220

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CONTENTS G&P ISSUE 23

SUMMER 2020

INVOCATION: The Bigger Picture by Frank Moore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 God Continues to Move among Us by Bob Broadbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Looking Back, Moving Forward by Justin Pickard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 From Motivation to Movement by Mark Bane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Reaching All People Groups by Roberto Hodgson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Revitalizing our 100-Year-Old Denomination by multiple authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 INTERVIEW: Joining the Mission of Jesus: An interview with Ed Stetzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Reimagining Success by Art Roxby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Nazarene Trends During the 2010s by Rich Houseal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 When the Church Meets the Political and Cultural Issues of Its Day by James Copple. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Blessings of Abraham: A Model for Latino Pastoral Care by Juan Vazquez-Pla. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Phineas Bresee and the Women of the Church of the Nazarene by Diane Leclerc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 INTERVIEW: Embracing and Practicing Holiness: An interview with T. Scott Daniels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Small Churches Do Make Big Differences by Rich Houseal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Theology of Giving by Carl Leth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Do Not Be Afraid by Mary Paul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 BENEDICTION: Tears for Your ZIP Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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INVOC ATION The Bigger Picture Fr a n k M o o r e

“W

hy isn’t God working in the church today like He did in the past?” A long-time member of my Sunday school class asked that question one Sunday morning in the middle of our Bible study. I am seldom at a loss for words, but that question left me speechless. A dozen questions quickly flooded my mind: Where is she coming from? Why is she not seeing God at work in her world? How have we failed to communicate all that God is doing in our world, our church, and individual lives? How do we help people develop eyes to better see God’s work among us?

I try to give attention every day to the many ways God crosses our paths and extends love, grace, mercy, and prevenient grace both to believers and to those who are not mindful of spiritual matters, or intervenes in unusual ways to bring people back into relationship with Himself. So as I stood in front of my Sunday school class that day, I could not imagine how any believer would be unaware of God’s constant work in our world, our church, and our lives.

Sometimes our perspective can cause us to miss the bigger picture. Several train tracks run through our town. I don’t think about trains until I’m running late for an appointment and find myself stopped at a train crossing, counting the cars as they pass at an amazingly slow pace. I’m sure the trains aren’t that long, but they seem five miles long when I’m waiting for the last car to pass so I can get across the tracks and on to my destination. I always laugh when I look out an airplane window while flying at 39,000 feet. Trains inching by below seem no larger than an ant. Perspective makes all of the difference.

We can get so caught up in all of the daily news headlines, work responsibilities, home tasks, and family commitments that we miss the bigger picture.

This issue of Grace & Peace offers the perspective of a bigger picture. The magazine is celebrating its tenth anniversary. This milestone gives us a chance to look back over the past decade and highlight evidences of God at work on the USA/ Canada Region of the Church of the Nazarene.

The various ministry directors in the regional office will focus attention on some of the blessings and progress taking place within each particular ministry. Research Services at the Global Ministry Center analyzed regional data from the past 10 years and reached some interesting conclusions.

Then, we turned the pages of all of the Grace & Peace magazines produced over the past decade to select a few of the “best of” articles. We obviously could not reprint all of the great articles from the last 10 years, so we selected representative articles that highlight efforts from several of the region’s ministry initiatives. The concepts and insights for ministry are practical and effective in a variety of local church settings.

We trust that as you read the directors’ reports, Research Services data analysis, and the reprinted articles, you will see the hand of God at work in incredible ways in local Churches of the Nazarene across the United States and Canada. We hope as you look at the bigger picture, you will receive a renewed vision for all that God wants to do in your ministry setting as you partner with Him. FRANK MOORE serves as general editor for the Church of the Nazarene.

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NEWS USA/Canada Regional Update— God Continues to Move among Us Five generations have existed in North America since the beginning of the Church of the Nazarene. In the years since our inception, in addition to the many scientific, medical, and technological developments, devastating events such as the Great Depression, wars, the threat of nuclear war, the AIDS epidemic, September 11, 2011, and a worldwide pandemic called COVID-19 have shaped our society. Although each generation has experienced unique characteristics and events, every person has carried the same deep inner need for a relationship with his or her Creator.

Throughout these 125 years, God has helped the Church of the Nazarene to adjust and continue to proclaim our winsome message—we have a loving, patient Savior who is not stressed or threatened by all of this change. Jesus Christ, the original Nazarene, can still heal every broken life and fill every empty heart.

For many religious leaders in the United States and Canada, the headwinds of secularity seem to be increasing daily. Perhaps it is counterintuitive, but we Nazarenes are learning to rejoice in these developments. History would tell us to anticipate that the Holy Spirit is powerfully working in times like these. During the first three centuries, the church grew rapidly even though the environment was hostile. In fact, church services were closed to outsiders because persecution was a real threat.

A person would often stand at the door of the meeting place monitoring those who entered.

Yet the Church grew.

During these early centuries, preachers would entreat their flock to live out the Sermon on the Mount. If they were slapped, turn the other cheek.

If they were compelled to go one mile, go two. They would encourage them not to live in anger and violence but to live patient, loving lives of service. In 256 c.e., Cyprian wrote a treatise to his persecuted flock saying, “Beloved brethren, we are philosophers not in words but in deeds; we exhibit our wisdom

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not by our dress, but by truth; we know virtues by our practice rather than through boasting of them; we do not speak great things, but we live them.”

This proved to be so attractive that many were drawn to the Christian faith, and the Church grew dramatically. The hard times of persecution proved to be great times of progress for the Church. May it be so for the Church of the Nazarene in the United States and Canada in the coming decade.

Our region includes two countries, the United States of America and Canada. These countries are divided into 78 districts, and the districts contain over 5,100 active churches. We celebrate that these churches have been evangelistically effective. During 2019 alone, 45,318 people have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ and discovered new life in Him. To God be the Glory because over the last decade, 519,422 people have been transformed by Christ in these 5,100 churches!

Our region is blessed with gifted leaders including Roberto Hodgson, Multicultural Ministries; Mark Bane, Evangelism and New Church Development; Jay Height, Compassionate Ministries USA/Canada; Justin Pickard, USA/Canada NYI; and Steve Borger, The COMPASS Initiative. Eddie Estep leads the effort to resource and train our 78 district superintendents, and Stan Reeder leads our efforts in the area of church renewal.

I am grateful for each of these leaders. They continue to have a great impact in the region.

Several are contributing to this issue of Grace & Peace and will be giving greater detail about the ministry in our region.

As Cyprian said, “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.” It was true of the church in AD 256, and it must continue to shape our actions in the year 2020. The Church of the Nazarene in the United States and Canada is living out Jesus’ words.

We offer this proof.

A tragic story recently unfolded in the city of Philadelphia. A gang member attempted to shoot a rival gang member, but sadly, the bullet killed a 2-year-old. With the gunman now incarcerated, his children and their mother had nowhere to turn for help. The children attended an after-school program in the neighborhood. It was a Nazarene ministry called Front Step that this broken family turned to for safety and protection. Front Step continues to help them relocate to a safe place and minister to them. “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.”

When a crazed gunman killed 22 innocent people and wounded many others at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the Church of the Nazarene responded.

Mission El Paso supported some of the families of the wounded by providing meals at the hospitals.

The ministry also provided support for the funeral for a young mother and father. “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.”

In Hialeah, a section of Miami, Florida, where many Cubans live, the Church of the Nazarene is serving families and those struggling with addictions through the ministry called The Home of the Nazarene. Started over two decades ago, this important ministry has led to many changed lives. Now, former participants have been ordained as pastors on the Southern Florida District. “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.”

In Cactus, Texas, a Nazarene church provides, among many other ministries, medical services to this small town inhabited primarily by immigrants.

A former missionary doctor has helped the West Texas District open this ministry. “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.”

There is a dynamic inner-city ministry in North Little Rock, Arkansas, called Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene. For over 40 years, this ministry

has transformed its community. First led by Paul Holderfield, Sr., for the last 20 years, his son, Paul, Jr. has led the church and accompanying ministries with distinction.

A few years ago, Brother Paul ran into a man named Harold who had reaped the benefits of the church through the years. Harold hollered with a big smile, “Brother Paul, we are missing those sandwiches!” Paul didn’t recognize Harold, but Harold continued, “Brother Paul, you are going to heaven, I know that. Your dad used to let us play ball at the church, even while we were tripping with the gangs, and he didn’t judge us . . . he just loved us. That church just gave and gave and gave all these years and didn’t expect anything in return. I know God pays you back, doesn’t he? Brother Paul, y’all have fed half of North Little Rock all these years and nobody at Friendly Chapel looks down on you or acts like they are better than you while they are serving you. I used to not believe in God because of all that TV preachers stuff, but all these years y’all are so real . . . you just can’t fight it!”

And 2,000 years ago, Cyprian said, “We do not [just] speak great things, but we live them.” May it always be said of Nazarenes in the USA/Canada Region!

BOB BROADBOOKS USA/Canada Regional Director

1. Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church (Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 13.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

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NEWS USA/Canada NYI: Looking Back, Moving Forward The past decade for USA/Canada NYI included many peaks and valleys, leading to a variety of challenges and opportunities.

Overall, USA/Canada NYI saw a steady and significant slide in youth membership and attendance from 2010-2019, mirroring a similar pattern within the church and nearly every other denomination in North America. Despite this decline, we remain deeply hopeful. God is at work in the lives of young people across our region! There is much to highlight and celebrate as we look back while we faithfully push forward to turn the tide and ride new waves of momentum into the future.

In 2013, two significant shifts occurred as the USA/Canada NYI office embedded within the regional office for increased organizational alignment and effectiveness. We also adopted Global NYI’s three core strategies of Evangelism, Discipleship, and Leadership Development (aka BE . . . DO . . . GO . . .) in order to focus on our mission of making Christlike disciples in the nations among the next generation.

Evangelism Our focus on evangelism led us to renew attention on campus ministry, recognizing the campus as a strategic place to reach students and develop ministry among them. Campus Mission, a network of Nazarene churches and ministries focused on reaching college students, was rekindled. We also reaffirmed our involvement with Campus Alliance, a nationwide movement of churches and Christian organizations with the shared goal of adopting every middle and high school in America for a prayer, care, and share strategy by 2030. Together, nearly half of the 60,000-plus schools have already been adopted!

We also connected with Encuentro Missions to encourage cross-cultural experiences. While the USA/Canada NYI office does not officially

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coordinate these opportunities, we do lock arms and support the collaboration they bring among several regions. Through the decade, thousands of students have participated with Encuentro groups in building projects, VBS programs, sports camps, and community worship services as we see countless lives transformed through Nazarene churches in places like Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Discipleship Our focus on discipleship is marked by several strong ministry programs and weekly gatherings through the local church such as youth group, Sunday school, and other small groups. We are thankful for The Foundry Publishing and its ongoing commitment to provide quality, relevant curriculum and resources for discipling youth. Youth Bible quizzing also continues to be an impactful ministry for many local churches and districts by immersing students in Scripture and building a strong community of faith amid the fun competition.

Large events such as district camps and retreats, field events on our Nazarene campuses, and regional events have provided additional layers of discipleship opportunities for students. Nazarene Youth Conference (NYC) continues to be the largest movement of our young people with a total of more than 22,000 Nazarene youth and leaders gathering in Louisville (NYC 2011: “World Unbroken” and NYC 2015: “Thy Kingdom Come”) and Phoenix (NYC 2019: “Love God, Love Others”) for the purpose of worship, discipleship, and community service.

During these three epic events, countless lives were impacted as participants offered 85,000 hours of community service throughout the host cities.

They distributed over 15,000 “Bundles of Hope” diaper bags and “Packed with Love” backpacks to families and students in need and initiated provision of over 300,000 meals plus over 10,000 hygiene kits for crisis care efforts on the region and

Mid-decade, we launched NYIConnect.com, a digital resource hub including leadership development videos, ministry partner links, a district leader toolbox, and a curated blog written by youth leaders for youth leaders on a wide variety of youth related topics. This online resource continues to provide hope and help as a top 100 youth blog for the past several years, according to Feedspot, an online monitor of blogs, websites, and podcasts.

