Grace & Peace Magazine - Fall 2018 by graceandpeace

A D I A LO G I CA L R E S O U RC E FO R N A Z A R E N E C L E R GY

ISSUE 18 | FALL 2018

Ministry in a Connected Culture

SPECIAL F E AT U R E : M19 CONFERENCE UNLEASHING THE GOSPEL: A n Int e r v i e w w i th M 19 Ke y n o te Spe a ke r Ed Ste tze r

U S A / CA N A D A R E G I O N , C H U R C H O F T H E N A Z A R E N E

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CONNECTING. SHARING. LEARNING.

Mi ni s tr y i n a Co nne c te d Cu l t u re A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF THE USA/CANADA REGION CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE

Grace & Peace Fall 2018, Issue 18 www.graceandpeacemagazine.org Bob Broadbooks USA/Canada Regional Director Managing Editor | Charles W. Christian > CChristian@nazarene.org Associate Editor | Jeanette Gardner Littleton > GPmagazine@nazarene.org Assistant Editor | Rebecca Rodeheaver > GPmagazine@nazarene.org Layout & Design | Caines Design - JR Caines ADVERTISING OR OTHER INQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT: CChristian@nazarene.org or call (913) 577-2837

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 from the managing editor. 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 savior—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 the editor at GPeditor@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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C O N T E N T S

G & P I S S U E 1 8

FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8

I N VO C AT I O N : T h e M i ss i on of t h e C reati ve Go d by Ch a r le s W. Ch r i sti a n

Practices that Characterize Wesleyan Evangelism by Douglas Powe

C R E AT I V E LY R E A C H I N G C H I L D R E N : Heaventrain KC by Julie Stevens

Nazatween by Jeremy Byler

KidPOWER by Tina Mitchell

Kidztown by Sheri Lynne Martin

Helping Teens with the Call by Ron Jackson

A Fresh Start for Ministry in the Oldest Town in Texas by Joseph Dagostino

Recapturing the Art of Pastoral Visitation by Blair Rorabaugh

I Never Wanted to Be a Campus Pastor by Reggie Phillips

Changing the Scorecard: Bridgeway Community by Jeff Stark

From Clueless to Clergy by Mark Bane

Total Life Church: Our First Year by Orobola Obafemi Akinmoladun

Multicultural is not Cross-Cultural by Byron L. Hannon

Can Evangelism be Fun? by Donald M. Minter

GP INTERVIEW: Outreach by Embracing Differences: An interview with Rose Brower-Young

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rethink Revival by Norman Moore

Not Afraid to Fail by Greg Arthur

RESOURCE ALERT: Edison Churches

SPECIAL EVENT: M19 Mid-Quadrennial Leadership Conference

GP INTERVIEW: Joining the Mission of Jesus: An interview with Ed Stetzer

BOOK REVIEW: Evangelism after Pluralism Reviewed by Thea Ardrey

F R O M T H E A U T H O R : F i ve Q u est i on s : Bryan Stone

B E N E D I CT I O N : If You Stay too Close to the Shore, You Miss the Stars! by Bo b Bro a d b o o ks

NEWS: 4-6

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FROM THE EDITOR

T H E M I S S I O N O F T H E C R E AT I V E G O D

“God

saw all that

and it was very good

(Genesis 1:31).

had made,

. . . ”

he God we serve is a God of creativity. This creativity is infused with love and with purpose. This issue of Grace & Peace inspires us with snapshots of how God’s creative, redemptive love expresses itself in the everyday life of His people, the Church. Just as the teachings and ministry of Jesus displayed a keen eye for particular contexts, so the work of the Church reflects an awareness of particular needs and contexts that magnify the impact of the gospel in the lives of those whom God is calling and redeeming. We make a costly mistake when we seek to impose formulas or “one size fits all” methodologies on this creative God and His Church. This is a key reason why any reflection of creative outreach—the key theme of this issue—offers a variety of contexts and stories. For some who share their ministries, insights, and stories in this edition, the success of God’s creative work can be easily measured in numbers. For others, steady and consistent impact over time in ways that change the face of their communities is a better measurement than raw data. For all who have written for us in this edition—and, in fact, for all of us who join God on His mission of mercy and love—success begins and ends with our willingness to surrender to the leadership of God’s Spirit to unleash the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no coincidence that this issue also anticipates the key themes of our upcoming M19 Conference, which will take

place February 11–13, 2019, in Kansas City, Missouri. Two of our plenary speakers— Dr. Douglas Powe and Dr. Ed Stetzer—are featured in this issue of Grace & Peace, and you will find more details about the event and how you can participate. To register now, go to m19conference.org. This site will provide a way to register, information about housing, and more details about all of the plenary speakers and workshops associated with M19, the theme of which is, “Unleash the Gospel.” God’s creativity is evident in the beauty of the earth He has made and in the uniqueness of each individual. This creativity is further demonstrated in how the people of God— God’s Church—join together to grow and to make disciples in a variety of contexts throughout history and throughout the world. May God continue to guide us as we unashamedly and courageously follow His Spirit even to “the ends of the earth,” in order to share God’s love. For many years, a picture hung in my study of an empty table beautifully set and decorated with a caption: “Behold, all things are now ready.” God is seeking as many as possible to be guests at His table. May we follow His Spirit and allow His redemptive love to be creatively unleashed, so that His table may be filled.

CHARLES W. CHRISTIAN

Managing Editor

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WELCOME TO NEW DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS We are pleased to welcome these new leaders to the team of USA/Canada’s district superintendents. (photographed left to right, bottom row to top row) Stephen Ottley, Canada Central District Rose Brower-Young, Canada West District Sam Flores, South Carolina District Kyle Poole, Georgia District Dwight Gunter II, MidSouth District Mark Collins, Canada Atlantic District Bret Layton, West Virginia South District Virgil Askren, South Arkansas District Sam Vassel, Metro New York District Kerry Willis, Philadelphia District

PALCON ATTENDED BY 1292 PASTORS AND LEADERS

BRESEE FILM, PASTOR TO THE PEOPLE, NOW CAPTIONED IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES Pastor to the People, the film about Phineas Bresee, is now available with captions in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. These versions can be accessed and downloaded at www. usacanadaregion.org/bresee-film.

The Pastor and Leaders Conferences (PALCON), sponsored by the Church of the Nazarene USA/ Canada and Global Clergy Development of the Church of the Nazarene, were hosted in three locations this summer: Eastern Nazarene College, Southern Nazarene University, and Point Loma Nazarene University. Nearly 1,300 adults attended the event, while PLNU and ENC also hosted 120 children and teens. The PALCON 2018 theme was “Come & See” and focused on John 1, highlighting transformational conversations on the called life, the church, and its mission. The next PALCONs will be held in 2020.

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NBNC CONFERENCE “BEST EVER” 3

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

More than 600 Nazarenes gathered from across the United States and Canada to attend the 2018 National Black Nazarene Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, August 2–5, 2018. According to a report by Black Ministries Facilitator Rev. Charles Tillman, “Many of the attendees left saying, ‘This was the best NBNC I ever attended!’ Exit surveys administered by conference organizers support this statement.” This event included four days of action-packed activities, stirring messages centered around the conference theme, The Time IS Now, and children’s programming. Preliminary planning has already begun for the 2020 NBNC.

In recent years, the percentage of events U.S. adults say they regularly attend religious services has Other Multicultural Ministries thatwho occurred this summer: been declining, while the share of Americans who attend only a few times a year, seldom or never Southeast Asian Fellowship Hispanic PK Conference District has been growing. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that theHispanic/Latino main reason people regularly June 13–15, 2018 June 18–21, 2018 Coordinators Conference go to church, synagogue, mosque or another house of worship is an obvious one: to feel closer to MNU MNU September 11–13, 2018 God. But the things that keep people away from religious services are moreMinistry complicated. Global Center Haitian Conference Black Ethnic Leadership AmongNational those who attend no moreNational than a few times a year, about three-in-ten say they do not go to June 12–14, 2018 Nazarene Conference Development Initiative religious services for a simple reason: They are not believers. But a much larger share stay away Miami, Florida August 2–5, 2018 September 25–27, 2018 not because of a lack of faith, but for other reasons. This includes many people Charlotte, NC Kansas City who say one very

important reason they don’t regularly attend church is that they practice their faith in other

Top reasons U.S. adults give for choosing to attend or not attend religious services Among U.S. adults who attend religious services at least once or twice a month, % who say ____ is a “very important” reason they ATTEND religious services

Among U.S. adults who attend religious services a few times a year or less often, % who say ____ is a “very important” reason they DO NOT attend more often

Source: Survey conducted Dec. 4-18, 2017, among U.S. adults. “Why Americans Go (and Don’t Go) to Religious Services” PEW RESEARCH CENTER

www.pewresearch.org

GRACEANDPEACEMAGAZINE.ORG / 5

SEMINARY

ISN P TOETRL V I GI EHW T

NTS CENTER FOR PASTORAL LEADERSHIP ONLINE VIDEO LIBRARY RELAUNCHES The NTS Center for Pastoral Leadership recently launched a new mobile friendly platform to deliver its ever-growing library of continuing education video resources to pastors and leaders. The new website contains a variety of popular features. Native apps will be released soon. A subscription to the CPL includes a variety of benefits and is available for $99/year or $10/month. Learn more and subscribe at www.nts.edu/cpl.

NTS CALENDAR October 22

Spring registration open

October 24

Youth on the Brain: Discovering the Role of Neuroscience in Youth Ministry

November 1

Priority applications due for masters and doctoral programs

November 6

Pastors’ Day with Dr. Rebecca Laird

November 10

SheLeads ChurchTogether Summit

January 21

Spring Semester begins

February 11-13

M19 in Kansas City

February 15

Priority applications due for masters and doctoral programs

March 4-6

Lectures on Ezekiel with Dr. Brad Kelle of Point Loma Nazarene University

May 4

NTS Commencement

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Practices that Characterize Wesleyan

Evangelism

Douglas Powe

he Wesleyan movement was, and in some parts of the world continues to be, successful for many reasons. It started as a movement that was doctrinally informed but focused on practices. John and Charles Wesley did not sit down and write a theological treatise as the starting point of the movement. Rather, the Wesleyan movement started with practices that were grounded in theological beliefs and informed by various traditions. Four key practices characterized Wesleyan evangelism: proclamation, community, service, and witness.

as a professional occupation. He is talking about someone willing to share the good news verbally. When we interpret kerygma as something only done by professionals, it lets most of the congregation off the hook. I believe Paul is arguing the opposite—that all of us are called to proclaim the good news so that someone might hear it. Too often individuals believe we pay the pastor to proclaim so we do not have to do it! In the Wesleyan tradition, verbal sharing of the good news is important. During John Wesley’s time this was often done through testimonies at a love feast. It also took place in classes where individuals shared weekly with one another. People were not afraid of telling the good news of how God was working in their lives. The impact of this sharing was one of the factors fueling the Wesleyan movement. I believe that as we grow more comfortable in our congregations we tend to share less. For many reasons, the relational work of learning what is going on in

P r o c l a m at i o n

The Greek word kerygma is often used for proclamation. In Romans 10:14, Paul wrote, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” The key is the ending where Paul says, “And how can they hear without someone preaching to them” or in some translations “proclaiming to them.” This is the meaning of kerygma. I am not a New Testament scholar, but I prefer to translate the term as “proclaim,” because Paul is not talking about preaching

someone’s life and how God is transforming that person does not really interest many of us. As a result, fewer of us are proclaiming the good news. We leave that to the “professionals.” This is a departure from a key practice of the early Wesleyan movement, which was founded on all believers actively taking responsibility to proclaim. Community

The Greek word for community is koinonia. The best model of Christian community is found in the Trinity and the

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way in which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make room for each other’s gifts. The threein-one God models for us what is possible when we are willing to share our gifts with the community and make room for others’ gifts. It is a community constructed on love, trust, and accountability. John Wesley structured the Methodist revival around societies, classes, and bands because he understood the importance of community. John Wesley knew that preaching was important, but getting people in community with one another was essential to personal transformation. The foundation of the Wesleyan communities was love, trust, and accountability. Individuals came together to explore their love of God and neighbor. It required trust because of the deep sharing that occurred. They held each other accountable in love. They invited others (proclamation) to join them in these communities. Many congregations have tried to copy the Wesleyan community model through small groups with mixed results. One reason the results are mixed has to do with a cultural shift in regard to how we practice accountability today. Another reason is that we have tried to copy the form of small groups while ignoring John Wesley’s rationale for connecting people. His goal was not simply to create small groups, but to connect people in an authentic way that engendered love, trust, and accountability. Our evangelism efforts today need to focus on connecting people in authentic community and not just copying a certain model of community. When we feel genuinely connected to others, we can move toward a trinitarian model of community. Service

The Greek word for service is diakonia. In Ephesians 3:7, Paul used a form of diakonia when he talked about being a

