Looking Back, Moving Forward by Justin Pickard

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,

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.

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.

REVITALIZING OUR 100-YEAR-OLD DENOMINATION

By Bi ll Su lli va n , Da le J o nes, Ri ch H o u se a l, Ke n Cr ow, Sta n I n g ers

o l

Churches, 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.