Moving Forward into a New Decade abroad. In the process, NYC participants’ lives were transformed with thousands of teens surrendering fully to Christ and more than 1,500 students accepting a call to ministry or missions. Following NYC 2019, we implemented a strategy encouraging every layer of the church to follow up with students called to ministry through prayer and support, including guided next steps for ministry training and opportunities.

Leadership Development Our focus on leadership development was key to our efforts over the decade. Our annual NYI Leadership Conference grew deeper and wider to provide networking and training opportunities among youth leaders, pastors, and district leaders for greater collaboration and innovation in ministry.

During several regional Mission Conferences (M11, M15, M19), we hosted close to 1,000 Nazarene college students for a series of gatherings and training initiatives such as Growing Young, a research based model designed to give leaders practical insights and tools to better engage young people (age 16–29) in our churches.

This is certainly a unique time in the life of the church and USA/Canada NYI. As we scan the horizon, we recognize many of the challenges ahead. We trust God to guide us into the future, uniting and moving us toward renewed health and growth, as we fix our eyes on Jesus and express our youthful optimism to lead the way. In short, we believe exciting and pivotal days are ahead for ministry with youth on our region!

Historically, the church has often grown by the devotion and labors of the youth, making them both the largest missions opportunity and the largest missions resource. May God provide wisdom, guidance, and courage as we hold fast to our mission and message while empowering the next generation to develop innovative methods and lock arms in collaborative efforts toward investing in the lives of youth for the sake of the Kingdom.

JUSTIN PICKARD serves as Nazarene Youth International coordinator for the USA/Canada Region.

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NEWS From Motivation to Movement: A Decadal Report and Vision for the Future A fresh wind of excitement is blowing through our church to reach lost people. As I travel across the region, I find a palatable sense of excitement: The USA/Canada Church is motivated. I believe the Spirit wants us to shift from motivation toward movement, thinking, and practices that will prepare us for a strong missional future.

The department of Evangelism and New Church Development has seen its most exciting days since the late ‘50s. Early in this decade, Dr. Bill Weisman’s emphasis on evangelism and church planting changed the USA/Canada landscape. He reminded us of the essential need to plant all kinds of churches, in all kinds of places, for all kinds of people. This effort was successful for many reasons: • Exciting, intentional, visionary leadership from the Board of General Superintendents.

• Courageous leadership of Dr. Bob Broadbooks over the region.

• District superintendents and pastors engaged quickly in mission multiplication.

• Partnering with DCPI (Dynamic Church Planting International), a church planting organization providing amazing, no-cost training tools.

• Leaders, both lay and clergy, embraced the exciting biblical challenge to multiply new churches.

The result of these co-operative efforts has been amazing.

I. Evangelism has become a high priority.

• The mission of this decade, “Making Christlike disciples in the nations,” has fueled a new interest and freedom to focus on the lost.

• The M19 (Mission 19) Conference, “The Gospel Unleashed,” under the strong, visionary leadership of Dr. Randy Cloud,

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was a watershed event moving us to a greater focus on the lost and dying world around us.

• EMT (Evangelism and Multiplication training): 21 districts and over 1,000 leaders have been trained in personal disciplemaking principles and practices. This training, inspired by Dr. Crocker from the language of the Each One/Reach One tool used successfully in other world areas, is now having an impact here. The training material teaches the essential truth that every believer should be involved in disciplemaking as well as church multiplication.

II. Church planting is thriving, compared to the past 60 years.

• Eighty percent of our district leaders have received church planting training.

• Over 4,000 leaders have been trained for church planting.

• The past seven years show triple-digit new church plants for the first time since 1959.

• Our research department tells us that one out of every four Nazarene churches has been started since 2000. If the current trends continue, by 2045, the number of active churches begun since 2000 will outnumber the active churches begun before 2000.

• There have been more new church plants in the past decade than in any previous decade since 1959.

• Under the fantastic leadership of our brothers and sisters in Canada, Dr. Ian Fitzpatrick and an excited new group of district superintendents have motivated and activated the Canadian church for the lost.

Our church is motivated in evangelism and church planting. The question is: How do we move from motivation to movement again? Recent

engagement with movement leaders from a variety of denominations across the USA/Canada has led us to ask this question. The answer appears complex as we read and listen to experts.

Considering these things and with much prayer, I want to share four shifts the Evangelism and New Church Development Department will embrace as we transition from motivation to movement. They are: 1. A shift from our kingdom to Christ’s Kingdom: We must see His kingdom as more important than our own. Jesus helped us when He said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

2. A shift from maintenance to missional: We must care for those in our communities who don’t know Jesus, even as we love those who do. Many of our churches focus on maintaining things as they are. That which is good must be maintained; however, Scripture suggests we can do both. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. That is, we can care for the flock and reach the lost at the same time. It is not either/or but both/and. Jesus modeled this perfectly. He discipled the Twelve while also seeking the lost ones of His day.

3. A shift from safety to sacrifice: Ravi Zacharias said, “Unless I understand the cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must take precedence over what I prefer.”1 If we are to shift to become a movement, we must allow God to help us take up the cross as our guide in every decision and action we pursue. We are, generally, riskaverse people. Faith presumes risk. If we are to become a movement again, we must begin to operate with sacrifice as a perceived reality.

4. A shift from intentions to actions: Many Nazarenes have never really made a disciple, yet that is Jesus’ commission to every believer.

The Church of the Nazarene (USA/Canada) is poised to move forward with exponential growth in the next decade. To do so, we are developing tools that will train every Nazarene in the process of evangelism and

If we are to shift to become a movement, we must allow God to help us take up the cross as our guide in every decision and action we pursue. disciple-making. We pray for and long to see each Nazarene making at least one new disciple each year. We must regain traction in our historical embrace of the priesthood of all believers.

As we begin to think movement over maintenance and push past our abilities into His, we will begin again to dream bigger dreams than we can accomplish on our own. Together, we must reach for the things we cannot yet touch, look to things we cannot yet see, and step into places where we see no footing, as Peter did: “Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus” (Matthew 14:29).

I’m excited about our future as the Master continues to lead His Church.

MARK J. BANE has served in the Church of the Nazarene as a pastor, a district superintendent, and is currently Director of Evangelism and New Church Development for the USA/Canada Region.

1. Ravi Zacharias, I Isaac Take Thee Rebekah (Nashville, W Publishing Group, 2004), 43.

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NEWS Multicultural Ministries: Reaching All People Groups In May 2012, Dr. Bob Broadbooks asked me to serve as the Multicultural Ministries director after Dr. Oliver Phillips retired from that position. In my new assignment, I restructured the Strategic Readiness Teams (SRT) and have met annually with the ethnic facilitators and their teams for information, strategizing, and fellowship. Each of the ethnic SRTs has developed a plan to support its ethnic group in fulfilling the Multicultural Ministries office’s vision: To encourage the development of strategies and initiatives to reach the USA/Canada mission field.

At the annual ethnic facilitators meetings, we have provided training in evangelism (Master’s Plan) and church planting (DCPI) to equip these leaders with resources to assist their particular groups. The SRTs have developed strategic plans with objectives for new churches, prayer initiatives, networking, and leading their particular groups in making Christlike disciples in their communities. They have also planned their ethnic conferences, which create regional connections and denominational identity in addition to providing opportunities for training and celebrations as a Nazarene ethnic family. The African SRT was re-structured, and a new South Asian Strategy Committee was formed to facilitate the outreach to people from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The Ethnic Leadership Development Initiative (ELDI) was introduced in 2016 to coach, mentor, and cultivate the next generation of young leaders from the different ethnic groups in the USA/Canada Region. Rhonda and Errol Carrim coordinated this endeavor, and two cohorts have already completed the program.

In 2010, The Hispanic/Latino district superintendents and coordinators agreed to promote the Vision 2020 initiative by creating a goal to double the number of congregations to 1,000 by the year 2020. According to the Nazarene Research office, there are currently about 1,000 Hispanic/Latino congregations. Praise the Lord!

In the effort to promote Vision 2020, I joined Hispanic coordinators and SRT members in presenting 10 DCPI Churches Planting Churches training events across the U.S. in 2019. We trained about 200 pastors and lay leaders. As part of the training, the participants presented an action plan to start 75 new congregations during the year 2020.

Hispanic/Latino leaders conducted 12 Master’s Plan conferences across the region to equip pastors and lay leaders to advance their local church ministries. The conferences were well received with a total attendance close to 1,500.

Dr. Mario Zani and I met with Nazarene Theological Seminary to propose offering a Doctor of Ministry in Spanish. The program was launched, and in May 2020, three from the cohort group graduated from this program.

In January 2015, ENTE Online, a Spanish ministerial education program for ordination, was launched to assist districts and churches as they train men and women for ministry. During these five years, over 150 students have been enrolled, and some are advancing to complete the course of study for ordination. This year, a new French online (ETNS) training started, and so far, 12 students are taking classes.

ROBERTO HODGSON is director of Multicultural Ministries for the USA/Canada Region.

Multicultural Ministries includes 18 different ethnic groups across the region.

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REVITALIZING OUR 100-YEAR-OLD DENOMINATION B y B i l l S u l l i va n , D a l e J o n e s , R i c h H o u s e a l , K e n C r ow , S ta n I n g e rs o l

C

hurches, like other institutions, change over time. Sociologist David Moberg suggests that effectiveness and growth increases initially as an institution ages, but at some point, the reverse begins to be true.

There are five predictable periods. The first is characterized by emotional enthusiasm for the new church and diffused leadership. A phase of formal organization follows. This leads to a period of maximum efficiency, usually followed by a phase of institutionalization characterized by an established bureaucracy, declining support for the distinctives that helped bring the group into existence, and increased diversity of beliefs, interests, and commitments.

Unless strategic action is taken, the fifth stage is one of decline and disintegration. Some sociologists

have speculated that many institutions reach the fifth stage after 100 years.

Yet, decline after a century is hardly inevitable.

As the Nazarene centennial approached, Bill Sullivan led a research team including Dale Jones, Stan Ingersol, Rich Houseal, and Ken Crow to study patterns and issues in denominational vitality. They reviewed data from 17 denominations that grew in their first 50 years and were still within the range of 100 years old or older. This is the abbreviated version of the full report, which was presented at the 2005 Association of Nazarene Sociologists and Researchers conference. The study identified five principles or strategies for revitalizing a church.

While it focused on the denominational level, these strategies also seem relevant for all levels of the church.

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1. MAINTAIN FOCUS WHILE PROVIDING FLEXIBILITY. The Roman Catholic Church demonstrates this virtue by allowing internal diversity while maintaining unity in doctrine and liturgy. Over the centuries, new religious orders were permitted to grow within the Roman Catholic Church even though each had its own distinctive emphasis. With the notable exception of the first half of the 16th century, when Protestantism fractured Western Christianity, the decision to permit diversity within unity has been fundamental to Roman Catholic growth in all ages of its development. Creating a balance that maintains focus but provides flexibility is a key characteristic for the revitalization of a religious group.

In his classic work, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and Sects, Ernst Troeltsch, father of the social study of religion, argued that a new religious organization takes shape around a dominant idea. The propagation of the dominant idea gives rise to the organization and shapes its early development. A religious organization that intends to stand in continuity with its own past should know the dominant idea.

But like other social organizations, religious groups pick up accretions over time. These accretions can take the form of new religious ideas that infiltrate the organization at a later point in time, or programs and ministries, or new modes of organization.

Accretions can promote or obscure core ideas.

They may even promote core ideas in one era and overshadow them in a later one. Accretions can even compete with core ideas for dominance.

For instance, the ongoing debate over worship provides an angle for viewing this problem. Is traditional Nazarene music, influenced by the American gospel music tradition, essential to the Church of the Nazarene? Or is contemporary Christian music just as “Nazarene”?

What about the classic hymnody linked to Luther, Watts, and Wesley and sometimes associated with a formal liturgy? Some Nazarenes are attracted to liturgical worship while others affirm contemporary Christian worship. Yet others insist on the importance in traditional Nazarene worship styles.