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servant of the gospel. The idea of being in service to something or someone is challenging in our culture because of the history of slavery. However, the language of servanthood is prominent in Paul’s letters, particularly the idea of being a servant to Jesus. Paul understood his role as carrying on the work that Jesus started, and we are called to do the same. To be in service to Jesus means engaging in holistic ministry that addresses someone’s entire being, body and soul. Jesus provides for those in need while sharing the transformative power of the gospel. If, on the one hand, we simply respond to physical needs, we are merely providing a social service. On the other hand, if we are simply sharing the gospel, then we are not addressing the concrete challenges of our sisters and brothers. Holistic ministry in Christ’s service is always both/and. John Wesley understood the importance of a holistic approach and encouraged both acts of mercy and acts of piety. The Holy Club did not visit the disenfranchised simply because it was a kind thing to do. They did so because it was an opportunity to engage the physical and spiritual needs of others. The idea of serving is never disconnected from an expectation of spiritual transformation. The struggle we have today is that we have disconnected service from an expectation of transformation through Christ. In an effort not to offend, we do things for people and hope they figure out our Christian

motivation. I am not suggesting clubbing people over the head with the gospel, but a holistic understanding of service must include sharing the transformative power of Christ. What makes the Church different is its commitment to being an alternative community that seeks to love God and neighbor. Too many congregations ignore the importance of letting others see the ways in which the love of God intersects with loving one’s neighbor. John Wesley stood firmly at the intersection between loving God and neighbor, and this was a unique characteristic of the people called Methodists. W i t n e ss

The Greek word for witness is martyreo. It is the root of the word martyr. The truth is, when we hear the word martyr, we immediately think of someone dying. A martyr literally gives his or her life for the gospel. We are not often required to die to witness for Christ. In Acts 1:8 we find a form of martyreo that is not about death. It reads, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem . . . to the ends of the earth.” A martyr or witness is someone who gives their whole being to something. It is more than proclamation, because one’s entire life becomes a sign pointing to God. In Acts 1:8, Jesus requested that the disciples devote their entire being to telling His story. What Jesus did not want was a halfbaked effort. The disciples were to dedicate themselves to the work of witnessing. The Wesleys dedicated themselves to witnessing. They witnessed through field preaching, visiting, class meetings, music, and other ways. They expected that others would also dedicate themselves to this work. In what is now the United States, Francis Asbury gave everything he had to witnessing. Witnessing was not a technique that the Wesleys and Asbury used to grow the Church. Witnessing was a part of their DNA. They believed Jesus was talking to them when He said, “Be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.” For many of us, witnessing has become a technique rather than an expression of our spiritual identity. We see it as a means of getting people to our congregation.

Many times when we “witness,” people are not hearing about God’s transforming love. They hear “come to my church.” The Wesleyan movement was successful because witnessing was a part of the DNA and not merely a technique. We need to reclaim this dimension of witness. Working Together

All four of these practices should work together in an integrated, synergistic way. Proclamation, community, service, and witness can inform and enhance each another. Too often today, we have pulled them apart and made them separate things, and in so doing, we have lessened the overall impact of our evangelism. Reclaiming the power of the Wesleyan movement is not about copying exactly what the Wesleys did, but it is about figuring out how to exercise these practices meaningfully and authentically within our own contexts. It is not about employing just one or two of these practices, but letting all four practices work together. It is about a holistic approach to evangelism that shares the gospel in a way that moves us closer to God and neighbor.

DOUGL AS POWE is James C . Logan Professor of Evangelism, professor of urban ministr y at Wesley Theological Seminar y (Washington, D.C .). He is also a plenar y speaker at M19 in Februar y of 2019.

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Creatively Reaching Children Heaventrain KC: A S G ’ F tory of

od s

aithfulness

s God made His vision clear, the Lenexa (Kansas) Central Church of the Nazarene family made the commitment to get outside the church walls and invest in the community. We prayed, and we raised funds to purchase and renovate two buses. After several months of preparation, in October 2017, we hit the streets! How

does

H e a v e n t r a i n KC

work?

Two brightly painted buses are in action every Saturday, from May through November. One bus is a chapel-on-wheels, and the other is a professional mobile kitchen. Each Saturday, Heaventrain KC visits the same communities, partners with other churches, and builds relationships with some incredible families. As the buses approach a site, a train whistle sounds. Kids literally come running! We invest in giggles, smiles, and fun as we build relationships through activities like face painting, parachute play, and football. Children and families are invited on the chapel bus for a high-energy worship service. Their eyes light up as they grow as disciples! After the participants learn Bible stories, ministry and message come together when a hot, healthy meal is served from the food bus. H e a v e n t r a i n KC ’ s P h i l o s o p h y

Ministry

The philosophy of Heaventrain KC includes: • A “Do-Whatever-It-Takes” Attitude: God

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is calling us to go the extra mile to spread the gospel. Consistency, authenticity, and humility are vital. • Outside Church Walls: We’re not content with a “come-to-us” mentality. We must look outward. People we see in the community each day are the church’s responsibility. We have a holy urgency to build relationships and share the love and grace of our Lord. • Multiple Church Partners: Something is special about churches serving together. Some partners focus on a site where they have a presence each week. Other churches volunteer at all the sites for either a day during the season or once a month. • Strategic/Intentional Locations: Sites are strategic. If we can get families connected to a nearby church, they will be further nurtured in the faith.

• Multicultural: Heaventrain connects with multiple ethnicities and cultures. It’s a little glimpse of heaven. • Discipleship Building: Heaventrain KC is not a one-time event. Rather, we strive for a consistent presence. We are passionate about teaching the transformative Word of God and building leaders within the community. • Family Ministry Opportunity & Leadership Training: Heaventrain is an intergenerational leadership training

ground. All ages, from children to senior adults, are challenged to see beyond themselves and serve. Their passion to serve and grow multiplies. I am grateful for God’s faithfulness and for a pastor friend who began Heaventrain in Cleveland, Ohio, about 37 years ago. When I was a teenager, my call started on his church bus. Though Heaventrain KC is a separately incorporated entity, both of the

NAZATWEEN: Ministering

Pre-Teens

uring the “tween” years, most kids feel stuck somewhere between being children and teenagers. A ministry called Nazatween brings 4th–6th graders together from all over the MidSouth District (Central/West Tennessee and Mississippi) to see that they are not alone and that God is ready to use them right now! Nazatween helps connect kids with a purpose and identity that is shaped by a loving Father, rather than the pervasive culture in which they often find themselves fighting to exist. Over these past five years, the MidSouth District children’s ministry has seen incredible growth in pre-teen ministry through an event called Nazatween. Since 2013, this one-night worship experience and evening of fun has grown from 92 kids and leaders in one location to 328 kids and leaders in three locations across the MidSouth! At Nazatween, students in grades 4–6 gather for pizza, group games, giveaways, and a powerful worship service. Students learn to honor God through participating in worship and hearing a message about what it means to follow

Heaventrain KC buses have been dedicated in loving memory of the Heaventrain Cleveland founder, Pastor Phil Batten.

JULIE STEVENS is pastor to children and families at Central Church of the Nazarene in Lenexa, Kansas.

God and live out their identity in Jesus. After worship, groups travel offsite to a special location, such as a trampoline park, bowling alley, go-cart track, or family fun center, to simply have fun together! After this, students return to the church building for games and down time before getting a few hours of sleep. In the morning students wake up, pack up, eat breakfast, and enjoy one last worship service before heading home. This ministry has brought kids closer to Jesus and closer to others on the MidSouth District. We believe it is impacting attendance at children’s camps, NYI camps, and district events as kids find their place as part of the MidSouth district family. We are excited to hear that other districts may start their own Nazatween events in 2019! We pray that God continues to grow this movement among districts and students to encourage tweens in their relationships with Jesus and their connection to the Nazarene family.

JEREMY BYLER is the Elementary/ Middle School Pastor at Erin (Tenn.) Church of the Nazarene and has been in ministry since 2005.

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Kidpower:

Empowering Kids to Choose Purity Others Wellness Excellence

idPOWER is an after-school mentoring program created through a non-profit organization called CrossBridge to counter the devastating combination of generational poverty and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The sheer volume, intensity, and duration of the ACEs our children encounter exponentially amplifies the severity of their stress. However, recent medical research confirms that meaningful mentoring can significantly and measurably mitigate the damaging effects of ACEs-related toxic stress. Participants and mentors pair up in the fall and remain together throughout the school year. The positive synergy created by this relationship and its impact on mentors and children alike cannot be overstated. In addition to mentoring, students are also introduced to character education focusing on six character pillars: respect, trustworthiness, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. These pillars are modeled by staff and volunteers. Students participate in activities that reinforce the importance of character. Students also work with their mentors to set and achieve goals. Without guidance, students often focus only on long-term goals that may not even be achievable. For instance, many have the goal of playing professional sports. Though this desire is understandable, most will not have this opportunity. We focus on short-term goals and teach them the steps of selecting a goal and breaking it into action steps. We provide accountability and celebrate their accomplishments when goals are achieved. One extremely shy little girl set a goal to memorize and recite a poem for our entire KidPOWER program. This was a big step in helping her have confidence. She recently sang a solo in front of 250 people at our annual fundraiser.

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Academics Reconciliation Staff, mentors, and students also participate in an annual service learning project. Different from a single day of community service, this project involves students from start to finish using the IPARD process. Students Investigate project options, Plan and prepare for their project, take the Action steps to accomplish the project, Reflect at each stage of the process, Demonstrate and celebrate their accomplishment with others in a public setting. Service learning is a vital component of our program because it leads students to give back and shows them that even young people can serve and make a difference in the lives of others. While the long-term effects of KidPOWER and YouthPOWER (a follow-up program for older students) defy quantification, short-term results have been impressive. Equipped with new tools to confront situations constructively and safely, participants begin breaking generational cycles by converting challenges into opportunities for learning, healing, and growth. In the process, participants once viewed as victims are transformed into victors!

TINA MITCHELL is the Director of CrossBRIDGE and founder of KidPOWER and YouthPOWER. She also serves as Compassionate Ministries Pastor at Trevecca Community Church.

KIDZTOWN:

A High-Energy Ministry

idztown is an innovative ministry to children that was born in the heart of Rev. Kelly Brower, a young pastor on the Canada West District. Kelly had a strong passion for raising Canadian kids into spiritual champions. His vision came about in 1995. He wanted to create a high-energy, fast-paced, highly portable and adaptable ministry of outreach and discipleship for children and their families. Kidztown presents timeless morals and values to children in a way they understand and enjoy. Take Sesame Street, Sunday school, and the circus and bring them together, and you have Kidztown! After Kellyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passing in 2004 at the age of 36, his wife, Rose, and the team they had developed carried on the ministry. Eventually, they saw his vision of Kidztown as an international ministry. Kidztown has now been presented through Work and Witness teams in Ghana, India, Ecuador, Cuba, Peru, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Argentina. Kidztown is a one-hour program that uses puppets, Bible skits, actions songs, balloons, juggling, unicycles, and illusions to teach children Biblical stories, morals and values, and ultimately to present the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. Kidztown is highly flexible as a ministry model and can be presented as a regular Sunday school curriculum, as an after-school program in the church, or as an outreach ministry in the streets and parks of a local community. It is also highly adaptable to intercultural ministry contexts. Because Kidztown is such a highenergy ministry and uses such interesting tools, younger kids are fascinated and want to be a part of the ministry team. There is something for everyone: to become a puppet master, cruise on a unicycle, juggle with exquisite skill, or act out one of the Bible stories. Those who work with Kidztown have found that if you are ministering to children and have youth in a leadership role, you will

ultimately start to meet and minister to the whole family unit. We saw this dynamic clearly at one of our churches that used Kidztown. They started out with very few children and youth in attendance in their Sunday morning service. After seven years, a quarter of the attendees on Sunday morning were there because of Kidztown. The families who came grew spiritually, attended the Wednesday night Bible studies, were involved in prayer meetings, and started inviting others to be part of their new church family. Another amazing benefit was that people started to volunteer in various roles. The adults, children, and youth wanted not to just receive, but to also to give of themselves in supporting roles in this church. Kidztown is an effective ministry tool: a non-threatening, interactive way to reach out to families, teaching children truths about Jesus that they will never forget, training youth in leadership roles, and giving all of them a place to belong. God wants His children of all ages to come to Him. We are willing to do whatever it takes to introduce them to their Heavenly Father. May we all give our best, however that may look, to disciple others in their walk with Christ.

SHERI LYNNE M ARTIN is the International Community Development Coordinator for Kidztown.

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Helping Teens with the Call by

R o n J a ck s o n

“P

astor, I feel like God might be ‘calling me,’ so what should I do?” Other than hearing a confession of faith in Christ, very few things in ministry are as affirming to a pastor than the privilege of being able to counsel and guide a young believer toward vocational ministry. I always felt blessed, excited, and affirmed when one of the students I pastored acknowledged his or her call to ministry. I remember thinking, “We must be doing something right around here!”

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But along with that excitement also came feelings of apprehension and concern. Preparation for a life of ministry is not a small or easy endeavor. It involves much more than simply saying to someone, “Here’s a Bible, go make some disciples!” The Church of the Nazarene has, since its inception, recognized the importance of ministry preparation. In fact, preparing young women and men for ministry was a principal component of the Church’s early commitment to Christian

higher education. The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene affirms our church’s commitment: “At the general church level, the historic practice of providing institutions for higher education or ministerial preparation will be maintained.” In the spring of 2015, the Department of Christian Ministry and Formation at MidAmerica Nazarene University received a grant from the Lilly Endowment. This grant was designed to allow colleges and universities to offer spaces for young people to explore questions about their faith, purpose, and call to ministry. Colleges and universities were asked to design institutes for high school students within their constituency that would, “identify, ignite, and cultivate the gifts of future Christian leaders who will impact our communities.” The design of these High School Youth Theology Institutes (HSYTI) should include cooperation with other colleges and universities, congregations, denominational offices, service agencies, and youth ministry organizations. MNU’s grant proposal was to create a weeklong residential camp specifically for high school juniors and seniors who expressed a call to vocational ministry. We sought and received commitments of support from our denomination, local churches, organizations, and institutions. We wanted a balance of practical and theological components. MNU’s ministry majors and minors are required to participate in ministry practicums that occur in the local church. All of our professors keep the local church and real-world ministry in mind as we design and implement our courses. Therefore, we designed our institute not simply to include “practices” as a part of the program, but to ensure practical theological education would be the focus of all educational experiences at our institute. After receiving the grant, we invited a team of ministry practitioners to our campus for a brainstorming, dreaming, and planning summit. We thought the best people to consult about the design of our institute would be individuals who were actually doing ministry. Our “dream team” included three lead or co-pastors, two youth pastors, two worship pastors, and two spouses of pastors. These five men and four women helped us move The Call @ MNU from dream to reality. We did not want to be “just another Christian camp.” We made several early

strategic decisions to help us accomplish this goal. We brainstormed ways to make The Call @ MNU more interactive, participatory, and relationally based. We wanted our students to engage, to do, and to experience, rather than simply to endure a steady stream of sermons, workshops, lectures, and activities. Our logo includes these three words: discover, equip, and send. The Call @ MNU was designed to help our students discover their call, to equip them for ministry, and finally, to send them back to their congregations to serve. Format of The Call

Our workshops were called EXPLORE; times of personal devotional were called AWE; and corporate worship gatherings were called OASIS. We reimagined our meal, snack, and recreation times, calling them RE-FUEL, REFRESH and FLEX. We interjected relational and participatory components into each of those activities. We even added a short nap time (SIESTA) to the middle of the day, as we talked about Sabbath and our need for rest. Each afternoon we lowered the lights in the OASIS room, played soft music, and invited everyone to find places in the room to stretch out on the carpet, benches, or platform and take a 20-minute group nap. Not everyone fell asleep, but this rest helped our students and staff members to refocus before resuming our work. Our themes for year one included theology, ethics, the Bible, and spiritual formation. Each day, our students participated in three hours of classroom instruction that we called EXPLORE. We asked several of our professors to prepare content and teach these EXPLORE sessions. There were also two hours of directed small group discussion (FAMILY TIME), and two hours of personal Bible study, journaling, prayer, or devotion time (AWE) each day. In addition, The Call @ MNU featured eight plenary sessions. Each session featured an intentional relational component that was followed by a corporate worship time (OASIS) and a guest speaker. We emphasize diversity in the selection of our guest speakers. Each of the men or women who spoke was asked to include the story of his or her “call” to ministry. These “call stories” became the highlight of these sessions. Our students overwhelmingly indicated

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were surprised when our postevent

survey indicated that students desired

more classroom instruction, small group

discussion, and rel ational interaction with professors, guest speakers, and staff—with less recreation and free time.

that the OASIS (corporate worship) was the highlight of the institute. However, we did not expect the enthusiasm for the other aspects of The Call. We were surprised when our postevent survey indicated that students desired more classroom instruction, small group discussion, and relational interaction with professors, guest speakers, and staff—with less recreation and free time. Making Adjustments and Moving Forward

Using the information gleaned from our post-event survey, we adjusted year two. By decreasing our recreation time, we were able to increase our classroom EXPLORE time from three to four and a half hours each day. Our themes for year two were evangelism, worship, and mission. Having the extra time each day allowed our professors to further develop their themes and interaction with students. We asked our professors to organize their EXPLORE sessions around a “Why, How, and Do” theme. During session 1 we asked, “Why: Why do we evangelize, worship, or do mission?” Session 2 was: “How do we do?” Finally, we asked each professor to design a third session that created space for each student to actually do evangelism, worship, or mission. In order to respond to our students’ request for more interaction with our faculty, staff, and guest speakers, we ended each day with an activity we called CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION. Each evening following our OASIS and FAMILY TIME, we created space in

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our schedule for our students to communicate with our guest speakers, workshop leaders, professors, and staff. We created a coffee shop atmosphere by dimming the lights and rearranging some of the furniture in our library. We provided coffee, water, and snacks, and asked our staff and speakers to be available for questions, comments, and conversations. By this point in the day, most of our staff, faculty, and even students were physically exhausted, but still enthusiastic. In almost 40 years of ministry with young people, I have participated in, led, and/or directed a host of camps, retreats, and other events for youth. However, I can say without qualification that our work with the high school juniors and seniors across these two years at The Call is among the most effective and fulfilling. Our post-event surveys, thank you notes, and personal testimonies of the almost 100 student participants confirm the impact of this ministry. Our department has benefitted with the addition of over 20 ministry majors, and that hasn’t hurt either.!

RON JACKSON serves as assistant professor of youth and family ministry at MidAmerica Nazarene University.

vividly remember the first time I walked into Nacogdoches First Church of the Nazarene. Located in the pine thickets of East Texas, the building was dark and had no signage. Once inside, I was greeted by an aged “Home Interiors” look; the building was cluttered with artificial trees and flowers that brought to mind an era long past. We found that the church congregation was aging and quickly declining in numbers, a Spanish congregation was meeting in the same building as a completely separate group without any unity or fellowship between the two congregations, the facility needed a tremendous amount of work, and the whole place was badly in need of fresh vision. To be honest, I wrestled with my call to Nacogdoches First. All of this stood like a dark cloud of fear over my family and me. But God broke through that wall of fear blocking my vision. What was missing in this church was a passion for the spreading of the gospel message! Now, six years later, we have seen this message come to life in a way that would give the oldest town in Texas a glimpse into true heart holiness. P r e pa r i n g

for

God

Work

A fresh unleashing of the gospel at what is now known as Nac Naz began in the summer of 2012. Following six months

Joseph Dagostino

of sharing God’s love with the members, partnering with them, attending their events, getting to know them, visiting in their homes, and learning the deep-woven threads of the church’s rich history, we were ready for God to unleash a new vision, mission, and plan. This sparked the first year’s mission, centered on one main theme: preparing ourselves for what was not yet present in the church. We started by hiring two college students to work in an empty nursery, so when God answered our prayers for a thriving children’s ministry, we would be ready. We began the arduous process of making our building userfriendly. We reviewed every area of the church so we were prepared to weave new visitors into the ministry. My wife and I also took time to get to know the hearts of those who had labored in love for this small Nazarene church all their lives. We discovered that they also desired the church to become a place where their kids and grandkids would want to attend. They understood that though many of our methods would adjust, the message of heart holiness would remain. The mission and vision remained intact and the sermons remained focused on the doctrine of holiness. The next step was getting outside of our walls. This church had a reputation of being argumentative, dissension-oriented, and judgmental. We needed to let the community know who we were now.

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Instead of simply recruiting people to come on Sundays, we began to invest in the community of Nacogdoches and meet people where they were. We passed out free water to workers on the street, we took sweets to the nurses and doctors at the local hospital, we dropped candy off at the police station and fire houses, and we passed out simple blessings outside local grocery stores. During the summer that first year, we rallied our people for a weeklong mission trip in our own community called “Commission Unto Nac.” Other creative outreach ideas emerged among our members, from mowing lawns to painting at the local park. We wanted to serve in the name of Jesus. We began to challenge our people to share the gospel everywhere they went, allowing Jesus to prompt us toward

Unleashing

it was really important that we never asked our people to serve in a way or do something that we weren’t willing to do, too. Our willingness to be led and to work in a variety of areas seemed to give permission and encouragement for our church members to be involved and lead. Soon, we were able to leave things in their hands and move on to the next goal. A domino effect had begun. Growing

and

Learning Through Change

We learned two big lessons early on. The first is that unleashing the gospel does not mean that everything should change just for change’s sake. It is all about God’s timing. Second, people need to understand the “why” behind what we do. If change isn’t shared in

the gospel does not

mean that every thing should

change just for change’s sake.

is all about

an obedient response. That’s what the first year or two was about: preparing our church for what God wanted to do and letting the community know who we are by blessing, with no expectation of return. It wasn’t always easy. At times the first year here felt as though my family and I were standing alone in those pine thickets, with torn clothes and broken hearts. But in those moments, an encouraging card, a conversation from the community, or a visitor with kids would serve as reminders that the Holy Spirit was at work. Many pastors have asked me, “How did it all turn around?” The best answer I can give is that we tried to stay open and teachable before the Lord in the midst of the rumblings. Through it all, my wife and I also felt

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God’s

timing.

a transparent way, it can be more dangerous than staying the same. As God led us in new ways, our ministry began creating a new buzz within the community. This meant that the next year we needed to focus on logistics and organization. We looked at things like insurance plans, debt reduction, and ways to use our property for outside sources of income. This again required transparency in showing the congregation that efforts were being made behind the scenes to use funds properly, while we were staying true to the mission God had given us. By shoring up the use of church funds and holding to the utmost integrity, we put the church on a path to be able to afford the big plans God had just around the corner. After this year of logistics, we focused

on strengthening our church leadership. This involved providing extensive leadership training, as well as introducing a book each year that the board would work through together during our board meeting devotional time. Each board member was assigned a ministry area. We also created a follow-up team for guests. We were intentional about integrating the previous year’s vision of intentionality and fiscal responsibility. Of course, there were difficult decisions along the way. For instance, we chose to close the elementary school that had been a ministry of the church for many years. Although it was rough, the Lord has since turned that space into a large, thriving, self-supporting Christian preschool. There were also people who, for one reason or another, felt the need to leave our church. Even in those instances, however, we sensed an affirmation of God’s leadership, and some of those who left early on have come back and reconciled. Nac Naz had begun to live out the gospel. New people were encountering the love of Jesus Christ. The once divided English and Spanish congregations were participating in unity, and a multi-cultural, multi-generational community had begun to form. The more our people saw it working and growing, the more it became infectious. They wanted to share and love and invite others, too. The Biggest Dream

Far

During our fourth year of ministry here, the Lord gave us the biggest vision so far: a plan to completely renovate our children’s wing and a large, unused atrium, converting the space into an indoor/outdoor clubhouse and play area that would be open as a ministry to the public. This was only possible because God had moved us from a congregation with no children under the age of eight to a church with nurseries and a children’s area filled to capacity. Our congregation now included young families as well as old, and our youth center was filled with teens. So, we began the construction of the Nac Naz Kids Clubhouse: a safe, air-conditioned, coffee-filled, indoor/outdoor play space that serves the families of Nacogdoches of all faiths, all nationalities, and all orientations. In July alone, 80 families that do not come

to the church came the Clubhouse. God is continuously using it as a funnel into our church and is blessing us with new families through this ministry. The last couple of years the Lord has been faithful to continue to lead us. We recently presented the people with the theme “Join the Movement.” This was to help the people of Nac Naz recognize that the movement of God is for all people and that the kingdom of God is for everyone. We began to examine what it meant to really be like Jesus: to love with His grace, to extend His mercy, and to walk alongside the hurting. Nac Naz is a place where you come to worship a holy God with others who have been transformed by Him. No matter who comes through the doors of Nac Naz, we pray they experience the transforming love of Jesus. God is constantly overhauling our programs to better fit this expanding vision. We recently started a ministry to a state university in our town, built a coffee bar that supports an entire community in Rwanda, and created a Christian bookstore where our people and the community can find Christian and holiness materials. The Lord also directed us to lead two services, a traditional service and a contemporary service, which allowed us to not only seat more people and grow our base, but to also become a comfortable home to other ethnicities and to bridge generational gaps. Along the way, we remind each other that God enjoys creating new and fresh things, but His message remains consistent. Our greatest desire at Nacogdoches First is to stay true to the holiness message and love people right where they are. We are willing to wait on God’s voice and direction, and we are open to stepping out in faith, trusting that God can do great things.

JOSEPH DAGOSTINO is lead pastor at Nacogdoches (Texas) First Church of the Nazarene.