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Religious organizations need to periodically reassess and distinguish between what is permanent in Christianity and what is transient.

Is a particular worship style essential to the dominant idea that gave rise to the Church of the Nazarene? If a particular worship style is essential to what it means to be a Nazarene, then this characteristic should be imported into other cultures—Asian, African, Latino—something thoughtful people hesitate to do.

Religious organizations need to periodically reassess and distinguish between what is permanent in Christianity and what is transient. In other words, they need to maintain their focus while striving for flexibility. And they should never absolutize things that reflect merely the habits and preferences of a particular time, place, or culture.

This idea is reflected in the principle “Unity in essentials, liberty in nonessentials, and in all things charity,” which Phineas Bresee repeated often during the Church of the Nazarene’s early years.

Religious organizations need to be open to new movements that revitalize and renew. Nazarenes adjusted to the rise of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and the Work & Witness emphasis. Each promoted the denomination’s core values in new ways, yet their emergence altered existing patterns of service and mission and required adjustments within the church.

Flexibility is the key. Perhaps the Church of the Nazarene’s focus is found in its Articles of Faith, especially Article X on the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. The early denomination decided that its focus included neither a specific eschatology nor a specific view of baptismal mode or timing. This may be a model for us today to permit a variety of worship styles and to allow for mission programs that stress compassion and justice as well as evangelism.

2. MULTIPLICATION OF ALL KINDS OF LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS OF THE CHURCH. American Methodism’s growth provides a strategic example of the benefits when leadership multiplies at all levels of the church, from lay leaders through bishops. Early Methodism’s basic unit was the class meeting—roughly a dozen people headed by a local lay person known as “the class leader.” The class held believers accountable for their Christian lives, as the leader examined each member in front of other class members.

With strong local lay leadership, Methodist clergy did not have to be stationed in a single place. They traveled circuits with multiple preaching points and dozens of classes under their general care, preaching, organizing new classes, appointing class leaders, and helping class leaders develop their skills.

As Methodism grew, so did the number of district superintendents and bishops. Northern Methodists had 18 bishops in 1891; southern Methodists, somewhat smaller, had a proportional number of bishops.

In contrast, expansion of the Board of General Superintendents (BGS) has not kept pace with denominational growth. In 1908, three general superintendents oversaw 18 districts—a ratio of 1:6. By 1928, there were 56 districts, and the BGS expanded to four permanent members, dropping the ratio from 1:19 to 1:14.

In 1952, with 95 districts, adding a fifth general superintendent dropped the ratio from 1:24 to 1:19.

And in 1960, with about 118 districts, adding a sixth general superintendent dropped the ratio from 1:24 to 1:20. The BGS has not expanded since, but there are 487 districts now. The ratio stands at 1:81.

Because of the limited number of general superintendents, a new level of organizational structure—the regional director—was created in 1980 to serve between the district superintendents and the jurisdictional general superintendent. Regional directors function in many ways as assistant general superintendents without the authority of general superintendents.

Increasing the number of general superintendents—say to something comparable to the 1960 ratio—would provide closer and more

personal general leadership to the various segments of the denomination.

Multiplying leaders at all levels of the church is necessary for a vital denomination. When leadership is truncated at any level, the organization is affected negatively. Nazarenes need a robust sense that every Christian is called to ministry as part of the body of Christ. A deliberate cultivation of lay leadership, coupled with a strong sense of being the people of God, can help revitalize a denomination.

Every lay and clergy leader should look for ways to add leaders rather than consolidate leadership among fewer individuals.

3. A MISSION-MINDED MENTALITY. In the 1950s and early 1960s, new church development peaked within several American denominations. C. Kirk Hadaway documented this in a 1979 study of 10 large denominations and discovered striking differences between most mainline denominations and two evangelical churches, the Southern Baptists (SBC) and the Assemblies of God (AG).

Hadaway theorized that “in order to avoid decline in the present and produce growth in the future, a denomination must replace its dying churches with healthy churches in areas of population growth.”

Furthermore, he found churches like the AG and SBC “tend to maintain higher rates of new church formation and to be less affected by adverse changes in the religious interest of the population.”

These denominations have a strong commitment to evangelism and few rules governing new church formation. They are more open to lay pastors or minimally prepared pastors. They accept small congregations and large ones. And they place primary responsibility for new church development at the local level.

The Nazarene experience was part of a larger pattern in America, but the fact that the Nazarene pattern in the late 1960s and ’70s was more like the mainline denominations rather than the evangelistic ones is both interesting and disturbing. The decline in new church development was common for that time.

Recovery in the 1970s was not.

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The probable reasons why the AG and SBC recovered new church evangelism are suggestive.

First, Nazarenes should affirm the value of congregations of all sizes in various settings.

Find ways to support lay and clergy leaders in both impressive church settings and in small, difficult places.

Second, continue to prioritize the USA/Canada Region’s emphasis on starting new churches, which stresses local churches’ responsibility for new growth.

Nazarene support for global missions has traditionally been strong. This may be an additional unifying focus for the denomination. A missions mentality needs to include both a global missions and a home missions perspective.

4. ATTRACTION OF THE MASSES. People in the upper categories of the socioeconomic scale do not have the same motivation to value future rewards as the underprivileged. Working-class people living in the threat of poverty are more likely to respond to services that lift people to a message of deliverance and eventual justice. More affluent people are less likely to be attracted by the promise that God will lift the poor and bring down the mighty.

John Wesley was well educated and comfortable in the cultural setting of Oxford, but according to D. Michael Henderson, he believed if “England were to be reformed according to any biblical pattern, it would have to begin with the workers, the miners, the rude peasants who were beyond the reach of the established church.”

When Phineas Bresee organized the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, charter members included people who were well educated, affluent, and socially prominent; however, according to Timothy Smith, most members were “recent converts from the poorer sections of Los Angeles.” In fact, “The chief aim of the church was to preach holiness to the poor.” Working class and marginalized people were welcomed to the ministries of Wesley and Bresee.

Denominations that are effective in ministry tend to move away from their roots among the responsive masses and journey toward the less responsive, privileged classes. The movement tends to become

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more respectable and stable but less effective in outreach.

When John Wesley set out “to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land,” he had a difficult choice to make: Would he aim at reforming the nation from the top down, working among the intellectuals and the aristocracy to bring them back to their evangelical moorings? Or, would he take the message of holiness to the hordes of England’s illiterate and unchurched working class?

That decision faces every new generation of Christian leaders and must be answered with renewed commitment with each successive effort toward awakening the church.

As our generation seeks again to redeem a nation, Wesley’s wise choice is clear. The condition of the nation and the character of our heritage cause us to recommend a continuing, intentional expansion of ministry among the millions of unchurched, working-class, and marginalized people.

5. RETENTION OF YOUNG PEOPLE. To achieve any significant presence in a society, a denomination must retain its youth. Kirk Hadaway identified four groups of young dropouts and observed that a major reason for those in three groups is that young people “have adopted values that are in clear contrast to those of most Americans who attend church regularly.”

Rodney Stark and Roger Finke noted that under normal circumstances, most people will neither convert nor reaffiliate. Children usually adhere to the faith of their parents and relatives, protecting their kinship ties. Most people remain within the religious organization in which they were raised.

Smith and Sikkink summarized five keys to youth retention. First, religious commitment and religious similarity of parents and intentionality in parents transmitting their faith to their children increases the chances of their offspring carrying on in the religious traditions.

Second, the quality of relationships between parents and their children matters, with positive, affectionate, and cohesive parent-child relationships increasing the religious commitment and retention of offspring.

The condition of the nation and the character of our heritage cause us to recommend a continuing, intentional expansion of ministry among the millions of unchurched, working-class, and marginalized people.

Third, traditional family structure increases religious retention; situations with married biological parents increases the religious retention of offspring, and subsequent childbearing by offspring reduces the chance of apostasy.

Fourth, many life course transitions involving social disruptions—marriage, divorce, geographical relocation, etc.—significantly increase the chances of religious switching and dropping-out. And fifth, status and ideological discrepancies between religious adherents and the groups to which they belong (e.g., educational differences, disagreements on normative standards) tend to increase the chances of religious switching and sometimes apostasy.

Since strong families are key in youth retention, we recommend that helping families stay together and build healthy relationships should be a high priority for our denominational family.

Nazarene youth also need events and experiences that bind them to the denomination. Historically, attending a Nazarene college has effectively bonded youth to the church. Currently, a decreasing percentage of Nazarene youth attend Nazarene colleges; therefore, other means of retaining youth need to be explored.

The quadrennial youth gathering, Nazarene Youth Conference, has been a significant event for many Nazarenes. The creation of such programs on each region is a positive development. District gatherings might include youth who cannot afford the larger gatherings.

Some rite of passage would be helpful. Such plans are available and could be implemented denominationally. Also, a denomination-wide emphasis on youth involvement in mission before high school graduation could contribute to youth retention. Emphasizing individual spirituality without providing denominational anchors will leave our youth open to generic Christianity and likely result in lower retention rates.

CONCLUSIONS Our search for a model of denominational renewal has led us to a voluntary response to the question “Shall we reinvent our 100-year-old denomination?”

We prefer the word reclaim to describe the revitalization that we believe is possible. We want to see the church reclaim the focus and flexibility that allowed several disparate groups to come together and form the Church of the Nazarene. We believe reclaiming the expansion of local and general leadership will contribute to growth.

Reclaiming our original passion to spread Christian holiness across the land will result in the multiplication of worshiping units in the USA and around the world. We have no doubt that reclaiming our original commitment to the masses, particularly the poor, will open vast fields of evangelistic opportunity. Reclaiming our commitment to provide spiritual development for our youth, even though the cost is high, will result in the Nazarene heritage being extended far into the future.

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INTERVIEW

Joining the Mission of Jesus: An Interview with Ed Stetzer Recently Grace & Peace (G&P) talked with Ed Stetzer, a prolific author who serves as Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and has spoken at events such as M19.

G&P: Can you tell us about your own

G&P: How can pastors help churches

journey regarding evangelism?

recapture that zeal?

STETZER: I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, and I never got over that fact, so part of what really consumes my passion is that men and women might hear and respond to the good news of the gospel. Early on, I expressed that passion through planting churches. I planted my first church in the inner city of Buffalo, New York. I was able to plant several churches that focused on evangelism and multiplication. A common thread throughout most of the books I’ve written has been becoming effective at reaching and engaging people for the gospel. I took the role at the Billy Graham Center so I could spend the next season of my ministry encouraging Christians to more effectively share the gospel.

STETZER: The writer of Hebrews says, “Provoke

G&P: What do you think about

the state of evangelism in the USA/Canada?

STETZER: I think that most Christians love evangelism as long as somebody else is doing it.

There’s no mention of a “gift” of evangelism in the Bible. There’s the evangelist who’s gifted, but the evangelist’s job, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip God’s people. Many Christians have abdicated that role to pastors locally and to missionaries globally, when really, we are all called to share the gospel.

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one another to love and good deeds.” I think it’s an equipping role. How do pastors equip people? You can’t lead what you won’t live. Pastors need to be evangelistic if they want evangelistic churches. Then, they can lead their congregations through seasons of evangelism training. There are various ways to do that, but basically pastors help people live out the mission of Christ.

Jesus said in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” If that’s the case, and He has sent us on mission, then our role is to say “yes” to Him and to go and tell the good news of the gospel.

G&P: How have approaches changed

over the years?

STETZER: The “how” of evangelism is in many

ways determined by the who, when, and where of culture. A lot of Nazarenes had bus ministries in the ’70s. My guess is that few are using bus ministry today. The how has changed, but the call and the focus have not. We adapt our creativity so that we can continually join the mission of Christ.

G&P: How can we adapt our methods

as culture changes?

STETZER: One of the things you see in the New Testament is that Paul sets the model of evangelism.

He built bridges of communication across cultures.