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RECAPTURING THE ART OF

PASTORAL VISITATION by

Blair Rorabaugh

fter pastoring for 40 years and serving as interim pastor in several churches, I recognize how busy people are and the exhaustion many feel. I also know a pastor’s exhaustion and have no desire to add more guilt to our lives. However, I am concerned with the lack of connection between pastors and congregation members beyond Sunday morning. It was my pattern to call in every home of my congregation twice a year. I would make the rounds in the late winter or early spring and then again during Advent. I was with them in times of illness and death as well. Since retiring, I have supplied interim work in churches, sometimes for extended periods. By the time I am there a month, if the church has no directory, I have accumulated one with phone numbers and home addresses, as well as email contact information. I set aside a day to visit as many families as I can in an afternoon. Repeatedly I have heard, “Pastor, thank you for coming. You are the first pastor to ever visit in my home.” Others have told me that it has been years since they had a pastoral visit. We can give many reasons why we cannot visit in the homes of our attendees. However, I contend that home visits are important for the missional pastor today. A consistent presence in our congregants’ lives outside of Sunday gives credibility to our ministry as pastors. Our compassion grows as we meet face-to-face

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with and help bear the burdens of our people. The preacher who visits the home will develop a greater sensitivity to his or her people and to the community that will be reflected in our messages. The relationships we build will also be reflected in consistency in worship attendance. Bob Broadbooks recently wrote: “I am amazed that, because of God’s calling, I had the privilege of being called ‘Pastor,’ and I had a 24-hour-a-day standing invitation to be included in the most intimate moments of people’s lives” (Grace & Peace, Issue 17, 52). In a day of instant and constant communication by social media, we can stay in touch but be surprisingly out of touch! Email solutions to problems can come across as cold, and messages conveyed through social media can be easily misunderstood due to the lack of tone and body language. Social media is effective for passing along the menu for a potluck or communicating the board meeting time. Prayer chains can conveniently and quickly share prayer needs. However, some things are best conveyed face to face.

Shepherding, a biblical image for the pastor, is a very “hands on” and present term. Social media does not excuse the pastor from, or meet the need for being a shepherd. A large percentage of pastors are now bivocational. I was bivocational during the last few years of my ministry, but I still recognized the value of face-to-face visitation and found it fulfilled me in ways that studying for the sermon or reaching out on the telephone could not. Now, as an interim pastor, I still make face-to-face calls. Sometimes the church I am serving is an hour away from my home. However, I find that setting aside a couple of afternoons per month for face-to-face visitation is still vital to my ministry. With my directory and a GPS, in three hours I can make ten visitations. The district superintendent does not normally ask me to do this as an interim pastor. Even the parishioners don’t expect a face-to-face visit. Nevertheless, when I show up to visit them, however brief the visit, they respond with both surprise and thankfulness. Most of the time, pastoral visits are pleasant with no surprises. People hide their needs until we earn their trust. With the building of trust, people will share their stories: a child addicted to drugs, or a marriage that is not as healthy as it seems on Sunday morning. It may take a long time for some to open their hearts and share their needs, but when they do, you know that you have become a pastor—their pastor. Calling in the home enhances the shepherding relationship. How

Make Pastoral Visits

What are the mechanics of a pastoral call? First, I assume that a pastor’s visit is the norm, and I want my congregation to expect to see their pastor at their door. It does not automatically mean there is a tragedy. I usually put an announcement in the bulletin

in the late winter or early spring letting folks know I will be calling on the church family in the next six to eight weeks. Near Advent, I make the same announcement and give an opportunity for people to select a time and a day by signing their name on a posted sheet with 30-minute time slots. Even if people fail to sign up, I try to take some time to see them outside of Sunday. I remind people that I will call on each family unit in the next few weeks: “I am not coming to be fed. I just read a brief Scripture, visit briefly, and pray with you.” Because the schedule is public, people will know I can only stay a few minutes. One of my favorite Scriptures to use when calling is Luke 12:22-31, in which Jesus invites people not to be anxious about anything. I don’t comment on it, since it is meant to be a comforting reminder, but at times someone will tell me what their worry is. I ask in each home, “Is there anything I can help you pray about?” It is open ended. Often I will learn that the husband’s job is not very satisfying, or a son is struggling in school, or someone is going to have a medical test. How we react when they share will define our ministry and will help determine if they will share deeper needs in the future. We are not looking for sermon illustrations on these visits, and no prayer request is shared publicly without permission. It is not a time to preach. We only do what we have said we will do: Pray with them. Don’t stay for more than 20 minutes. Remember, you made a commitment that your visit would be short. Feel free to say, “I have to move on now, but I will pray with you about this. When you want to talk more, call me, and we will schedule a time.” Sometimes simply sharing the need can be a source of comfort and healing. Busy pastor, visit the people.

BL AIR RORABAUGH is a retired minister in the Church of the Nazarene and lives in Ada, Ohio.

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I Never Wanted To Be A Campus Pastor by

R e gg i e P h i l l i p s

never wanted to be a campus pastor for a multi-site church. As a matter of fact, both times the job has been offered to me, I initially turned it down. However, in God’s time, He convinced me to accept both positions. So here I am, the Chester Campus pastor at Southside Church of the Nazarene in Chester, Virginia, and I love my job! M u lt i - O r g a n i z at i o n a l

and

M u lt i - C a m p u s

I am asked consistently at pastoral functions and district events, “So what do you really do anyway?” I can see the fear in the questioner’s eyes, wondering if I am building a ministry around a fad that will pass, or worse, that I’m offering a disingenuous church experience. After all, I offer “just a campus,” not a church. I had some of the same fears when I became campus minister. I was afraid of being seen as a placeholder instead of shepherd to the people I cared for. I was afraid I wouldn’t have opportunities to preach, something I deeply love. I was afraid the uniqueness of a campus would be lost in an attempt to mimic the persona of the church that launched it. I also didn’t understand why a church would ever start a campus instead of a church plant. I didn’t understand why a preaching rotation and videos were better than a consistent preacher. I didn’t understand the value of multi-campus to a church’s missional impact on a community. My first campus experience was as an attendee, my second was as a campus pastor. Both of those churches were still working through how to do it well. My third experience, and current ministry position, is again as a campus pastor. Now I am at a church that has well over a decade of experience in campus ministry. My vantage point has shifted radically, and so have my opinions.

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Southside Church embraced a bold vision in 2004 to become a multi-organizational, multi-campus church in order to reach two percent of the unchurched in Chesterfield County, Virginia, helping them to grow in Christ, and empowering them to serve. Becoming multi-organizational was primarily about creating new wells of evangelism and increasing our reach into the community in non-traditional ways. Southside had already launched Guardian Christian Academy many years before. That academy started with classes for just kindergarten and first grade and gradually expanded into offering learning opportunities for preschool through grade twelve. It has helped Southside build relationships with families all over the county. Southside Church also launched a nonprofit community organization called the XZone, which creates mentoring relationships with students through sports and afterschool programs. XZone has become a community partner that the county relies upon for sports programming, recreational activities, and family-oriented community events. It has strengthened our ties with the county and allowed us to reach into public schools in ways a church is traditionally not allowed to do. As a strategic bonus, by having their own 501(c) (3), they can receive community development grants that churches cannot apply for. Footsteps Counseling Center offers licensed, professional, Christian counseling to the community. This helped us minister to people who were hurting and broken in ways that short term pastoral care could not. Again, it expanded our reach and opened up new ways we could minister outside of a church service. The linchpin in our multi-organizational approach is Streamlined Developmental Services, or SDS. Through a partnership with Dr. Stan Toler, Southside created a model that

allows a for-profit company to manage all their non-ministry related daily operations—such as asset management, land development, HR, and back office functions—while turning profits into donations for the church. SDS also manages those same functions for other churches and organizations, bringing in additional revenue. SDS has elevated the profile of Southside, building strong relationships with local businesses and county officials. When I came to Southside, I had seen nothing like the multi-organizational model they used. Nor had I seen a church with such a variety of connections to families, schools, businesses, and government. Enter the multi-campus vision. Southside had created a network of connections with families who lived too far away from the church to regularly attend. The multi-organizational model had created the need for multi-campus ministry. Southside needed a campus for people to attend that was within a 20-minute drive of where they lived, everywhere a multi-org partner had created a connection into the community. For multi-campus to work, partner organizations that call Southside home must have an invested presence in each campus. This allows each campus to offer the same diversity of experience and local mission opportunities. It also requires a shift in the language Southside uses. Every campus is Southside Church, ministering in multiple locations. It also requires a commitment to excellence across all ministry areas. If any campus appears to be a junior partner, doesn’t convey the same experience of excellence, or lacks commitment to a shared vision, then division and frustration will steal focus from the mission. If you do multi-campus ministry, you will need to change who you are. Another bold step Southside took was to form a preaching team of six to eight people, one of whom may preach on any given Sunday. This talented team adds value and creativity to sermon development, while publicly elevating the value of various leaders. Even sermons undergo a group approach. Preachers follow a schedule for turning in a draft, allowing the team to give creative and theological input, forming a final draft, and giving the media ministry time to develop creative content to support the sermon. All

campus pastors are part of this team, so even if they aren’t preaching a particular weekend, they have intimately shaped the message being shared in their services. Multi-campus ministry also requires the formation of ministry teams where a team leader resources and sets vision for the entire group, but each campus has its own director and team for each ministry area. These leaders report to their campus pastor, not the team lead. This allows each campus team to be nimble enough to make culturally appropriate changes that fit their unique congregation while still tracking together with the entire church toward a shared vision and mission. When you look at the wells of evangelism and community relationships built through the multi-org, non-profit agencies, add in SDS’s shared services efficiency, and consider the shared cost benefit of multi-campus ministry, you have created an environment that is open to growth, easy to replicate, locally contextualized, and missionally unified. Add it up and multiorganizational, multi-campus ministry with a clear mission equals community and Kingdom impact like never before! From Afraid

Excited

I was afraid, but now I am excited. I lead a campus that has embraced a culture of “whatever it takes” to have a missional impact on our community. Creativity, layers of connectedness, expansive reach, and shared services allow Southside to connect 1,290 people in worship and engage 1,380 people in discipleship through 9 worship venues at 3 campuses and 2 ministry extension sites each week. We are marching toward the vision of reaching two percent of our county, mobilizing nearly 1,000 people in service opportunities. I never wanted to be a campus pastor, but I am thankful Southside looked past my fears and misunderstandings and invited me to join the team.

REGGIE PHILLIPS is pastor of the Chester Campus at Southside Church of the Nazarene in Chesterfield, Virginia.

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Changing the Scorecard:

Bridgeway Community by

Jeff Stark

hurch planting is not the answer. Well . . . that’s not quite accurate. Let me explain. Church planting doesn’t begin with the desire to plant a church, but with a desire to reach the unreached and to make disciples of people disconnected from the hope and wholeness that come through the good news of Jesus. Church planting born of missional imagination is not mere replication of a good thing in one town, but the extension of organic missional impulses into new communities. We are not franchising a method; we are fostering atmospheres for hope to break through in organic and transformative ways. The Story

B r i d g e w ay

Bridgeway Community Church was planted in Pekin, Illinois, in 2005 by Dale Schaeffer and others who had a passion to reach people who are disconnected from Jesus. The leaders sought to stand at the edge of the missional abyss and find new ways to engage people who had not yet made Jesus Lord of their lives. Bridgeway was born for a missional impulse and a belief in the mandate of Jesus to concern ourselves about a world that seems unhinged from the kingdom of God. Bridgeway’s leadership recognized that this mission was too large for a single, regional church to create the kind of change necessary, so they decided to launch missional outposts in communities surrounding Tazewell County and beyond. When I arrived at Bridgeway in 2014, I felt it was important that we keep this clear vision to be a church that would continue to lean forward into the unchartered terrain of missional engagement. For this to continue, we had to clarify our “why” (why make missional engagement the priority?) and clarify our “metrics” (the way we measured our effectiveness).

24 / GRACE & PEACE MAGAZINE FALL 2018

For us, the “why” was easy: This congregation cared deeply for those who knew nothing of the hope of Christ and for communities that existed in the carnage of brokenness. According to the Pew Research Group, the number of “Nones” in the United States (those who expressed no religious preference in census data) increased from 19 million to 54 million from 2007 to 2014. Without intentionally engaged communities of faith committed to bear witness to the kingdom of God, the number of “Nones” will continue to increase. We knew we had to do something. We trusted that sending out leaders, resources, and personnel would allow us to fully embrace the mission of God, but we had to change the scorecard or the standard by which we measured our success. Changing

the

Scorecard

Nothing will change until the scorecard changes. We pursue what we feel is valued and affirmed, even if it no longer promotes the same results it once did. We are reluctant to push to the edge of missional faithfulness when our livelihoods depend on our maintaining the status quo. In cultural Christianity, the metrics of “nickels and noses”—financial and attendance success—drove the conversation. Church growth became the telos, the aim, of most pastors’ pursuit. Our validation came from those who looked at our statistics. The driving questions were, “How much have we grown since the previous year in worship attendance and membership?” “How much have we raised in all-purpose giving, and are our budgets paid in full?” Additional questions included, “How large was our facility?” and “How many staff members do we employ?” At the heart of these questions was the assumption that success and effectiveness were measured by how many gathered at a specific geographic location. These metrics were often celebrated as “success” without our realizing how constraining these metrics became to our missional imagination. Then the world changed around us. No longer were the assumptions of cultural Christianity valid. Now, our once well-attended

programs were failing. Worship attendance declined. The once sought-after, sage advice of church growth gurus no longer produced the same results. No longer was the church at the center of a community’s social identity. Our grand narrative was replaced by fragmented narratives of the self, niche groups, and identity politics. Plateau became the new measurement of success: “Did you hold your ground?” Although the world around us changed, our cultural Christianity had bound us to metrics that constrained our missional imagination. S o , W h at

are

We To Do?

At Bridgeway Community, we had to develop a set of metrics that would point to our effectiveness in mission. In establishing three core metrics, we moved the dial from being stuck on “nickels and noses,” from “collecting and gathering” to engaging, empowering, deploying, scattering, and sending. Our three Core Metrics are as follows: 1. Gospel Saturation: We regularly ask, “Who has said ‘yes’ to a new story in Jesus Christ?” Do we adequately provide the means through which people enter the transformative journey of discipleship, plunge into the holy waters of baptism, and bear witness in their lives, relationships, and aspirations to the transforming power of the kingdom of God? 2. Local Community Transformation: We believe if a church is going to exist in the community, it should improve the community, that qualitative and quantitative change will happen within that community, neighborhood, town, or city. 3. Micro and Macro Multiplication: We develop disciples to multiply other disciples, leaders, missional creativity, ministries, campuses, and churches. This is an intentional process where pastors move

from the center of attention to being the ones who equip others for their good work. These are the stories we tell. These are the “successes” that we celebrate. You will seldom hear us mention our size, how many people attended on Easter Sunday, or how large our budget is. Instead, we allow these metrics to become our new scorecard and the catalyst for stories to be told to fuel greater missional imagination. We’ve discovered that in changing the scorecard and clarifying the “why,” church planting and extended outreach is the natural outcome. In living out the new scorecard, Bridgeway Community Church has recently reduced its congregational size by nearly 10 percent and decreased its annual budget by $30,000. And we counted that a victory? Why? In June of 2018, we deployed our first church plant resident to plant Arrow Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Christian and Heather Sapp will pioneer a movement in conjunction with the North Carolina District to plant more churches in and throughout North Carolina. In addition, we commissioned our second church plant resident, Seth and Tai Major, to plant Reachway Church in Peoria, Illinois, in an underserved area where they’ve partnered with local community organizations to bring transformation to the area. We will be deploying a church plant resident couple, Kevin and Laura Grose to Switzerland and will coach another young planter family that will partner with the Wisconsin District to plant in Madison, Wisconsin. What looks like loss to the old scorecard is a celebration for Bridgeway Community Church. Ministry in the 21st Century requires us to tell different stories, imagine different outcomes, deploy the potential of a greater number of missional agents, and yes, plant churches!

JEFF STARK is lead pastor of Bridgeway Community Church, a Church of the Nazarene located in Marquette Heights, Illinois.

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From Clueless to Clergy Discovering and Developing Ministers for a Life of Service By Mark Bane

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ust before my 18th birthday, Christ captivated my life. I accepted Christ and joined a small Nazarene Church in Virginia. Soon Pastor Baun (the pastor of the Nazarene Church) invited me to preach on a Sunday night. A little confused, I wondered why a three-month-old Christian, fresh from drug and alcohol abuse and a life of crime, was asked to preach. Nervously, I stood before 22 Nazarenes. While talking, I felt a heavy finger on my right shoulder. Looking only to find no one there, I heard a voice that seemed to say: “You’re going to do this the rest of your life.” This was my call to Christian ministry. Rev. Baun’s role in my hearing God’s call was vital. Without his courageous insight, it is doubtful I would have heard God’s call. Rev.

Baun sensed what I could not. He thought God could use anyone, even me. He provided experiences to assist my pursuit of the call. He and his family made me feel valued as I never had before. The following year, Rev. Baun encouraged me to pursue education. “A call to ministry is a call to prepare,” he said. I had dropped out of school in the eighth grade and had little education, so I needed to take GED courses first. He encouraged the church to celebrate this victory. I applied to college (Trevecca Nazarene University), and to my amazement, I was accepted! Going to Trevecca changed my life further. There, I met my wife of now 36 years. What an impact one person can have on a young minister’s life! Looking back, I see these experiences have crystalized into four key components that I have used to develop ministers. I have seen these areas help navigate other young men and women through the process of ministry from clueless to clergy. 1. Cultivate the call: One of the things I heard often from pastors while I served as district superintendent was that there weren’t enough leaders in the local church to do the needed ministry. I am convinced the leaders who are needed to do ministry

in the local church are already present, just not yet discovered. How do we identify these people and begin cultivating the call God has placed on their lives? • Be sensitive to the Spirit to identify the men and women He is calling. • Avoid limiting who might be a minister by preconceived secular standards. God can call anyone regardless of gifts, skills, and qualities. God doesn’t call qualified people; He qualifies those He calls. We tend to look for the finished product rather than a diamond in the rough. Most of us would not have chosen Moses, an ex-murderer from Egypt, to deliver God’s people out of bondage, but God did. • Preach and discuss regularly the call to ministry. Give your congregation the opportunity to respond. When I first met Nathan, he was an elementary school teacher in Georgia. After the birth of his son, he took a break from his job. Occasionally, during his time off, he joined me as I visited the hospital or connected with people in the community. Each year I preached a series on the call to ministry. Nathan sensed a call from God to full-time ministry, and he is now a lead pastor. He has become a great leader, evangelist, and church planter. Often a gentle nudge or an opportunity to serve in ministry is all someone needs. 2. Provide experience: I call this “OJST” (On the Job Servant Training). The best ministry experience is servant ministry. I am currently planting an urban core church in the heart of Kansas City called “TLC”—Total Life Church of The Nazarene. I always seek someone to accompany me while I minister in the community. It can be difficult to find someone when time is limited; however, it is well worth the investment of time. I’ve been privileged to see many young ministers develop. Currently a young seminary student named Femi Akinmoladun, who was the first to join TLC, stands out. I have watched him develop into a great minister. We have experienced difficult congregants, gospel presentations, hospital visits, baptisms, and spiritual conversions together. I

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Thank God

for people who are willing to

respond to the call, sacrifice much, and work hard to prepare for what

God

will

do in their lives moving forward.

have watched him develop the skill of servanthood. I think I have learned more from him than he has from me. 3. Encourage education: There are many great options educationally. Fortunately, we are blessed at TLC to be geographically close to an amazing liberal arts college (MidAmerica Nazarene University), a great Bible college (Nazarene Bible College), and a strong seminary (Nazarene Theological Seminary). I have always encouraged those who are called to immediately pursue training through one of our educational institutions. A wonderful option is to send the candidate for several years of preparation and training. Another great option, more accessible today than ever before, is online education. It is amazing to watch some of the students in our area become involved in our ministry at TLC. They often work two jobs and take a full course load while being heavily engaged in multiple ministries at TLC. Among these exceptional students is Jenee Noriega. Although she came from an impossible situation of drugs, abuse, and crime, she has plugged into TLC and is thriving in ministry, while studying theology in seminary. Her experiences are informing her educational endeavors and vice versa. Thank God for people who are willing to respond to the call, sacrifice much, and work hard to prepare for what God will do in their lives moving forward. Education is cheap at any cost. Few things enhance a ministerial candidate’s education more than “OJST” while in the process of formal education. 4. Guide toward ordination: One of the great opportunities leaders have when nurturing ministerial candidates is to lead them forward in the credentialing

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process. Although the responsibility officially lies squarely on the developing minister, a loving, diligent, and thoughtful pastor offering support can make all the difference. In my experience, as soon as someone senses a call, we give them an assignment, a local preacher’s license, and we begin their process toward ordination. Giving a local preacher’s license is probably the most important step in the journey. My practice has been to have local license candidates interviewed by the church board to consider gifts, graces, and abilities early on. Often these board interviews help clarify the call and provide initial affirmation. Occasionally, these interviews confirm that the call was not for vocational ministry, and these candidates are liberated to pursue other ministry areas outside of vocational (pastoral) ministry. I would encourage lead pastors to initiate this process early and nudge every candidate throughout the process. It is a way to multiply our ministry: We “make heroes,” instead of trying to always be “the hero” ourselves. Keep your radar up and your mentoring skills polished. Be alert! Prospective ministers are waiting to be discovered, developed, nurtured, and equipped for a life of fruitful service.

M ARK BANE serves as director of Evangelism and New Church Development for the Church of the Nazarene USA/Canada. Mark is the founding pastor of TLC: Total Life Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City, Missouri.

Total Life Church – Our First Year By Orobola Obafemi Akinmoladun

ver the past year, we at Total Life Church of the Nazarene (TLC) have seen with our eyes true victory in Jesus. The Spirit is forming among us a community that dares to say that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. TLC is a new church in the “urban core” of Kansas City, and currently meets in space provided by Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS). We are a church hungry and thirsty to demonstrate Christ in our various surrounding communities. People who have often been overlooked are being reached with the hope of Jesus Christ. One such young man was saved on Easter Sunday. He was baptized and became a member of TLC on August 5, and this young man is allowing God to control his life. He is on the journey of trusting the Father. Another of these overlooked people is a woman from our community who recently stood up boldly in the middle of our service to ask for prayer for deliverance from drugs. With tears in her eyes, she confessed that she wants to live into the victory of Jesus. As we reach out to people, two of our pastors, Jenee and Stevie, have moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico, with their children in order to serve and minister at TLC. Jennie and Stevie have been radically transformed by the gospel, and now they seek to bring that same experience to others in Kansas City. We celebrate many others who have come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and together, we are learning what it means to be marked as His children. We also rejoice to see young adults, including university students and young professionals, getting involved in this ministry, willing to step outside their safe “bubble” to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

With God’s help, and under the leadership of our lead pastor, Mark Bane, we are seeking to push back all that is darkness. We believe that God is leading us to pray for 204 church plants like TLC— one in every major city in America. We are a church that is reaching the lost, connecting them to the church, growing in Christ and in holiness, and being sent out as agents of perfect love. The history of the Church of the Nazarene is undeniably “urban” and “inner-city.” Historically, our church has boldly launched into these kinds of areas. Our church follows the Christ who pitched his tent into the ugly yet beautiful areas of our world. Its actions mimic the outlandish, incredible, and passionate love of Christ. We know that the God of our beginning is the God of our way forward. God will help us to pick up the paint brush and paint His intended future. As the church moves into the spaces of the vacant, the harassed, and the helpless, we participate with God in writing a different narrative. We throw creative parties, welcoming the single mother, the widower, the former felon, the parentless teen, the homeless family, and the innocent child into God’s kingdom. We throw first-time baby showers for unwed mothers, give groceries to families, and provide cars for those without, all for the sake of proclaiming the gospel. We believe God delights in the transformation of His cities as part of His vision for the freedom of His entire creation. We pray that TLC would be an encouraging force, led by the Spirit of God, impacting the urban core. We want to be more than a “new trend.” In fact, we want to be part of recapturing the original mission of the Church of the Nazarene to be part of the transformation of urban centers. We still believe that God has a heart for the city!

OROBOL A OBAFEMI (FEMI) AKINMOL ADUN is pursuing a Master of Divinity Degree with a certificate in Church Planting at Nazarene Theological Seminary (NTS) and is currently a bivocational associate pastor at Total Life Church of the Nazarene (TLC).