He quotes Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and poets; at Lystra, he talks about nature and preaches the gospel from nature. At the Areopagus or Mars Hill, he talks about Jewish history. Paul looked for bridges across which the communication of the gospel could travel. So I think that’s the call we have.

The bridges have changed, but the intent and the strategy have not.

G&P: What are some effective ways or

outreach you have witnessed?

STETZER: I love the idea that some people have

really intentionally served others. I know some people put coins in all the laundry mats and have paid for everyone’s laundry. Or they paid people’s parking meters and left a little card to say why, or they invited people to special events and in doing so shared the gospel there. I know of some people who had a big game dinner and shared the gospel with a group of men that attended. There are many ways across ages and cultural groups.

G&P: Do we know how effective any of

these creative approaches are?

STETZER: Well, we don’t. We can do good deeds and not have evangelistic intent. But I think when you have good deeds and gospel proclamation, those things go beautifully together. There’s a quote floating around attributed to St. Francis of Assisi that says, “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words.” But there are two problems with it. Number one, he never said it. And number two, it’s really bad theology. We need to preach the gospel using words.

Our deeds often give us permission to say the words.

Ultimately, I believe those two things together are a gospel opportunity.

G&P: What do you think successful

evangelism looks like today?

STETZER: I think successful evangelism today looks like it looked 2,000 years ago. Men and women respond to the gospel by grace and through faith. I think the tools to get there change. Justin Martyr’s

approach in the second century had very different approach than traveling preachers in the ’50s. And their approach was different than, say, missional incarnational church planters who are engaging arts communities in Indianapolis. This is normal and necessary.

G&P: How can a pastor or a church

measure whether or not they’re effective?

STETZER: We do want to count commitments

to Christ and baptisms, but I think, ultimately, it’s more than just that. It’s not just nickels, noses, and numbers. How many people are living on mission in their context? How many people are intentionally building relational bridges with people who don’t know Jesus? I think all those things play into that. At the end of the day, I am still passionate to know how many people have responded to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s still really important to me.

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G&P: Do you have any words on the

future of evangelism, how methods or perspectives may change?

ES: It’s harder now to share our faith, and it’s going

to get harder. Most of our evangelism is based upon evangelizing people who are nominal Christians.

Most people that most Nazarenes share the gospel with already think they’re Christians, and it’s almost like our job is to convince them they’re not so that they can be! Most polls say that around 75 percent of Americans say they’re Christians. Yet only about a quarter of Americans actually plan their lives around their religious faith.

That means about half of Americans are nominal Christians. That’s where most of our evangelism has been. But here’s the challenge: Every year the number of Americans who identify as Christians decreased by about 1 percent, and 1 percent more identify as “none of the above,” or, the Nones. So we need to prepare ourselves for an evangelistic future where we’re not evangelizing nominal Christians to bring them to understand the deeper faith, but we’re evangelizing truly secular people who don’t know Christ and are one, two, or three generations away from any religious memory in their family.

G&P: Who are the “Nones”?

ES: The highest percentage of Nones are younger,

but it spreads across the whole spectrum. To be fair, that’s always been the case. You’ll notice during the ’70s, the younger generation was the most secular.

People become more religious as they age, according to research, but it’s a little tricky. Among college students, one out of three is actually intentionally or openly secular, and that’s a huge shift from prior generations.

G&P: Is the persecution of Christians

increasing, or is that just a perception?

ES: It is getting more difficult. In the U.S. and in Canada, people are starting farther away from faith.

The strongest, life-threatening kind of persecution is more prevalent outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Things like the “War on Christmas,” or a clerk

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A common thread throughout most of the books I’ve written has been becoming effective at reaching and engaging people for the gospel. saying, “Happy Holidays” is really not persecution. I don’t think it’s the Walmart clerk’s job to tell people about Jesus. I think it’s my job and your job to tell people about Jesus.

We certainly see the increasing pressure not to mention religion or share our faith in the culture of the U.S. and Canada, and this is likely at least partly due to the rise in secularism.

G&P: The standard has traditionally been to not talk about politics, religion, or sex in polite society. We definitely talk about sex and politics, but are we still more reluctant to talk about religion?

ES: Isn’t that ironic? What has emerged is what I call the “Oprah-fication” of American spirituality in which you can believe whatever you want as long as it makes you happy and you don’t try to convince anybody else. But we Christians are part of a missionary faith. The founder of our faith told us to go and make disciples of all nations. Jesus’ last words should be our first priority. The call we have, to do what Jesus said, doesn’t fit as well in our world. We’re supposed to live and let live, everyone find their own spiritual way, their own path, and as long as we’re happy and we’re not hurting anybody else, it’s fine.

But at the end of the day, that’s not really what we as Christians believe. We believe that men and women need to hear the good news of the gospel.

Reimagining Success:

Redefining Congregational Success in a Mega-Mall World B y A r t R ox b y

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F

or months, I felt as if I were pounding my head against a brick wall. I was doing everything I had ever been taught to do in order to see my church grow. For 15 years, I had seen the churches I served grow in worship attendance and membership.

Then my church went into decline.

I read the most current literature. I engaged in conversations with colleagues. I imagined the church growing and thriving, climbing to the next size structure. We should be averaging 150 in worship.

We should be building a new family ministry center.

We should be the new amazing church in the area— yet we were not.

We were declining. Finances were tight. We had no new building. A cloud of depression hung over me. Slowly, I surrendered to feelings of hopelessness: I was not a successful pastor, I did not serve a successful church, and I was a failure.

During the throes of my faith crisis, I read about how small churches recovered from being stalled or in decline. Over time, an epiphany occurred. I had unwittingly surrendered to a faulty measure of success defined by American consumerism: Success equaled more.

The goals set for ministry, and ultimately the yardstick against which I measured my perceptions of success, had more to do with the numbers that we throw around at clergy meetings (noses in worship, dollars in the plate, and the size and additions to our buildings) than what appeared to be most significant in the Body of Christ. Perhaps I was encouraging my congregation to pursue the next size barrier more than I was inviting them to be formed in Christ. Perhaps I remained too focused on the positive feelings I experienced when others recognized the growth of my church rather than for the spiritual presence of Christ we experienced as we gathered for worship. It took the crucible of several years of decline for me to realize success in the Kingdom is measured differently than success at the corner of Wall Street and Main Street.

Grappling with this new insight, I reflected on the ministry of my declining church over the previous years. At one point, I realized that many of the teens who left the community to go to college had not left the Church of Jesus Christ. They had merely changed locations of worship and were

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It is too easy to forget that Jesus did not call us to build a big church or to create slick ministries. ministering to the world. The church had nurtured and formed several who were actively engaged in vocational ministry. Members were still being called to ministry. Although numbers were declining, along with the population of the community, the church was making a difference in the world.

That is when God spoke to me about the ultimate measure of success in ministry and in His kingdom: faithfulness.

This began a journey. I searched the Scripture, seeking to understand how the Early Church assessed participation in God’s mission. Early Christians understood themselves as successful when they lived out God’s calling in their lives. Success came from new believers finding faith in Jesus Christ, widows being cared for, and disciples maturing in their faith. Interestingly, I discovered that, in the book of Acts, numbers were only mentioned in relation to the activity of the Holy Spirit moving upon people who knew the power of the resurrected Christ and were baptized. The use of quantifiable numbers never referred to the number of people who attended worship services. Faithfulness was measured in terms of the mission that God had given to His Church—to be living witnesses and to make disciples.

Faithfulness is Making Disciples It is too easy to forget that Jesus did not call us to build a big church or to create slick ministries. Jesus did not call us to be the popular church or the mostloved leaders. Jesus called us to make disciples. He called us to pour our lives into people. We are called to create sacred space where people find Christ and

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where the nominal believer comes closer to Christ.

God uses us to create the environment in which believers can mature in their faith and become the witnesses we are all called to be.

Faithfulness is Responding to the Brokenness of the World In the early days of the Church of the Nazarene, local churches had compassionate ministries that sought to alleviate the hunger, suffering, and pain of people in their communities. Worship spaces were designed so that everyone might experience a sense of belonging. Nazarenes moved into the neighborhoods overlooked by many or defined as poor or dangerous.

The image of the early church in Acts finds a people holding their possessions so loosely that they could sell what they had to care for the needs of others. The early Christians laid hands on the sick, the unclean, the broken, and the blind. Through their faith and prayers, all manners of illnesses—and even death—were healed. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are also called to respond to the broken, the hurting, the lonely, and the infirmed in our world today.

Faithfulness in Prayer The early Christians spent significant time in intense, corporate prayer meetings. Jesus repeatedly stole away from the crowd to spend time with God. The miraculous outpourings of the Holy Spirit came in response to the gathered church humbly bowing before God in prayer. Prayer was central to the power of the Early Church.

Too few Christians and churches spend significant time in corporate prayer. We have long prayer lists for many things, but too often, we are not given to the discipline of joining together corporately in both large and small groups to pray for the renewal of our churches, for salvation of the lost, and for disciples to grow in grace, knowledge, and the power of the Spirit of God. The result is a weak and lukewarm group of nominal believers who make little difference. If we are to realize our unique calling as the Body of Christ, we must return to faithful, ongoing prayer.

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It may be time to remember that we live the economy of the Kingdom—not the economy of Wall Street and Main Street.

Faithfulness in Mission Much has been made of the centrality of mission.

We are charged to carry out the message and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our local communities and in the world as a whole. Success may only be measured in terms of our faithfulness to that mission.

The realization that faithfulness to our real calling is the true measurement of success was both liberating and sobering to me. It would be easier for me to create a program that people found pleasing and exciting, to which they would want to invite their friends. Living in the story of Christ and leading my congregation to move into that story is in some ways more difficult. However, the understanding that my pastoral “success” and the church’s “success” are really only measured by God released me from the tyranny of living for nickels and noses and challenged me to pursue the only goal worth pursuing—making a difference in the world for the cause of Jesus Christ. It may be time to remember that we live the economy of the Kingdom—not the economy of Wall Street and Main Street.

My prayer is that you, too, might find liberation in the calling of Jesus Christ.

ART ROXBY serves as lead pastor of Milford (DE) Church of the Nazarene.

Nazarene Trends During the 2010s B y R i ch H o u s e a l

W

hile COVID-19 is affecting the church financially, socially, and structurally now, it will be years before we know the lasting effects of these impacts. When Grace & Peace magazine was started in 2010, the U.S. and Canadian economies were suffering from The Great Recession. In what way did The Great Recession affect the Church of the Nazarene in the USA/Canada Region? What other trends or changes have occurred since Grace & Peace magazine’s first edition?

The impact of The Great Recession is visible in the giving pattern to our local churches over the past 10 years.

In 2010, local Nazarene churches in the USA and Canada received more than $792 million dollars. Between 2010 and 2019, giving declined by 6.8 percent to just over $738 million dollars. The decline in giving was even larger in terms of purchasing power. When we adjust the 2010 giving to the 2019 purchasing power, the 2010 income figure is equivalent to $929 million dollars. Therefore, since 2010, the purchasing power of local churches actually declined by 20.5 percent. The decline in local church receipts did not start in 2010. Giving to local churches peaked in 2007 (the year before the start of The Great Recession) at a little more than $841 million dollars, or the equivalent of $1.037 billion dollars in 2019.

Based on membership and worship attendance, there are fewer people connected to a local Church of the Nazarene, and they are giving less per capita. Between 2010 and 2019, full membership in active churches slid from 649,733 to 610,223 (-6.1%), and worship attendance dropped from 513,575 to 434,846 (-15.3%). Even with less people, when adjusted for inflation, per capita giving based on membership slid from $1,430 to $1,210 (-15.4%), and

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based on worship dropped from $1,809 to $1,698 (-6.1%). It has been suggested that people are attending worship services less frequently than in the past; therefore, while average worship attendance has declined, we are still reaching just as many people, if not more. One can find support for this perspective in the fact that discipleship enrollment increased from 787,252 in 2010 to 810,131 in 2019 (2.9%). However, this would also mean that per capita giving has declined even more than has already been noted.