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MULTICULTURAL

By Byron L. Hannon

efore being called into pastoral ministry, I worked for 25 years in business settings. One of the common themes across my various work experiences was the pervasive use of jargon. Regardless of the company, certain terms, abbreviations, and acronyms helped form a common language to convey a business condition, action, need, or response. Those new to the organization always faced a learning curve, which invariably resulted in periodic misuse of our terminology. Learning new modes of communication can be difficult. I am still amazed at the myriad of ways our 26-letter alphabet can be organized in three-, four-, or five-letter acronyms. The Church has its jargon, too; it always has. Much of it is taken directly from Scripture, while other jargon gained traction as a result of the various councils convened in the postapostolic period as issues of orthodoxy were debated and resolved. All of the various branches of Christianity and the respective denominations that flow from those branches also have their jargon. Anyone who has ever sat in a local ministerial alliance meeting can attest to this. Jargon use becomes increasingly easy to use as we are initiated into our respective cultures. The list of terms we use to communicate with each other grows as we seek meaningful and creative ways to minister to increasingly diverse populations. A learning curve and periodic misuse of certain terms comes with this. Two relatively new examples of jargon misused extensively in the Church are multicultural and cross-cultural. These two terms are often treated as equivalent expressions. However, they are not necessarily the same. While it is possible for churches to

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be both multicultural and cross-cultural, it is much easier to be the former without being the latter. As one who pastored in a church setting with different ethnicities and racial groups, I view multicultural as most often referring to the regular presence of different ethnicities and/or races within a congregation, with both their shared and distinctive norms and values. In a strictly multicultural setting, little or no explicit attention, value, or focus is placed on learning about, understanding, or respecting different cultural dynamics and how those differences may influence response to biblical truth and biblical community. It is more likely that there is an underlying assumption that those who regularly gather for worship, prayer, study, or outreach are like-minded about Christ, and that likemindedness is all that really matters. A visual for this could be a dinner plate with three kinds of vegetables, each occupying its own space on the plate. The zucchini, green beans, and broccoli are all vegetables, and each has a distinctive visibility and taste; but no more attention is paid other than to what is obvious through observation. Cross-cultural, in that same church setting, suggests that explicit attention, value, or focus is placed on understanding and respecting cultural dynamics and how differences may influence response to biblical truth and biblical community. These settings include a “reaching over” or “crossing” of cultural boundary lines beyond simply being aware of differences in appearance or language. Effort is made to understand and appreciate differences as being valuable to the formation and sustenance of community. Visually, it would be more like succotash,

CROSS-CULTURAL with the different vegetable ingredients creating an entirely new thing. Here are a few examples a local church might consider if seeking to become cross-cultural. • Have you noticed how some cultural groups seem to prioritize relationships and connectedness over adherence to set time schedules or vice versa? Are there any learning opportunities here? • How might the dynamic of “call and response” during a sermon (congregants verbally reacting to the preacher, commenting and encouraging him or her) affect overall congregational mood? What are the implications if this is encouraged or discouraged? • Why do some groups have a strong negative reaction to allowing children to refer to the adults in their circle by their first name? What is the norm for your church? • How might a cultural group’s orientation to group over individual identity affect the dynamics of your small group ministry? • What do you think about the value of your English-speaking folks learning a new language in the same way those whose first language is not English have learned or are learning English? • Are there any subtle ways in which the dynamics of dominant and minority status manifest themselves in your church? For reasons such as these, I think interchanging multicultural with crosscultural is bad socio-cultural hermeneutics. This may seem like a small point, but I argue that it is anything but small. Preparation for pastoral ministry includes significant time and effort in hermeneutical study. We, hopefully, continue

that discipline as we proclaim the truths of Scripture because words and phrases are important to biblical exegesis. Misuse can result in false assumptions, false beliefs, and a bad grasp of doctrine by those over whom pastors exercise spiritual care. Pastors and local churches also have to exegete community, society, and culture. The only exception to that would be an unfortunate choice to be hermetically sealed-off from the world that God so loved (ref. John 3:16). Excluding this, we need to be as deliberate in the careful use of words that describe sociocultural dynamics as we are in preparing sermons for Sunday morning. If we’re going to use jargon, let’s use it correctly. More and more churches are becoming multicultural, and I believe that is a positive, revealing progress from the rigidity and bias of church social structures built on false foundations of sameness and privilege. Understanding the difference is just a beginning in our collective growth in grace. If we move on to being cross-cultural, we will become a community that looks more and more like succotash. That, I think, is closer to the spirit of Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

BYRON L . HANNON is an elder in the Church of the Nazarene with a passion for teaching and discipling.

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CAN EVANGELISM BE

FUN? by

utreach is rarely embraced with enthusiasm in the life of the local church. Confrontational models from our past have not translated well into the modern era. Thus, outreach, or evangelism, has been relegated to the specialists, and those creatures are few and far between in most local churches. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. I suspect most of us have come to realize the foundation of outreach is nothing more than relationships. Significant relationships render authentic conversation possible, even desirable. Authentic conversation is one of the delicious fruits of meaningful relationships. People are starving for the fruit of authentic conversation. Unfortunately, our church experiences have not always prepared us well to explore deep relationships and pursue meaningful conversations as we sit together in the local coffee shop to converse over our favorite brews. Even more problematic, local churches have forgotten the importance of having fun together. Thus, most of our folks plan their fun away from any connection to the local church and its people. But it is most often the fun times that allow relationships to

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Donald M. Minter

blossom and thrive. We enjoy hanging out with people and having fun, and once the fun starts, meaningful conversation is never far behind. Trek On

At Flagstaff (Arizona) Church of the Nazarene (FlagNaz), we embrace a simple approach to creative outreach, a “no drama” method of outreach. We embrace a key principle in regard to outreach and evangelism: “Have fun and invite others to have fun with you.” Pretty simple isn’t it? Our folks have no trouble inviting their friends and acquaintances to “…come have fun with us!” The key is to associate the fun with God’s people and God’s Church. Once done, creative outreach is off and running. For me, and many of the people of FlagNaz, hiking (including “extreme” hiking) is one of the primary ways we have fun. In particular, many enjoy hiking across the Grand Canyon, a rim-to-rim-to-rim hike that is one of the most difficult trails in the United States. Each May, our team gathers with pastors and laypeople from all over the

country for the annual trek across the Grand Canyon. We think it is fun, and we invite others to have fun with us. After over 20 years of trekking across one the most beautiful places in the world, we decided to start a creative outreach ministry called “Trek On Ministries.” More Than Just Fun

As fun as it is, the fun is not the end of the story. Rather, it is the foundation upon which all stories rest, the footing of healthy relationships, and the gateway to authentic conversations. Thus, the key to creative outreach is to do more than just have fun. At FlagNaz we have developed a very specific strategy for creative outreach called “spiderwebbing.” Spider-webbing is a carefully designed five-step process that combines fun and outreach. These five steps reflect the temperature of the relationship: 1. Cold: Fun, relationship-based activity with little or no God-talk. 2. Cool: Exposure to the relationship with Jesus Christ that my family and I have. 3. Warm: Authentic conversation regarding mine and my family’s relationship with Christ. 4. Hot: Exposure by the new friend to worship and to the beginnings of discipleship. 5. Sizzling: Intentionally moving toward a relationship that involves ongoing discipleship. The decision to take the next step is guided by a simple premise: Will the next step put the relationship at risk, or will it stimulate authentic ongoing conversation? Mike’s Story

Mike is an average husband and father trying to raise two teenage sons. Overweight and out of shape, he was sliding down a slippery slope in regard to his health and priorities. He still had dreams of making

one more run at life, turning off the TV, crawling off the couch, and embracing something worthy of his time and energy. His family visited FlagNaz, and he learned of a group of men and women who planned to cross the Grand Canyon by foot in a day. Out of curiosity, he decided to attend the organizational meeting. The adventure requires six months of training, so he joined all the would-be hikers in driving to Phoenix (away from the snow in Flagstaff) to embark on the first training hike in January of 2007. It would not be long before he was panting, feeling nauseated, rethinking his decision, and wondering what he had gotten himself into. But the veteran hikers reassured him, encouraging him to stay the course, literally walking beside him in conversation as the group headed back down the two-mile trail. By the time they crossed the finish line, new relationships were already budding, and Mike was soon to be one of the team. Ten years later, Mike and his wife are still faithful members of the FlagNaz church, more active in communal life than ever. Mike now serves on the church board, leads a men’s ministry, and coordinates all of FlagNaz’s hiking adventures. Mike recently assisted two pastors from Georgia in their first Grand Canyon crossing, and I suspect it will not be long before those pastors are using a hiking adventure to creatively reach out to their communities. At FlagNaz we celebrate this and other platforms of fun. We ski, ride bikes, camp, play basketball, go to movies, and more. These events are all infused with intentionality, and our goal is creative outreach at its very best. Making outreach fun has created an environment where sharing the Gospel can flourish and all can participate.

DONALD M . MINTER is lead pastor of Flagstaff Church of the Nazarene (FlagNaz) in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the founder of Trek On Ministries.

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INTERVIEW OUTRE ACH BY EMBRACING DIFFERENCES: A n Inter view with Rose Brower-Young I N T E R V I E W E R : R E B E CC A R O D E H E AV E R Recently, Rebecca Rodeheaver (G&P), assistant editor of Grace & Peace, sat down with Rose Brower-Young (RB-Y), to discuss creative outreach that involves learning and embracing cultural differences. Rev. Brower-Young is a longtime pastor who was recently elected district superintendent of the Canada West District.

G & P : T E L L U S A L I T T L E A B O U T YO U R E X P E R I E N C E S AT C A L G A R Y E A S T ? RB -Y: I started as the interim at Calgary East in 2010, and became their pastor in 2011, so I was there for eight years. The Calgary East church was very different from any other community I had been involved in. It was located in a lower income area, a couple of blocks from some schools. Many of our people were immigrants and didn’t even have high school diplomas. Our church consisted of just under 100 people and 18 different languages were spoken, so it was very diverse, which kind of made it fun! I fell in love with the people. Some of them had been in the community for 40 years and had raised their kids there. Probably half of our people normally walked or used public transit, so most of our people lived within 10 minutes of the church building. We were the only visible church in an area of about 60,000 people. G & P : W H AT C R E AT I V E O U T R E AC H S T R AT E G I E S O R M E T H O D S D I D YO U USE TO CONNEC T WITH PEOPLE? RB-Y: We had many first-generation immigrants in that area and many who came from other countries with maledominated cultures. Our area of the city had a full-time female social worker who would go door-to-door, but the women were not allowed to answer. They would peek from behind the man, but they weren’t allowed to speak to the social worker. So we initially had to gain a lot of trust.

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The social worker brought together a council of all the organizations that assist people in the area and included the church. She invited me to the table, and I got to meet community organizations and leaders —a former city councilman, financial literacy program workers, and those from domestic abuse assistance programs. Our area is supported by many groups that offer food banks and clothing drives. So, I tried to find areas of service that our church could provide that others could not. We did have a building, and there weren’t many facilities like ours in the area. Local schools charge up to $600 an hour for groups to use any of their classrooms. The local community center was being closed down because it was not maintained. We had a building, and we started with that. When I first got there the building was looking rundown. So we started renovating. We had a decent kitchen and started hosting groups for free. We now have two play school groups that use our facility. Another pastor friend, Darlene, helped lead a course at the church that taught abused women to find their voices. We have built a variety of relationships even across religious lines by going beyond the basic needs that many other groups provided. G & P : W H AT A DV I C E W O U L D YO U G I V E T O PA S T O R S W H O WA N T T O R E AC H O U T I N T H E I R COMMUNITIES BUT ARE NOT SURE W H E R E T O S TA R T ?

RB -Y:We begin by finding out exactly what the needs in the community are. We have all kinds of assumptions about what we think the needs are, but personal connections help clarify. For example, we have a large 10day party in Calgary every year called the Calgary Stampede, and thousands of people come. It’s very common for churches to put on barbecues or pancake breakfasts during this time, and we have participated every year. It’s all free, people just show up on Sunday morning. However, we had to adjust our participation based on the makeup of our community. For instance, we learned to respect the fact that many don’t eat pork for religious or cultural reasons. So, we honor that when we are serving food during these events. We assume that people will eat it because it’s free, but if we take a few extra steps to acknowledge and respect their preferences, I think that makes a difference. In my community, a lot of lonely people live behind the closed doors, especially the women, so it’s a unique opportunity for me as a woman pastor to be able to reach out to them. Each church has to find its place in the community. I would begin by saying, just do something! Build relationships with your people. I’ve been challenging my folks with the “360.” Who lives in front of you, behind you, and on each side of you? God has placed us somewhere to be His instrument to reach that area. So, who’s your 360? Let’s focus on that. Also, give people time and opportunities to build relationships in the community. I don’t want to allow even important aspects of church work, like meetings, for instance,

to interfere with potential opportunities to be available to minister in times of need. Ministering and building relationships doesn’t always have to be organized. Build relationships and deposit enough into the relationship that when there’s a crisis, you can speak about the hope of Christ. We’re a smaller congregation compared to others, so we cannot afford the whole attractional element of ministry like some of the megachurches in our area. What can we offer people? Well, we have ourselves, sanctified believers, and we have our building, and as long as we’re authentic in that I think God will honor it. G & P : D O YO U H AV E A N Y S T O R I E S O F FA I L E D AT T E M P T S AT N E W O U T R E AC H M I N I S T R I E S , A N D W H AT D I D YO U L E A R N F R O M T H E S I T UAT I O N ? RB -Y: I remember my late husband Kelly’s vision for a ministry that had a variety of entertaining opportunities that reached children: juggling, illusion, balloons, drama, unicycling, songs, and stories. He built a trailer where the side would flip out

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all comes down to

rel ationships and trust.

into a stage, and we would pull it up to any playground or cart area in the town or city and put on these shows. It worked really well, and it continues to be effective in many towns, especially in rural areas. However, by the time I got to East church, the culture there had changed so much, especially in the city, that kids weren’t in the playgrounds anymore. We tried to keep doing it for a few years, and I was running myself ragged hanging out with youth volunteers all week—but we weren’t reaching any kids. That ministry was dear to my heart, and it was something that Kelly and I had built together, but I had to let that go in this city. There are other examples, many of which failed when they become more about my interests or our church’s interests, rather than about the felt needs of the community. We tried men’s breakfast, and for us that hasn’t generated anything except getting our men up early. Trying to reach the men in our community has become tougher. G & P : D O YO U H AV E A N Y T H O U G H T S O N H O W C R E AT I V E O U T R E AC H MIGHT LOOK DIFFERENT IN C A N A DA T H A N I N T H E U S ? RB -Y: One thing that I have noticed about the United States is that people seem more open to talking about religion. In Canada, it’s a very private thing. You would never hear what our Prime Minister’s religion or faith is. Our leaders get mocked, they get degraded if any of that is mentioned. I don’t think it’s as anti-Jesus as it used to be here, but people are very apathetic to Christianity. So as far as

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creative outreach, street corner preaching or handing out tracts just doesn’t work. People aren’t receptive to it. It all comes down to relationships and trust. After my husband passed away, my kids were eight and ten. We were at a soccer game, and one of the moms from the school came over and asked, “Do you really think your religion is helping you through this phase?” She just watched our lifestyle and how we responded to this crisis. If we sound like the rest of the world, what’s the difference between us and them? Why should they be wanting anything that we have? G & P : D O YO U H AV E A N Y F I N A L W O R D S O N C R E AT I V E O U T R E AC H ? RB -Y: I don’t want to call it low-hanging fruit, but one of the creative things that we can do is reach out to other ethnic groups. At our last congregation, there was a Spanish Pentecostal church that rented our facility. We made connections with this group and as time went on, the Lord led a variety of people across our path. Many of these connections were Christians from different cultures with whom we partnered. On Pentecost Sundays, we started joining these churches in worship. If that’s what heaven is going to be like, I am so excited for it! By partnering with these different cultures, we learn that even those who look different from us are not so different after all.

Fidelity Investments Switches to Electronic Payment for 403(b) Accounts

f you’re a participant in the Nazarene 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan, January 1, 2019, is an important date to remember. That’s when Fidelity Investments will no longer accept paper checks for contributions to the 403(b) retirement accounts of ministers and church laypersons.

But there’s no reason to panic. Online 403(b) Contributions is available to allow your church treasurer/ administrator to seamlessly transition from check payments to electronic funds transfer.

Access to Online 403(b) Contributions is available by selecting the green icon [403(b) Deposits] in the upper right corner of the home page at pbusa.org. A handy video provides training on how to create profiles, set up payments, and make and track electronic contributions. Just access the Resources tab, select Videos/Podcasts, and look for Using the 403(b) Contributions System. Church employees are encouraged to share this information with those responsible for making payments on their behalf to the 403(b) plan.

Got questions? Contact us at 888-888-4656. Serving Those Who Serve

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Let s

RETHINK Revival

By Norman Moore

district superintendent invited me to bring a brief devotional message at his monthly pastors’ fellowship. After the meeting, a pastor in his 30s asked me if I would come to his church. I replied, “Sure! Do you want services Sunday through Wednesday or Friday through Sunday?” He responded, “Friday through Sunday will be enough.” He said that he would talk to his church board and call me about the dates. When he phoned to confirm the dates, I was a bit surprised at his description of the board meeting. He told them, “I want to have Norman Moore to come for a revival. They

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responded, “What’s a revival?” The pastor’s reply was, “I don’t know. I’ve never been in one.” This conversation is not unlike many conversations about revival in many Nazarene churches today. This prompts the question: What is the current state of revivals in the Church of the Nazarene in the United States and Canada? T i m e s H av e C h a n g e d

Our best analysis from pastors, district superintendents, global ministry leaders, and evangelists reveals that a majority of

our churches do not have any specifically scheduled revival services each year. Further inquiry indicates that revivals are fewer and shorter among those churches that still schedule them. The various causes of this trend are complex. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but here are some things I’ve observed based upon decades of serving as a full-time evangelist in the Church of the Nazarene: 1. It is difficult for some people to attend weeknight services. In many homes, both parents are employed and have a long work commute. There are also more things competing for families’ limited time. 2. Many churches do not feel they can afford to spend resources on revival services. According to recent reports from Nazarene Research, 75% of Nazarene Churches in the United States have a Sunday morning worship attendance of 99 or less and have an annual income of $150,000 or less. An increasing number of pastors are bivocational. 3. Some churches have had a negative experience with an evangelist, so they don’t schedule revivals anymore. Unfortunately, this has also caused mistrust of evangelists in general among some churches. 4. There has been an overall de-emphasis regarding traditional revival services in aspects of the Church of the Nazarene and in other denominational groups. R e t h i n k i n g R e v i va l Light of Trends

Though this is not an exhaustive list of the converging influences, it can help us begin to rethink revival. Tod Bolsinger’s popular book, Canoeing the Mountains, cites the following insight from Ed Friedman: “For a fundamental reorientation to occur, that spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new perceptions beyond the control of our thinking process must happen first.” Bolsinger reflects upon this quote in the following way: “What is needed? An adventure that requires adaptive capacity” (p. 33). As we rethink revival, we must prioritize the pursuit of adaptive, practical, and effective opportunities where God’s people

can experience a focused time of evangelistic, renewing, and edifying preaching. We must refuse to place blame and to compare today’s culture to the culture of 1959. Instead, we must take initiative to begin new, respectful, and candid discussions among pastors, evangelists, district superintendents, and other leaders in the church about the realities of today and the place of evangelists in the life of the Church. Perhaps this will allow us to take new risks, experiment with methods, and invest in new efforts toward revival. It would be a good idea to discard the inaccurate notion that revivals are simply an outdated idea. Lost people still need to be saved, believers still need to be sanctified, and the Church still needs to be revived. Pastoral and lay leadership still need to be encouraged in their ministries. Scripture reminds us that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). There is still a place for a God-called evangelist to come alongside the ministry of local church leaders and help them move forward with new passion for the lost. H ow E va n g e l i st s a n d Churches Can Adapt

Sometimes I’m asked how I have sustained my evangelism and revival ministry since 1979. From the start, I never expected that a freewill love offering, with no minimum required or guaranteed, would provide the equivalent livelihood of a pastor with similar education, experience, and ability. In an environment where 75% of our congregations have a Sunday morning worship attendance of 99 or less, in order to continue for decades, I would serve many smaller churches, and some of whom would have limited finances. I am absolutely convinced that there is no correlation between the size of a church and the working of the Holy Spirit. It is an honor to preach

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must begin new, respectful,

and candid discussions among pastors, evangelists, district superintendents, and other

leaders about the realities and the pl ace of evangelists in the life of the

God’s Word anywhere, anytime, to anyone, whether in a church of 20 or 2,000! If an evangelist is not independently wealthy or is not supplemented by a spouse’s income, then he or she is usually bivocational, or, as I have done, has developed a team of ministry partners—family and friends who have supported the ministry with prayer and financial support. A support team can allow the evangelist to serve in other contexts: foreign missions, inner city compassionate ministry, church planting, mass media, and ministering as a pastor or staff member of a local church. These partners develop over time as the result of prayer, conversations, and by simply providing availability for those who feel led to participate. Another sustaining factor is my relentless conviction of my call to itinerant evangelism. In her poignant book, Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance, Angela Duckworth offers valuable insight: “In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hard working. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. It was this combination of passion and perseverance that

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Church.

made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit” (p. 8). So, what is the way forward? Perhaps pastors and evangelists can receive help from Marshall Goldsmith’s advice to coworkers in the book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He presents his coworkers with “The Four Commitments.” They are: 1. Let go of the past. 2. Tell the truth. 3. Be supportive and helpful—not cynical or negative. 4. Pick something to improve yourself, so everyone is more focused on “improving” than “judging” (p. 114). Open-minded, kind, respectful conversations that explore fresh options can help us to rethink revivals, follow through with specific actions, and (most importantly) allow God to use a wide range of options to usher in renewals to our churches.

NORM AN MOORE is a tenured evangelist in the Church of the Nazarene and a member of the committee on the interests of the God-called evangelist in the Church of the Nazarene.

Not Afraid to Fail Duneland Community Church Chesterton, IN

By Greg Arthur

n a small Northwest Indiana town, nestled against the south shore beaches of Lake Michigan, at the far reaches of suburban Chicago, the rich, dark soil is remarkably fertile. You are never more than five minutes from a field where the corn is head high in August or the soybeans seem to stretch on for miles. The beautifully cultivated land makes you believe anything could grow here with enough patience and work. However, it is not a place where you would expect to find innovative ways of growing the kingdom of God. On a Friday night in Chesterton you can still find the town gathered at an actual drivein movie theater, getting a frosty mug of root beer at the local fast food joint, or sitting on the bleachers at the high school football game. So how did a Nazarene Church in Chesterton, of all places, go from being a tiny congregation to a community driven with a missional zeal that has led it into unexpected places? Growing

in the

Soil

Failure

The innovations that have taken root and grown so unexpectedly at Duneland Community Church have done so in the surprisingly fertile soil of failure. Originally planted by lay leaders from a larger Nazarene church in Gary, Indiana, Chesterton Church

of the Nazarene was a small family outpost. Much like the town of Chesterton, which is easily dismissed as just another exit off two major interstates that roll through town, this church was unnoticed. It was hidden away in this quiet town filled with steel workers, farmers, and commuters. The church gathered in a small, white, clapboard building each week without much happening. Fifty years saw eighteen pastoral changes and little growth. Then, the core group of families that made up Chesterton Church of the Nazarene decided to take a big risk. Working with a new pastor, the district, and some consultants, they decided to become something new. Within 18 months the church had a new name (Duneland Community Church), had sold its building, and moved into a local school. They reshaped their worship service and adopted a new vision focused on reaching out to those the church had forgotten or lost along the way. This was a huge leap of faith. The next 10 years were filled with amazing breakthroughs and some of the most painful moments a church can experience. After having risked so much, this season of rebirth taught the church valuable lessons, especially through their failures. At this point in Dunelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history, God

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called my family and me to be part of their story. When we arrived, we found a church that appeared to have very little appealing about it. There was no building. There was no staff. There was little money, and the church was significantly in debt. There were, however, a few vital ingredients that would serve the church in its revitalization. Key Ingredients

Rebirth

First, there were faithful people who survived everything the church had experienced, from its rebirth to its rapid climb and demise. You can do a lot with people who are that committed. Second, there was a vision to be a kind of church that was more focused on what happened outside its building than on what happened inside of it. Third, there was desperation. This is one of the essential ingredients to cultivate a fertile soil of innovation. With everything they had been through, the people of Duneland were willing to try just about anything to see a harvest for the Kingdom. Armed with desperation and a sense of calling, we embarked on a journey none of us had ever been on before, and none of us were quite sure where it would lead. D u n e l a n d T o d ay

Today, Duneland is experiencing surprising Kingdom innovation. We are deeply engaged in the fight against human trafficking both internationally and locally. We are known for our partnership with Free the Girls, a non-profit that provides jobs for survivors of sex trafficking around the globe. God also led us to start “Just Love,” which ministers to women caught in the sex industry. Recently, over 30 percent of our church ran the Chicago marathon and raised $100,000 to provide clean water in Africa. We planted a worshiping community in a local mobile home park. Internationally, we helped build wells in Haiti and are supporting the Village of Hope in Bangladesh. These new aspects of our ministry have helped us become a training and sending church where young pastors, especially women, can flourish. We couldn’t imagine any of these things when we began the process of renovating our church culture.

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L o n g -T e r m I n v e s t m e n t s

Where did the breakthroughs come from? They began with a deep commitment to building a culture of leadership development, empowering everyday leaders and giving them permission to fail. Long-term leadership development was costly, because it meant we didn’t have energy for other approaches that may have brought quicker short-term growth. Rather than trying to hire “professionals” to lead mission, we focus on training everyday leaders to become missionaries in the world around them. As a result of this investment, all of the successful ministries we have started are led by people who have learned to answer two questions: “What is God saying to me?” and “What am I going to do about it?” Another major focus has been on slowing down and getting healthy. If our leaders aren’t healthy, emotionally mature, and practicing rhythms of rest, they won’t be able to build sustainable ministries. We have learned to practice Sabbath as a community, and we build our daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythms around rest. There is deep trust and accountability built into our community, so that we can lovingly shape one another toward greater health. Perhaps nothing has helped us thrive quite as much as failure. For all the incredible ministries we have seen take root in our church, far more failed to survive. We have quite a list of local and international partnerships and ministry attempts that have not lasted. By giving our people permission to dream and fail, however, we have seen the most surprising and wonderful fruit of the Kingdom grow in our church.

GREG ARTHUR is lead pastor of Duneland Community Church of the Nazarene in Chesterton, Indiana. Read more about Duneland and other similar churches in Edison Churches: Experiments in Innovation and Breakthrough (The Foundry Publishing, 2017).

RESOURCE

ALERT

Edison Churches: Experiments in Innovation and Breakthrough edited by Jesse Middendorf, Greg Arthur, Megan M. Pardue, and Josh Broward (The Foundry Publishing, 2017). T H E E D I TO R I A L T E A M AT G R A C E & P E A C E M AG A Z I N E

his quarter, in anticipation of M19, and in harmony with our emphasis upon creative outreach, we are spotlighting a recent book released by The Foundry entitled, Edison Churches: Experiments in Innovation and Breakthrough, edited by Jesse Middendorf, Greg Arthur, Megan M. Pardue, and Josh Broward (The Foundry Publishing, 2017). As the title suggests, this book highlights churches and ministries that are finding innovative ways to be instruments of transformation for the gospel. The book begins with an emphasis upon two key aspects of innovation: failure and pioneers! The latter (pioneering) is likely not a surprising addition, since most innovations in all areas usually involves those willing to move ahead firstâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;pioneers. However, the former (failure) is equally important, since virtually no great work of innovation is flawless. This book emphasizes the fact that we must be willing to risk and to allow failure if we are ever going to move forward in innovation, especially (in the case of this book) when it involves finding ways to convey the love of Christ to an ever-changing culture. Ministry is so diverse and involves a variety of tasks each week. This book is meant to encourage pastors and ministry leaders to step back and see what can be when we allow Spirit-led creativity to move us into our world for the sake of the gospel. We at Grace & Peace magazine pray that this resource prompts more creativity in regard to outreach and in unleashing the gospel to the whole world.