While many denominations in the USA and Canada have experienced a loss in the number of their churches during the last ten years, there has been an increase in the number of active churches for the Church of the Nazarene. There has also been a shift in the distribution of cultural groups within our churches. The number of active churches increased from 4,994 in 2010, to 5,113 in 2019. A net gain of 119 (2.4%) active churches. To achieve

this net gain, we started 1,206 churches and closed 1,087 churches. While many of the closed churches were predominantly White, English-speaking churches, many of the new churches were predominantly Hispanic. The result has been the continuation of a cultural shift in the distribution of our churches that really started as far back as the 1980s.

Along with a slight increase in active churches and declines in membership and average worship attendance, there is a trend toward pastors being bi-vocational. In 2013, the USA/Canada Region implemented a supplemental questionnaire to the Annual Pastor’s Report (APR). One of the questions asked, “Does the pastor of this church consider himself/herself to be bi-vocational?” In 2013, 59 percent responded “No” to this question, while 32 percent checked “Yes, it is necessary to supplement their family income,” and the remaining 9 percent indicated “Yes” for other reasons. In 2019, the percentage indicating “No” had dropped to 53.5%, while the percentage responding, “Yes, it is necessary to supplement their family income” had risen to 37%. Those responding “Yes” for other reasons remained stable at 9.5%. Given the loss in purchasing power at the local church level, it should come as

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no surprise that more of our pastors need to supplement their income. Our pastors and their families are making significant sacrifices for the sake of the Kingdom.

In addition to more pastors being bi-vocational, there are also more women in lead pastor roles. In 2010, 6.7 percent of lead pastors were women. That figure had risen to 11.6 percent in 2019. In fact, women are increasing as a percentage of all clergy in the USA/Canada Region, as can be seen in the following table.

Year

NEWLY ORDAINED

TOTAL CLERGY

LEAD PASTOR

Total

% Women

Total

% Women

Total

% Women

2010

382

27.0%

10,992

16.2%

4,480

6.7%

2019

356

35.1%

10,564

23.5%

4,179

11.6%

During the past ten years, there has been a slight shift in the distribution of our church locations. The percentage of churches in town and country settings declined from 43.1 percent in 2010 to 39.8 percent in 2019; however, the percentage of churches in major urban areas grew from 30.8 percent in 2010 to 34.2 percent in 2019.

While not a dramatic change, there are probably several causes for this shift, including 1) an emphasis to reach urban settings, 2) an increase in Hispanic churches that tend to be in more urban areas, and 3) the financial difficulty of maintaining churches in rural areas. The following table illustrates this change.

Year

Major Urban

Smaller Urban (Suburban)

Town and Country

Total

2010

30.8%

26.0%

43.1%

100.0%

2019

34.2%

26.0%

39.8%

100.0%

In 2017, there were other new questions added to the USA/Canada supplement to the APR concerning live streaming and archiving worship services online. Just adding these questions was an acknowledgment that our churches were making efforts to minister in new ways. The result in 2017 showed that 10 percent of our churches were live streaming their worship service, with an average of 12,480 weekly viewers. In 2019, before the coronavirus, the percentage of churches live streaming their worship service had jumped to 19.5% with 25,883 viewers. Similarly, the percentage of churches archiving their services online rose from 18.4 percent in 2017 to 23.7 percent in 2019.

The 2010s began in the throes of a financial crisis, and it looks like the coming decade is starting with more financial and social difficulties because of the coronavirus. The last ten years have seen the local church make several adaptations to our changing USA/Canada Region mission field. It looks like the next ten years will probably see even more changes.

RICH HOUSEAL is director of Research Services for the Church of the Nazarene.

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When the Church Meets the Political and Cultural Issues of Its Day

By Ja mes Copple

T

he Church has seen major transformation in 2,000 years, but its tradition runs deep.

Whether it is a medieval cathedral or a storefront congregation meeting in a Nairobi slum, it is still a place of coming together every Sunday morning to worship, fellowship, give, encourage, and pray. Like the early Church, it is an ecclesia—a group “called out” to testify to God’s presence in the world, sometimes in the midst of threat and insecurity.

The Church has been, and must be, a place of both pastoral care and prophetic witness. These two

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tracks of religious expression have dominated the history of Christianity. Coming together to worship brings comfort and discipleship to the soul, but it also challenges the believer to create a faithful presence in the broader culture in which it exists.

The Church is to be a catalyst for change.

Two Tracks: Pastoral Care and Prophetic Witness The first track (pastoral care) suggests the church must be a safe place: a place where we go knowing

that we will be cared for and loved; a place that strengthens our minds, hearts, and souls. We look forward to the worship experience and the gathering of believers because it is a “retreat” that allows us to reflect on the meaning of life and what that life might mean to others. It should be a place that informs, inspires, and comforts.

Then there is that other track (prophetic witness), fueled by history’s prophets and change agents, where the Church becomes a catalyst for challenging us to be transformational in our living, our ethics,

and our practice of faith. It dares to suggest that we are a community that calls into question the values, norms, and behaviors of the culture. We have seen the Church respond to issues such as abolition of slavery, human-trafficking, substance abuse, and juvenile justice reform, to name a few. In other words, the Church uses its prophetic witness in efforts to protect and redeem those who do not have a strong voice in our society.

While most churches excel at comfort and care, many churches struggle with how to adequately

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use our prophetic voice as the people of God. Our dilemma as pastors and leaders in local congregations is that in a world that has become so polarized around politics and cultural norms, what is the pastor to say on a Sunday morning about the issues of the day? Should we be silent? Should we be selective and only speak where there is agreement in our congregations? Should we only speak to those issues that affect us personally?

Just like those in the early Church, who often disagreed on how to confront the values and politics of the Roman Empire, today’s churches wrestle to balance between being places that are welcome to all while still offering an instructive and prophetic voice. Ours is a 2,000-year-old dilemma.

What Can We Do? The Church must always seek to create a “faithful presence” in the community it serves. As the “light of the world” and a “city on a hill that cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14), congregations can prayerfully engage with issues facing our world. Here are a few suggestions: 1. Form study groups in your congregation around issues that affect your local community. Addressing issues from climate change and the environment to high crime rates, study groups can explore biblical, Christ-centered approaches and present their findings to the congregation.

2. Never allow a position on a political or social issue to become an excuse to exclude someone.

Emphasize that you are a people of inclusion and a people of the via media—the “middle way.” This means that we can recognize and validate differences of opinion but challenge anyone who defines another’s faith by mere political orientation.

3. As a pastor, inform yourself on all sides of an issue. You may hear opinions that send you up the wall and you may find solidarity with individuals who validate or agree with your political views, but strive to remain curious and current.

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4. Invite diverse speakers into your congregation.

Create a climate of hospitality where outsiders are welcome, and let them express their views on topics. Seek understanding, which begins with listening.

5. Discuss approaches with your board and get consistent input as you move into this arena of engagement. This increases “buy in” among the leaders and the members of the congregation.

6. On all issues, be transparent and communicate in a spirit of honesty to build trust and confidence in your ministry.

As followers of Jesus, we are a diverse group of people whose differences can be even more acute among the faithful. We should not fear these differences but allow them to sharpen our own positions, anchored in compassion and grace. We are an assembly, an ecclesia, that cannot ignore the issues of our day. We can’t put our heads in the sand, praying these critical issues never touch our congregation. That is naïve and dangerous.

As we approach hot topics within and outside the church, we should communicate with a spirit of grace, forgiveness, and tolerance. We are a called-out community that boldly proclaims the love of Jesus.

The closer we are to that truth, the closer we are to the One who is the way, the truth, and the light.

JAMES E. COPPLE has a Master of Divinity degree and doctoral work in the history of education and Christianity. He has published in the fields of substance abuse prevention, treatment, crime prevention, education and global HIV/AIDS and has worked on diverse political campaigns. Copple lives in Washington, DC, and owns his own government relations and grant writing firm.

The Blessings of Abraham: A MODEL FOR LATINO PASTORAL CARE

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T

he Blessings of Abraham1 model for care is found in the context of the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their relationship as father, son, and grandson. Its biblical context is well known: • First, God promised His blessing to Abraham: “I will bless you; . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2–3). “I will surely bless you . . . and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 18:17–18).

• Second, God extended the blessings given to Abraham to his son Isaac: “I am the God of your father Abraham . . . I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham” (Genesis 26:24).

• Third, Isaac, as a “bridge person,” extended this Abrahamic blessing to his son Jacob: “May God Almighty bless you . . . May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham” (Genesis 28:3–4).

The blessings of Abraham reached his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob, and even his descendants. It bound three generations and their descendants together. This transgenerational blessing presupposed strong historical family ties and affirmed them.

The Blessings of Abraham model, when applied to pastoral care geared to Latinos and Latinas, will maintain its transgenerational characteristic. Newer generations, although susceptible to assimilating the different values of the North American dominant culture, tend to maintain a strong sense of familismo, or family pride and solidarity, inherited from their Latino culture.2 In this regard, those within the Hispanic culture in need of pastoral care will most likely feel encouraged whenever they are reminded that, as with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God still honors the extended family. The Latino individual or family will be told again and again that through the binding and bridging together of the transgenerational family, God can intervene, even in historical proportions, to bless any family member in physical, moral, or spiritual crisis.

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A BLESSING FOR FOREIGNERS In Genesis 12, the Lord preceded His blessing to Abraham with this command: “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Indeed, the blessing God gave Abraham was a blessing for a “foreigner” and his descendants (Genesis 23:4). It was a blessing for an immigrant generation and its foreign-born children and grandchildren. In this respect, The Blessings of Abraham pastoral care model will also make the most of the opportunity to minister to those who perceive themselves, or are perceived, as foreigners. North America is still a land of immigrants. And from the standpoint of pastoral care, “God calls us to respect, protect, assist, evangelize, disciple, and love all the immigrants near us.”3 The Church of the Nazarene in North America has a long history of serving the Latino immigrant family. Pastoral care has been provided through churches planted and developed among Spanishspeaking immigrants in the neighborhood. The Blessings of Abraham model implies a continuation of God’s grace through Abraham, native from Ur of the Chaldeans, to Isaac the Canaan nativeborn son, and to Jacob, the grandson, also born in Canaan. God interacted with all three generations, although each generation must have developed its own identity as inhabitants of a new country. As a pastoral care model, it was a shifting transgenerational model.

Following that shifting transgenerational nature of our model, Latino pastoral care will be open and expectant regarding the work of God among Latino people both in the foreign-born generation and in the ever-growing native born second and third plus generations. There are important differences among these generations in language, education, income, and intermarriage.4 However, pastoral care providers will assist Latinos and Latinas best if the larger transgenerational picture is kept in mind and extended family-related ministries continue to be strengthened.

It is only logical that each pastoral care setting will embody its own way of doing ministry. Priorities and needs may also vary. But if we keep in mind that

North America is still a land of immigrants.

And from the standpoint of pastoral care, “God calls us to respect, protect, assist, evangelize, disciple, and love all the immigrants near us.”

the Blessings of Abraham model encompasses the concept of a blessing for the foreign-born generation as well as for the native-born generation, one approach for implementing this model among Latino generations in any given local church setting might include ministries like the following:5 • A homeless shelter for immigrant women with children that provides an after-school program and an environment where both mothers and their children are exposed to the life-transforming power of Christ.

• Assistance for immigrant women struggling in abusive relationships, including shelter, hope, and encouragement through Christ, and legal assistance.

• Equipping immigrant couples, parents, and children to set priorities, improve communication, and make decisions that will lead their families towards financial freedom.

Jesus, in asserting His authority to extend His kingdom blessing to the “foreigner” centurion and his family in Mathew 8, suggested that His healing work on the centurion’s son was indeed a transgenerational “feast” blessing that could be enjoyed even with “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 11). Here we may have a promise for us today: Latino pastoral care conducted after The Blessings of Abraham model (the bridging and binding of generations) should always carry with it Jesus’ blessings. Jesus also said that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing His day (John 8:56).

A BLESSING FROM FOREIGNERS Some Christian traditions may tend to make pastoral care an end in itself. Faithful to the evangelical tradition, The Blessings of Abraham model for pastoral care ministries will be missional in nature. According to Genesis chapters 12, 17, and 18, the transgenerational blessings God promised to Old Testament patriarchs was both for them and from them to others: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you;” and again, “through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.”

The Bible makes it clear that these Abrahamic blessings would include the saving work of men and

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women everywhere beyond race, ethnicity, culture, language, gender, and social class (see Romans 11).

A Latino local church or a Latino ministry within an inclusive church that enjoys strong pastoral preaching, teaching, leading, and discipling in combination with strong compassionate emphasis in healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling people to one another and to God should prove to be a healthy, growing church or ministry. We expect that God´s saving and sanctifying work in the life of Latinos and Latinas will become a channel of that blessing to others. It will be a model that moves outwardly and inclusively without strain.

Here are some guidelines that may assist in church development as part of a Latino pastoral care model: • It will be holistic, geared to serve the whole person: body, mind, soul, and spirit (remember John Wesley in 18th-century England).

• It will be cross-cultural and cross-linguistic, where Spanish-English, English-Spanish, and other language usage and cultural pattern combinations prevalent in the target community are enthusiastically employed (remember Phineas F. Breese’s cross-cultural work in Los Angeles).

• Ethnically, it will be a ministry by Latino/ as or for Latino/as, but inclusively, it will normally be from Latino/as to non-Latino/as.

In a “racialized society,” 6 Latinos and Latinas as mestizo people can become a channel of saving and sanctifying blessing to those who are not of their own ethnicity and culture as they are trained to do such work in an inclusively accepting, embracing, and celebrating atmosphere.

The Blessings of Abraham pastoral care model, when placed within the context of the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will be a Latino immigrant, transgenerational, compassionate, and friendly model for all pastoral care ministries.

But, above all, it will be a church development model for the new inclusive church. The 21st century must be the century of this type of church.7

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JUAN VAZQUEZ-PLA is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and director of the Synergy Ministries, dedicated to promote cooperation in the advancement of Christianity (http://synergymediaservices.com).

1. I am indebted for the main ideas of this pastoral care model to Daniel A. Rodríguez in his book, A Future for the Latino Church: Models for Multilingual, Multigenerational Hispanic Congregations, 167-179.

2. Ibid, 173.

3. “The Immigrant Among Us,” by General Superintendent Jerry D. Porter, in Holiness Today, May/June 2012, inside cover.

4. “The Rise of the Second Generation: Changing Patterns in Hispanic Population Growth,”

by Roberto Suro of Pew Hispanic Center and Jeffrey S. Pasel of Urban Institute, 8-9. http:// hablamosjuntos.org/resources/pdf/phc_projections_ final_%28october_2003%29.pdf. Accessed on October 25, 2012.

5. Daniel A. Rodriguez, op. cit., 119-121, discusses these and other pastoral care ministries as being implemented by the New Life Covenant Ministries Church in Chicago, pastored by Wilfredo De Jesús.

Bill Wiesman, editor of A Holy Purpose: Strategies for Making Christlike Disciples (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2011), highlights the Latin American First Iglesia del Nazareno of Owings Mills, Maryland, pastored by Walter Argueta, who is enthusiastic about their “many community activities,” 176-182.

6. For an explanation of the concept of a “racialized society” see the “Introduction” of Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, 1ff.

7. United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race, by Curtiss Paul DeYoung, et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2. See also chap. 8

PHINEAS BRESEE AND THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE B y D i a n e L ec l e r c

C

hristian historians and ecclesiastical analysts often overlook the contribution of women clergy because they mistakenly see women preachers and female ordination as a later 20th century phenomenon that brought in the second wave of feminism. However, the Holiness Movement was squarely in the middle of the first wave of feminism in the 19th century. The movement was vocal and active on issues of equality such as abolition and the rights of non-whites, immigrants, the poor, and women.

Nearly all denominations that arose from the Holiness Movement affirmed the full equality of women and their right to ordination, including the Church of the Nazarene. Yet so many people do not know this history or the Wesleyan-Holiness theology on which human equality is founded.

Susie Stanley’s exceptional book, Holy Boldness: Women Preachers’ Autobiographies and the Sanctified Self,1 shows that hundreds of women were preaching with an empowered sense of calling in denominations associated with the Holiness Movement. Phoebe Palmer was its matriarch.

Donald Dayton wrote: “It was . . . the denominations produced by the mid-nineteenth century ‘holiness revival’ that most consistently raised feminism to a central principle of church life. This movement

largely emerged from the work of Phoebe Palmer.”² Palmer’s The Promise of the Father (1859), a defense of women in ministry, anticipated many interpretative moves of 20th century feminist exegetes. But the isolated pronouncements of any figure, even one as revered as Palmer, would not persuade an entire religious movement to take a controversial stand on women’s roles. Rather, the Holiness Movement’s endorsement of women’s equality is rooted more profoundly in the 19th century Holiness Movement’s articulation of

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its doctrine of entire sanctification. Holiness theology made it possible for women to understand themselves as “entirely sanctified” and thereby adopt new roles in radical disjunction with their pasts.

Nancy Hardesty wrote: Christians were not only justified before God but were also regenerate, reborn, made new, capable of being restored to the Edenic state. For women, it made possible the sweeping away of centuries of patriarchal, misogynist culture in the instant . . . The argument that “this is the way we’ve always done it,” holds no power for someone for whom “all things have been made new.”³ Nazarene women clergy represent a long tradition of women preachers in the WesleyanHoliness Movement.

The synthesis of holiness theology with revivalism can be seen clearly in the emphasis on the instantaneousness of sanctification. Holiness theology also modifies Wesley in its adoption of John Fletcher’s linkage of entire sanctification with “the baptism of the Holy Spirit,” by taking the image and popularizing it. Baptism language linked holiness with Pentecostal power. Women who had experienced entire sanctification were empowered to accomplish that which exceeded their human limitations. In holiness theology, women have equal access to the “Pentecostal power” available through the Holy Spirit.

The Church of the Nazarene and Bresee, specifically, stood squarely on this interpretation of Pentecost.

Catherine Booth (Salvation Army) and B. T. Roberts (Free Methodist) wrote treatises on women’s right to preach in 1861 and 1891, respectively. These works, with the rise of holiness theology, allowed women to fulfill this special requirement of God. Preaching was the inevitable step after testimony, and ordination was the next step after preaching.

All this was based on a belief in equality that arises from more than socio-historical factors.

Wesleyan-Holiness theology gave rise to practical application. Wesleyan-Holiness women preached in

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The Church of the Nazarene stands out as a particular case in which women’s preaching and leadership succeed. an environment that allowed them to thrive. Such egalitarianism was central to Holiness identity.

The Church of the Nazarene stands out as a particular case in which women’s preaching and leadership succeed. This was due partly to Phineas Bresee’s strong leadership. But before Bresee supported this stand for the denomination, he had already been influenced by many women in his own life.

Bresee had models of strong women in his family.

His mother, Susan Brown Bresee, moved with her son’s household from parsonage to parsonage in Iowa and California and was a charter member of Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene. His daughter, Sue, was also part of his new movement. The strongest female in Bresee’s life was his wife, Maria, who worked tirelessly alongside him for 55 years.

During some of their years in Iowa, she endured a hard life, raising children while her husband was away. In California, she helped Phineas as he endured the emotional turmoil of changes, rejections, and the responsibility of leading a new denomination.

After his family moved to Southern California, Phineas Bresee became more deeply involved in the Holiness Movement and met women in positions of church leadership. He grew acquainted with Amanda Berry Smith, the famous African American evangelist and wrote, “She preached one Sabbath afternoon, as I never heard her preach before, in strains of holy eloquence and unction . . . The Lord opened heaven on the people in mighty tides of glory.”⁴ Later, in the Church of the Nazarene, preaching by women ceased to be an unusual occurrence. The

following women represent the many opportunities given to Nazarene women to preach as evangelists, pastors, and mission workers. Such interactions caused Bresee to once proclaim, “Some of our best ‘men’ are women!”

MAYE McREYNOLDS

LUCY PIERCE KNOTT⁵ Lucy Pierce married William S. Knott in 1882.

In 1887, they and their three children moved from Kentucky to Los Angeles, where they met Bresee.

They followed Bresee to several Southern California churches and were charter members of Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene. Bresee noted that Lucy Knott was a “minister” among young women.

He called her “pastor” of the Mateo Street mission, which was later organized into a church. “As a preacher and leader in the church, she has shown peculiar ability.”⁶ He noted the effectiveness of her evangelical efforts and powerful work with small groups. She was licensed to preach in 1899 and was ordained in 1903. Her congregations loved her.

In 1899, Maye McReynolds experienced entire sanctification when she heard Bresee preach at a revival, and she soon joined the Church of the Nazarene. Employed by the railroad, where she daily encountered Spanish-speaking people, she felt compelled to work among them in Southern California. She was ordained in 1906 and served as pastor of the Mexican mission and later of the first Nazarene Mexican church. According to author Rebecca Laird, she was a “confident, bold woman with great compassion . . . [with] a radiant spirit [as] a devoted missionary, preacher and leader.”⁷ At the third General Assembly, it was “moved and seconded that Sister McReynolds, who has been for years recognized as superintendent of our Spanish Mission in the Southwestern part of the country, be recognized as a regular district superintendent and seated in the assembly as such.

Motion carried.”8 She appeared in the official picture taken at the assembly of the general and district superintendents.

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in 1941 after over 40 years of highly effective pastoral and preaching ministry.

Mary Lee Harris Cagle, deeply involved in the mergers that created the denomination, also stands out as one of the strongest female leaders the Church of the Nazarene has known. She represents the many female leaders who met and influenced Bresee, but history does not record all such encounters.

Bresee stood strongly with the Holiness Movement’s affirmation of women preachers, their ordination to the ministry, and the use of their gifts in public ministry. For him, it was a given so much so that when an explicit statement on the issue was called for, it was reasoned that the obvious inclusion of women in all levels of leadership would make an argument unnecessary.

Oh, to return to those glory days when female leadership was a given! If recent statistics continue, we might just be on our way.

ELSIE WALLACE When DeLance and Elsie Wallace moved to Spokane, Washington, they had a passion to spread holiness. They fostered a mission, which Elsie headed. C. W. Ruth, the Church of the Nazarene’s assistant general superintendent, preached a revival there in January 1902. He reorganized the mission into a church and upon the congregation’s unanimous consent, appointed Mrs. Wallace as its pastor. Later that year, Bresee ordained her to the ministry—the first woman he ordained. Elsie and DeLance established other churches in Washington and Oregon. Bresee urged Elsie to pastor Seattle First Church until it grew strong. Later, she conducted a revival in Walla Walla, where a new church was organized, and she was urged to become its pastor. She remained there for nine years. She was appointed as the district superintendent of the Northwest District in 1920.

After a short stay in Kansas City, while her husband served as manager of the Nazarene Publishing House, Elise Wallace returned to Washington to again pastor Seattle First Church.

After another stint as an evangelist, she moved to California and pastored three churches. She retired

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DIANE LECLERC is professor of historical theology at Northwest Nazarene University.

1. Susie Stanley, Holy Boldness: Women Preacher’s Autobiographies and the Sanctified Self (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002).

2. Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 200.

3. Nancy Hardesty, Great Women of Faith: The Strength and Influence of Christian Women (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), 90.

4. E. A. Girvin, Phineas F. Bresee: A Prince in Israel (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1916), 91.

5. Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1993).

6. E. A. Girvin, 115.

7. Rebecca Laird, 51, 53.

8. Minutes of the Third General Assembly, October 7, 1911, Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, Afternoon session, Nashville.

INTERVIEW

Embracing and Practicing Holiness: An Interview

with

T. S c o t t D a n i e l s

The doctrine of holiness is central to our beliefs as Nazarenes. But what role do spiritual practices have in our becoming holy? Where do we need to enlarge our understanding of holiness? Grace & Peace asked Scott Daniels, who serves as lead pastor of Nampa (Idaho) College Church of the Nazarene, to discuss these and other questions.

G&P: What have you learned about the importance of spiritual disciplines as you’ve sought to live a life of holiness?

DANIELS: Like many people in the Holiness

tradition, I was raised looking for a particular experience—a moment of surrendering everything I am to Christ, inviting Him to cleanse me of my sins.

The experience of commitment made a significant difference in my life, and being filled with the Spirit was crucial. However, the development of a life of holiness is more than just making some decisions; it is more than just sort of gritting my teeth and saying, “Holy Spirit, help me do better this time.”

As I sought to live out that commitment, I realized that I am who I am because I’ve practiced holiness. When Paul writes in Romans that we should give our bodies as living sacrifices, he’s essentially saying, “Listen, when we were slaves to sin, it was like we woke up every morning and said, ‘Hey, Sin, here are our bodies. Do with them what you want.’” We practiced being sinners. We did things that engrained practices of sin deep into who we are. I think the Holiness tradition at times has said that all these sinful practices we’ve built up in ourselves can simply be eradicated without effort.

Paul also says we are no longer slaves to that.

So now we should “present”—and I even love the verb there in Romans—we should “present and keep on presenting” the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness. I know a lot of us—

not only in the Holiness tradition but also in broader Protestantism—have been suspicious of spiritual disciplines, some of the Christian practices of the church. But I’m convinced that we become who we are through practice—in a sense, from the ground up—through the things we do with our bodies.

Practice shapes who we are. In the Holiness tradition, we’ve got to recover these disciplines: prayer, fasting, confession, participation in the sacraments, meeting together, works of service. These aspects of the disciplined life become—and I think the key word here is become—the means of grace that God uses to bring about His transformed work in our life.

I’m certainly not saying we can do away with what we used to call a crisis experience, that we can

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do without making a decision to give all that we are to Christ. My wife and I will soon celebrate our 26th anniversary; on February 23, 1990, when we walked out of that sanctuary, we were married. We made a commitment to each other. We couldn’t be more married than we were. But I have to tell you, over 25 years later, I am so much more married than I was in 1990. Part of being so much more married is that I’ve been practicing the married life and what it means to be committed to this one person—to live together, to eat together, to share life together, to have children together, to weep together, to laugh together, to do the routines of putting up Christmas decorations and taking them down together. The

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practices of life together have formed in us the reality of the married life.

The same is true for holiness. We come to a place where we say we are fully God’s, but that is just the beginning of this journey of learning all that it means to be fully God’s, just the beginning of practicing it until it gets deep down into our bones and reverses the sinful habits that were formed in us before we committed our lives to God. Holiness takes practices. I like to put a set of parentheses around the “s” at the end: Holiness takes practice(s). God uses all sorts of means of grace to make us the people He wants us to be.

Practice shapes who we are.

Where the Body of Christ goes, where the grace of Christ goes, transformation follows. Those practices of service and transformation as individuals and as communities are critical for our own lives as individuals and as the Church.

G&P: In what other ways do we need to enlarge our understanding of holiness?

DANIELS: We fail to embrace all of what holiness means when we think only in personal terms. Even when we think about the practices of holiness, we think of what we used to call piety—personal piety, devotional life, and prayer—things that are very much centered around the self. There isn’t anything wrong with these things; we need to be healthy, holy people as individuals. However, as John Wesley would say, “There’s no holiness but social holiness.” The more I read the Scriptures, the more I’m convinced that God doesn’t want just holy individuals. He wants a holy people—a people

like the nation of Israel, who learned God’s life and became witnesses to God’s life in the world. As a pastor, I’ve wondered a lot: What are the practices we do together that make us holy?

Some friends have helped me to rethink worship as not just something we show up to do because it’s a habit. As we gather for worship—whatever day of the week that is—it is God calling us and drawing us close to Him, forming us by His Word and His presence, and sending us out, back into a life of service in the world.

Both of those things are important. First, our collective worship, our gathering close to each other and to the heart of God, is so critical in forming who we are, as well as those practices that are wrapped up in that—everything from the call to worship, to singing, to giving in the offering, to hearing the Word, to confessing, to gathering around the Lord’s Table, to prayer. All of those things we do together— that communal part of worship—are central in forming who we are.

Second, then, is that we are sent back into the world to make a difference, to be instruments of God’s salt and light in the world. We do these practices not because we’re good people and good people do nice things but because we’re the Body of Christ in the world. Where the Body of Christ goes, where the grace of Christ goes, transformation follows. Those practices of service and transformation as individuals and as communities are critical for our own lives as individuals and as the Church. This is one way God transforms the old creation into His new creation.

T. SCOTT DANIELS earned his M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he also received his PhD in Christian Ethics and Theology. Daniels has served as dean of the Azusa Pacific University School of Theology and now serves as lead pastor of Nampa College Church of the Nazarene. Scott is also the author of Seven Deadly Spirits, The First 100 Days: A Pastor’s Guide, Embracing Exile, and the New Beacon Bible Commentary John 13–21: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition.

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Small Churches Do Make a Big Impact

B y R i ch H o u s e a l

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n the U.S. and Canada, most Nazarene church members attend a large church; however, most Nazarene churches are small. By small I mean less than 100 people in worship attendance. For that matter, most evangelical churches are small—in fact, most Protestant churches are small.1 If less than 100 people in worship is the norm for Protestant churches, and we know from Nazarene statistics that the Africa and Eurasia regions are growing because they are starting a lot of small churches, then let’s celebrate our small USA/Canada Nazarene churches and find ways to start and support more of them.

Several years ago, my counterparts in the Assemblies of God (AG), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Presbyterian Church-USA (PCUSA), and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) shared their groups’ worship attendance figures with me. Although these groups vary widely geographically, have different political outlooks, cover the spectrum of Protestant beliefs, and vary in organizational size, their distribution of churches by worship attendance is remarkably similar to that of the Church of the Nazarene. It is clear that the typical Protestant church is small.

What is not as obvious, however, is how big a contribution they make to the denomination and the Kingdom of God.

Small churches make big contributions to the denomination and the Kingdom of God.

Small Churches Make a Big Impact

In 2019, there were 3,583 Nazarene churches with less than 100 in average worship attendance. That represents 76.1 percent of all Nazarene churches, which means that three out of every four pastors lead a small congregation. On the other hand, the people attending these churches make up only 39.4 percent of the overall average attendance. This means that most Nazarenes attend a church that is larger than 100. All the same, nearly 40 percent of Nazarenes in small churches is still a sizable proportion of the church.

What is interesting is that the combined efforts of all these small churches results in their receiving 42 percent of all new Nazarenes.2 That’s eight percentage points higher than their proportion of attendance! (See Table 1.) They also raise 29 percent of all money received at the local church level and contribute 26 percent of the World Evangelism Fund (WEF). Considering that many of these churches are in small town and country settings without the economic strength of urban and suburban areas, or ethnic congregations whose attendees often have below average income levels, their contribution to WEF is no small feat.

Table 1: USA/Canada Churches of the Nazarene, 2019

Worship Attendance Size

% of Churches

% of Total Worship Attendance

% of Total New Nazarenes

% Total Raised

% of Total WEF

1 to 99

76%

39%

42%

33%

33%

100 to 249

17%

29%

30%

29%

30%

250+

7%

32%

27%

38%

37%

Totals

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

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Small Churches Produce Leaders Former general superintendents V. H. Lewis and J. K. Warrick and retired pastor Bobby Huffaker—who was senior pastor of the largest Church of the Nazarene in the U.S. and Canada region (Grove City, Ohio)—all have roots in small, rural Nazarene churches. These and many other leaders and pastors have been influenced by small churches.

Further evidence supporting the point that small churches do indeed produce leaders can be found in a survey conducted by the Association of Nazarene Sociologists and Researchers (ANSR). A 1996 ANSR poll asked pastors, “What was the size of the congregation that most influenced your acceptance of the call to preach?” Fifty-six percent indicated it was a church with less than 100 members.3 This is a striking statistic when one considers the fact that in 1996, only 26 percent of Nazarene members were in churches with less than 100 members. In other words, the influence of small churches was over-represented in the pastoral corps by 30 percent. I wish I had more recent data on the influence small churches have had on those called to the ministry, as it would be interesting to compare this poll to more recent ones.

Small Churches Work Everywhere Small churches are everywhere. They are not confined to just rural settings but can be found in the suburbs, in the cities, in wealthy as well as poor neighborhoods, and among all cultural groups. Table 2 shows the percentage of churches in urban, suburban, and rural community types by worship attendance size. It reveals that even in heavily populated areas, the large majority of churches average less than 100 in worship. The table also shows that in rural areas, only three percent of Nazarene churches reach 250 or more people. This is understandable when one considers that only 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas, yet more than 90 percent of U.S. territory is defined as rural. The population is just too spread out for churches to become large in rural areas.

“Research suggests there is roughly one congregation per every 500 people living in small town and country areas; roughly one congregation per every 1,500 people in metropolitan areas.”4 This statement suggests that churches could be much larger. If just half of the population attended church, then rural churches would average 250 people and metropolitan churches would average 750. However, statistics show that the vast majority of churches never reach these sizes, and I imagine there must be a variety of reasons why. Therefore, I would suggest that we need many more small churches. We need more in rural areas because of the size of the territory, and we need more in metropolitan areas because of the size of the population.

Table 2: USA/Canada Churches of the Nazarene by Community Type and Size, 2019

Worship Attendance Size

% Urban

% Suburban

% Rural

1 to 99

68%

70%

86%

100 to 249

22%

22%

11%

250+

10%

9%

3%

Totals

100%

100%

100%

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Small churches also make up the majority of every ethnic group’s congregations. Table 3 shows the percentage of churches among the largest ethnic groups in the Church of the Nazarene by worship attendance size. It reveals that in several of these ethnic groups, more than 80 percent of their congregations average less than 100 people.

(Haitian congregations have the lowest percentage of churches under 100 [56 percent] and the highest percentage of churches with 250 or more [13 percent]). Do you want to reach a particular cultural group near you? Chances are they grew up and will feel comfortable in a small church.

Table 3: USA/Canada Churches of the Nazarene by Ethnic Group and Size, 2019

Worship Attendance Size

% White/ English Speaking

1 to 99

74%

85%

83%

56%

100%

96%

76%

100 to 249

18%

13%

11%

31%

NA

4%

15%

250+

8%

2%

6%

13%

NA

NA

9%

Totals

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

% % African % % Native % % Other Hispanic American Haitian American Korean

Summary Nothing I have written here should be taken as a negative against large churches. All I’ve tried to show is that the small church is by far the most common-size church, small churches do make a significant impact within the Church of the Nazarene and for the kingdom of God, and small churches are effective in all kinds of settings. By accepting the small church as the norm, wouldn’t we start a lot more churches? Wouldn’t we expand the number of those in our Nazarene fellowship and the number reached for the kingdom of God? Wouldn’t a lot of small churches make a huge impact? “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33).

RICH HOUSEAL serves with Nazarene Research Services. Email Rich at rhouseal@nazarene.org if you have a research question.

1. This has been documented in several ways, including by Faith Communities Today in A Report on Religion in the United States Today, by Carl S. Dudley and David A. Roozen, 2001 (available online at ww.faithcommunitiestoday. org), and “Understanding Church Size Based on Empirical Data,” a presentation to the 2007 annual meeting of the Association of Nazarene Sociologists and Researchers by Bill M. Sullivan (available online at www.nazarene.org/ansr).

2. New Nazarenes are those who become members either by profession of faith or by transferring from another denomination, as opposed to just transferring membership from one Nazarene church to another. ANSR Poll, Research Center, Church of the Nazarene Global Ministry Center, 1996.

3. Roozen, David A., American Congregations 2005 (Faith Communities Today, Hartford Institute for Religion Research, Hartford Seminary, 2007), 4.

4. Available online at www.faithcommunitiestoday.org.

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Theology of Giving

By Carl Leth

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hat does the offering have to do with worship? A survey of practices in our churches suggests that we are not really clear what the answer to that question should be.

Sometimes we resort to “collection” language: “It’s time to take up the collection.”

We often do this with little or no theological explanation and sometimes without any offertory prayer at all. These practices suggest that collecting funds for the operation of the church is a pragmatic necessity but essentially disconnected from the service of worship. Those sensing this disconnection—and the uncomfortable character of “fundraising” in the middle of a service—relegate the offering to plates or boxes at the entrance to the place of worship outside of the worship service.

Even when we explain the offering, it is often in pragmatic terms. We say things like, “It is necessary to support the church and its ministries.”

When we raise money in special campaigns—a building campaign, for instance—we often explain the reasons for raising money in practical or business terms: We need to expand the ministries of the church, to relocate to a more outreachconducive area, or to avoid greater expense in the future. All of these may be valid explanations, but they identify the business of giving as simply a means to a higher end: We need money to be able to do the “spiritually important” work of the Kingdom.

But what if our giving is already the work of the Kingdom? What if the offering belongs in the heart of the worship service, as an important part of worship?

The Larger Context of the Offering It will help if we place the act of giving in a larger context of stewardship. Sometimes we reduce stewardship to a synonym for giving. A stewardship campaign is a “fundraising campaign.” But the meaning of stewardship is much broader than this.

We encounter the idea of stewardship early in the biblical narrative. While the term “stewardship”

is a more recent linguistic development, the ideas of stewardship emerge clearly in Genesis (vv. 1:28–30).

Humans are entrusted with the care of God’s creation.

Stewardship is the management of something entrusted to the steward’s care. God leaves the world in our care.

Unfortunately, the narrative of our stewardship takes a sad turn in Genesis 3. Through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, sin was introduced into the creation that God had just concluded was “good” (Gen. 1:31). The consequences of sin began to be revealed, identified with “the curse” that produces disorder and death. All of life—humans, society, and nature—would suffer from this deadly disorder.

Creation was “broken,” suggesting our tenure of stewardship should be over—a brief and failed experiment. However, as God’s “project” turned from managing a “good” creation to redeeming and restoring a “lost” creation, so did His vision of humanity’s stewardship. We are, of course, subjects of that redemptive work. But we are also called to participate in the divine project to restore a disordered and broken world. Paul referred to this divine intention in Ephesians: “[God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph. 1:9–10). Everything sin has disordered will be restored into submission to the lordship of Christ and the rule of the Kingdom of God. When this has come to fruition, “no longer will there be any curse” (Rev. 22:3). This is now the focus of our stewardship: not merely managing creation, but participating in its recovery and healing.

This broader vision of stewardship encompasses restoration of people, families, society, and the natural world. We are agents in the work of the restoration of the Kingdom on earth and the realization of the New Creation. This is at the heart of the message of holiness. But what does this broader vision of stewardship mean for our finances and giving?

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As we learn to worship in our giving, God will attend to our practical financial needs.

The Implications Upon Our Giving One of the ways sin has disordered us is in our understanding and use of resources, including our money and goods. A casual survey will quickly reveal the power of money and its misuse in our families and society. As Christians, how we use money is an expression of our faith. Proper management of what we are given is an act of discipleship—making Christ Lord over all of our lives. Struggle with tithing (or with giving God financial priority in any measure) is often a spiritual struggle. The fundamental issue is not financial management but spiritual priority.

God’s lordship over our lives will not be complete until He rules (orders) our finances. The significance of this dimension of our lives is underscored by the prominence of the topic of money in Scripture. Our struggle to surrender to God’s purposes for our lives is often described in terms of money (see, Matthew 6:24,33; 1 Timothy 6:9–10, for instance). Significantly, this struggle refers to both the possession of money and the desire to possess money—a challenging issue for everyone, rich and poor.

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God’s reordering of our understanding and use of resources and the full recovery of God’s intention for our lives is a point of serious struggle, with our salvation at stake!

The Offering and Its Relationship to Worship When we give our offering, we are (or should be) declaring God’s lordship over the financial dimensions of our lives. On any given Sunday, this may be a step of obedient faith by givers who are responding to God’s reordering initiatives. Some people may be tithing, uncertain of how they will make their adjusted budget balance, but committed to the priority of God’s lordship and stepping out in faith. Others may be giving for the first time, an initial step of response, acknowledging that surrendering to God’s will is more important than what they could have purchased with that money.

Yet another is a mature disciple and giver who is responding to a special need and giving generously beyond tithe because this person has submitted all resources to the Lord’s disposal, available on call.

The primary concern of all of these examples is not simply supporting operating budgets or funding timely expansion initiatives. This may be a byproduct, but it is not the main emphasis. When we do the giving in worship, primarily in pragmatic terms, we diminish the meaning and spiritual importance of giving. We also fail to teach and encourage disciples in this important dimension of God’s reordering work in their lives. As a pastor, I understand the pressing nature of these pragmatic financial concerns. However, I would also call us to teach giving from the Kingdom perspective first. As Jesus said, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt.6:33). As we learn to worship in our giving, God will attend to our practical financial needs.

CARL LETH is former dean of the School of Theology and Christian Ministry at Olivet Nazarene University.

“DO NOT BE AFRAID” A Reflection from John’s Revelation B y M a r y P au l

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can easily get scared, even for irrational reasons.

When I was a teen, I would often babysit late on Saturday nights. When I arrived home, everyone would be asleep. As I got ready for bed, I avoided looking in the mirror because I could scare myself with a look. Even a sideways glance got my heart thumping!

When I married my husband, I made him promise to never purposefully scare me. He has been faithful to this promise—but I still get startled when he appears unexpectedly. He asks, “After 25 years of marriage, are you still not used to me being around?”

Almost every book in the Bible has a “Fear not” in it. This should tell us something about our assumptions regarding the Christian life. Many of us have grown up with the idea that following Jesus automatically guarantees safety and security.

This can create great inner turmoil when times of suffering occur.

The fear that rises during great social upheaval inside and outside the church leaves many of us feeling helpless. At such times, the book of Revelation offers comfort.

In the first chapter of Revelation, we are given an image: “And when I turned I saw . . . someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever!’” (vv. 12–18, emphasis added).

I laugh when I read the phrase, “Do not be afraid.” How could anyone not be afraid of this image of Christ? Yet I also realize, given this image of the Son of God, that my overwhelming fear of passing governments, investment losses, and

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changing cultural tides must be corrected. In each of the letters found in the first three chapters of Revelation, John’s vision trains us to re-see Christ in whatever terms are necessary to affirm His centrality in this time and place, among these people. The question for the church is what does the centrality of the resurrected Christ mean among a fearful people?

The directive to a church that knows great suffering or great economic loss is to “hold on” (Rev. 3:11). The reason to hold on is because of what Christ has done, is doing, and will do—not some sort of assurance that life will become easy once again. A good question for God’s people who have known ease is, “If everything is lost, if we are moved to the fringe of society and have all rights taken from us, will we be among those who hold on to our faith?”

The church of Philadelphia had few rights, resources, or expectations, yet they were called to a larger hope. They were to keep their eyes open and ears listening to participate in what God was going to do in that place and time.

When the early Christians were shut out of the synagogues, they lost some protection they never regained. Some of those early followers of Christ ultimately would become martyrs. However, they went into the streets giving a witness to the living Christ as they spoke of God’s peace in a place of fear.

There seems to be a lot of fear in the church these days. We seem surprised that we are experiencing a slow movement to the fringes of society. Changes within and without the church are disconcerting to many. Nevertheless, we cannot fall prey to fear.

Fear produces actions that do not honor God. It can tempt us to make too many accommodations to protect ourselves and act in ways that are not true to Christ’s character. We can be incited to violence expressed verbally and physically. We may even turn on each other within the church as we attempt to control what little we can. As Christians, we must never abide to language that demeans or attacks another. Even in the most fearful of times, we must be people of love.

One thing we can hold on to: When Christians are pushed to the fringes of society, when their rights are taken away and the commitment to be people of

There seems to be a lot of fear in the church these days. We seem surprised that we are experiencing a slow movement to the fringes of society. faith comes at a great cost—at these times especially, remarkably, the church grows. That is what we pray will always happen in our communities.

I do not want to face the oppression that our brothers and sisters in Christ have encountered in other countries. No matter how often I may pray to go deeper with God, I would not choose the difficult life experiences that will take me there. All the same, those times of sorrow and struggle come to all of us. There is no way to fully prepare for these times. However, I find that it helps to practice an abandoned commitment to hold on like the church of Philadelphia.

I begin every year by going through the Wesleyan Covenant service. The renewal of covenant demands deep words of commitment. They are, in fact, my promise that in all times, good or bad, I will hold on.

It is vital to remember that we do not say the words because we think we are ready; we say them with a

prayer that acknowledges we can never fulfill these words of faithfulness without God’s help: I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my place in your creation.

Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would have me do. Give me many tasks or have me step aside while you call others. Put me forward or humble me.

Give me riches or let me live in poverty. I freely give all that I am and all that I have to you. And now, holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. Amen.1 A friend of mine participates in the Wesleyan Covenant service each year. Like many of us, she knew the realities of living out this commitment in relatively small ways. However, one day, sickness stripped everything away from her. When she lost her previous competence, income guarantees, and vocation possibilities, the words of this covenant came back to her and gave her strength to hold on during the worst of days.

To the church that seems to fear much, we hear no platitudes, no false promises, no assurance of income guarantee from our God. Instead, we have the hand of our mighty Savior, who was, who is, and who is to come, resting on our shoulders, saying: “My child, fear not. Hold on.”

MARY PAUL serves as vice president for Spiritual Formation at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego 1. Don Saliers, From Hope to Joy (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1984). John Wesley encouraged his followers to intentionally renew their covenant with God once a year. Find out more about the Wesley Covenant Service at the Wesley Center Online, http://wesley. nnu.edu/john_wesley/covenant/index.htm.

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BENEDIC TION Tears for Your ZIP Code Thinking that my wife, Carol, could help me with a quandary, I asked her when she had seen me cry.

She hesitated and explained that she had not seen me cry much.

So I said, “Surely I cried when our son and daughter were born.”

She said, “No.” So I asked, “Haven’t I been moved to tears at a few funerals?”

She said, “No, Bob. You’re just like your father— even-tempered, never uproariously happy, and hardly ever near tears. But I, on the other hand, can cry at a commercial.”

The subject was on my mind because I had just read these words from Leonard Sweet. “Does your church love its zip code enough to cry over it? Jesus cried over a person (Lazarus, John 11:1-44) and a place (Jerusalem, Luke 19:41). Does your church know its zip code enough to cry over it? How can you help your people to become topophiliacs (lovers of a place)?”1 I don’t recall ever crying over Montrose, Denver, Hutchinson, or Tampa—the four cities where I

pastored churches. But Jesus was so moved by the hurt and waywardness of the people of Jerusalem that He couldn’t contain His grief, and He wept. If I ever have the chance to pastor again, my plan would be to discover the boundaries of my zip code and become a student of the need within. Where is the hurt greatest in that area? Who are the people who are most neglected, broken, hungry, and addicted?

How can our church minister in that context? How can I lead an effort that would enable others to seek out and care for those in their zip code?

Carol reminded me of something else during our conversation. “Bob, about the only time I see you tearful is when you’re preaching.” And that is true.

On occasion, tears will come while I’m preaching.

Those tears are answered prayer because, about 30 years ago, I distinctly remember asking God to give me tears when I preach. I was tired of preaching truth without passion.

Could it be time for us to go back to Jesus with another prayer? “Jesus, we are exhausted with trying to reach our cities with frenetic activity, fancy branding, and the latest websites. Please give us eyes to see the need in our zip codes and tears to water our efforts.” I believe that’s another prayer He will quickly answer!

BOB BROADBOOKS USA/Canada Regional Director

1. Leonard Sweet’s comments about loving your zip code can be found on Jeff K. Clarke’s blog: http:// www.jeffkclarke.com/a-conversation-with-leonardsweet-on-the-future-of-the-church/#more-8684

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