CHAPTERS Forward by Carla Sunberg 1. Embracing Failure 2. A Love Letter to Pioneers 3. The Chinese Church that Speaks English and Spanish (San Gabriel Valley, CA) 4. The Church that Became a Refuge for Refugees (Houston, TX) 5. The Church of Accidental Abolitionists (Chesterton, IN) 6. The Church that Launched a Global Movement (Sheffield, England) 7. The Church that Stopped Hiding from the Neighbors (Leonardtown, MD) 8. The Church Where Failure Was Impossible (Sunnyvale, CA) 9. The Church that Reclaimed Simplicity and Community (Durham, SC) 10. The Church Birthed as Missionaries (Portland, OR) 11. The Church Where Nobody Knows Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Going On (Frankfurt, Germany) 12. A Word of Caution: The Dark Side of Innovation 13. Reflections from a Seasoned Leader 14. Cultivating More Edison Churches

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SPECIAL

EVENT

M19 MID-QUADRENNIAL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE REGISTRATION NOW OPEN Don’t forget to register for next year’s Mission 2019 (M19) conference. The theme for M19 is “Unleash the Gospel.” We are hoping Nazarene pastors and leaders will take advantage of the opportunities for worship, workshops, networking, and strengthening their ministries.

M19 is February 11-13, 2019, in Kansas City, Missouri. The early-bird registration cost through October is only $39 per person. Participants can also reserve housing at the M19 event website, m19conference.org.

“The M19 conference will provide training, motivation, and strategies to help local and district leaders feel confident to lead their congregations in sharing the gospel in word and deed in their communities,” according to Bob Broadbooks, USA/Canada regional director. “We felt the M15 event four years ago was a truly historic conference with strong content in our keynote sessions, creative work in our pre-conference sessions and workshops, passionate worship, and a clear sense of optimism among our clergy, including our millennial participants,” M19 Conference Director Randy Cloud said. “We know the M19 conference will continue with that depth of conversation and insight to further God’s kingdom.”

Plenary speakers for M19 include Christine and Albert Hung, Doug Powe, Carla Sunberg, Ed Stetzer, and Filimão Chambo. Kevin Harney, author of Organic Outreach for Churches, will be the evangelism consultant for the entire week. Register or sign up for updates at m19conference.org

ALBERT AND CHRISTINE HUNG

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DOUGLAS POWE

CARLA SUNBERG

ED STETZER

FILIMÃO M. CHAMBO

INTERVIEW JOINING THE MISSION OF JESUS: A n Inter view with Ed Ste t zer I N T E R V I E W E R : J E A N E T T E G A R D N E R L I T T L E TO N Recently, associate editor Jeanette Gardner Littleton (G&P) talked with Ed Stetzer (ES), well-known writer and speaker on the subject of evangelism. He serves as Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, where he also serves as chair of the Billy Graham Center. Dr. Stetzer will be a plenary speaker at M19 in Kansas City on February 11-13, 2019.

G & P : YO U ’ R E O N E O F T H E G U E S T S AT O U R M 1 9 C O N F E R E N C E I N F E B R UA R Y. C A N YO U G I V E U S A P R E V I E W O N W H AT YO U ’ L L B E SPEAKING ABOUT? ES : I want to encourage Nazarene believers to say “yes” like Isaiah did. He said, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” So, I’ll be focusing on what that looks like in regard to evangelism, church planting, and church revitalization. G & P : C A N YO U T E L L U S A B O U T YO U R O W N J O U R N E Y ? ES: 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, among the urban core. I was able to plant several churches that focused upon evangelism and multiplication. A common thread throughout most of the books I’ve written has been becoming effective at reaching people and engaging people for the gospel. Two years ago, I took the role here at the Billy Graham Center so I could spend the next season of my ministry encouraging Christians to be more effective at sharing the gospel. G & P : W H AT D O YO U T H I N K A B O U T T H E C U R R E N T S TAT E O F E VA N G E L I S M I N T H E U S A /C A N A DA?

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ES : I think that most Christians love evangelism as long as somebody else is doing it. The thing we often forget is that we are all called to share the gospel. There’s no mention of a “gift” of evangelism in the Bible, though everyone assumes there is. There’s the evangelist who’s gifted, but the evangelist’s job, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip God’s people. So, all of us have a responsibility to share the gospel. Many Christians have abdicated that role to pastors locally and to missionaries globally, when really, we are all called to share the gospel. G & P : H O W C A N PA S T O R S H E L P C H U R C H E S R E C A P T U R E T H AT Z E A L? ES : The writer of Hebrews says, “Provoke one another to love and good deeds.” That’s part of what I hope to do at M19. I hope to provoke those who are there toward love and good deeds through evangelism and sharing the love of Jesus in a broken and hurting world. Part of the pastor’s job is to provoke their people in this way. I think ultimately one way that we love a lost world is to share the good news of the gospel. G & P : W H AT D O E S I T L O O K L I K E F O R A PA S T O R T O P R OVO K E P E O P L E T O B E E VA N G E L I S T I C ? ES : 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 training in evangelism. There are a variety of 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 : H O W H AV E A P P R OAC H E S C H A N G E D OV E R T H E Y E A R S ? ES : 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 : H O W C A N W E A DA P T O U R M E T H O D S A S C U LT U R E C H A N G E S ? ES : 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 quoted Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and poets; at Lystra he talked about nature and preached the gospel from nature. At the Areopagus or Mars Hill, he talked about Jewish history. Paul looked for bridges across which the communication of the gospel could travel. So I think that’s the call that we have. The bridges have changed, but the intent and the strategy has not. G & P : H O W I M P O R TA N T I S C R E AT I V I T Y I N T H E O U T R E AC H ? ES : I think creativity is one of those bridges. For instance, radio was a remarkable, creative way decades ago. Bus ministry was a creative way. I think there’s probably hundreds of creative ways to share the gospel, and every day I think people are thinking of new ones. G & P : WHAT ARE SOME EFFECTIVE WAYS OF OUTREACH YOU HAVE WITNESSED? ES : I love the idea that some people have really intentionally served others. I know

some churches 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 this men’s big game dinner. There are many ways across ages and cultural groups. G&P: DO WE KNOW HOW EFFEC TIVE A N Y O F T H E S E C R E AT I V E A P P R OAC H E S A R E ? ES : 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 : W H AT D O YO U T H I N K S U C C E S S F U L E VA N G E L I S M L O O K S L I K E T O DAY ? ES : 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. My focus is the goal. I think the tools to get there change. Justin Martyr’s approach in the second century was very different than that of 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 ME ASURE WHETHER OR NOT THE Y ’RE BEING EFFEC TIVE? IS IT JUST “THE NUMBERS,” OR IS THERE MORE? ES : 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,

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noses, and numbers. How many people are living on mission in their context? How many people are intentionally building relational bridges to people who don’t know Jesus? I think all those things play into that. At the end of the day, I still want to know how many people have responded to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s still really important to me. G & P : D O Y O U H AV E A N Y W O R D S O N T H E F U T U R E O F E VA N G E L I S M , HOW METHODS OR PERSPECTIVES M AY C H A N G E ? 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.

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G&P: IS THE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS INCREASING , OR IS T H AT J U S T A P E R C E P T I O N ? ES : It is getting more difficult. People are starting farther away from faith in the U.S. and in Canada. The strongest life-threatening kind of persecution is more prevalent outside of the US and Canada. Things like the “War on Christmas,” or a clerk saying, “Happy Holidays” is really not persecution. I don’t think it’s the clerk at Walmart’s job to tell people about Jesus. I think it’s my job and your job to tell people about Jesus. We certainly face increasing pressure to not 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 : T H E S TA N DA R D H A S T R A D I T I O N A L LY B E E N TO N OT TA L K ABOUT POLITICS, RELIGION, OR SEX I N P O L I T E S O C I E T Y. W E D E F I N I T E LY TA L K A B O U T S E X A N D P O L I T I C S , B U T A R E W E S T I L L M O R E R E LU C TA N T TO TA L K A B O U T R E L I G I O N? 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.

BOOK

REVIEW Evangelism after Pluralism: The Ethics of Christian Witness Bryan Stone (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2018. 151 pages). RE VIEWER: THE A ARDRE Y

vangelism has been defined and implemented in numerous ways. In his book, Evangelism after Pluralism: The Ethics of Christian Witness, Bryan Stone seeks to do more than merely define evangelism. Stone, who serves as associate dean for academic affairs and professor of evangelism at Boston University School of Theology, identifies flawed thinking about what evangelism is and reimagines the ways in which Christ-followers can practice it in the context of a pluralistic society. The book is addressed to Christians in the United States or similar Western cultures. Stone sets out to recapture a healthy respect for differences, dismantle the notion that evangelism is a competitive venture, and warns against competing loyalties, since they can detract from God’s intentions for evangelism as a way of life. Stone’s first chapter introduces his thesis and goals for the eight chapters that follow it. Chapters two through four will particularly appeal to those who have dismissed evangelism as a mere numbers game. These chapters address the challenges faced by Christ-followers who seek to turn away from the lure of the empire and its grasp for power and control, as well as its often overly-private view of salvation. Stone offers snippets of global church history and its effect on the present, while challenging people to reengage in evangelism in a meaningful, community-minded way. Chapters five and six address the pluralistic context of the military and what it means for Christians to follow Jesus’ call toward a path of peace and nonviolence. As a person who has little connection with the military, familial or otherwise, I found these chapters to

be more of a challenge to read than the previous ones. I, and others similarly lacking context, would benefit from engaging in conversations with those who have closer ties. In chapter seven, Stone continues unpacking his theme in relation to the way Christians often commodify people. Stone challenges Christians to resist the allure of consumerist culture when it comes to worship and evangelism. Finally, Stone addresses the difficulties inherent in a pluralistic religious context in which other faith traditions exist. One beneficial aspect of chapter eight is that the author expands upon this theme of pluralism using a Wesleyan lens. Christians must not fear people who hold differing religious beliefs and, in fact, must remain vulnerable enough to learn from them.

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FROM THE

AUTHOR Bryan Stone’s book provides an excellent theological framework for evangelism in a pluralistic society. Its content may be a bit unsettling for those who have viewed evangelism as a results-based effort rather than a way of life. This piece can certainly be appreciated by individuals seeking a compact assessment of evangelism in contemporary Western culture, but the experience would be enriched for those who are able to explore it within an academic community or small group study. Part of the book’s beauty is its celebration of diversity. If the book is read in isolation, it could become a temptation for those who agree with Stone to pat themselves on the back for their understanding; for those who disagree with some of his key ideas, it may be easy to dismiss the whole of his framework. If the book is approached by a group of people with divergent thinking

about evangelism, tempered with a heavy dose of humility, the book could serve to celebrate differences while still correcting errors to which a person may have been blind. In doing so, readers could embody Stone’s core theme in which Christians champion differences among people, lay aside the need to evangelize as a way of competing, and remain focused on their primary citizenship as followers of Christ.

THEA ARDRE Y is a pastor and church planter in the Church of the Nazarene.

FIVE QUESTIONS: Br yan Stone, Evangelism A f ter Pluralism Nazarene scholar and author Bryan Stone serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, and Co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology at Boston University. He is the author of many books on practical theology and evangelism. His recent book, Evangelism After Pluralism, addresses the Church’s call to share the gospel in light of a culture that has increasingly become less aware and even seemingly less interested in hearing and receiving the good news.

1. What prompted you to write this book?

In my previous book, Evangelism After Christendom, I focused on the way Christendom and modernity have served as narrative rivals to the story of the people of God. Those narratives have powerfully shaped the practice of evangelism in a way that ultimately subverts its practice. While I touch on pluralism in that book, I wanted to address it in a more sustained way, given the steady growth of religious plurality in our world, and in my own context, the United States. I wanted to take account of the way “pluralisms” function as social images

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that restrict and distort evangelism. The examples I focus on are empire, nationalism, and consumerism. Each of these can shape evangelism in unfortunate ways, and my book is a call to think and practice evangelism beyond, or “after,” these pluralisms. “After” here does not imply that I think plurality no longer exists, but rather it points to how we might act and think beyond pluralism. 2. List three key takeaways from this book you would like for the reader to experience.

First, religious plurality is not something to be feared or fought by those interested in practicing Christian evangelism. What is a

problem, however, is the way “pluralisms” (the stories we tell about plurality) impose a unity onto plurality that turns evangelism into a competitive practice, and one that distorts the peaceable, nonviolent beauty of the good news. Secondly, the thinking about and practice of evangelism could profitably take better account of the category of “beauty.” Evangelism is not simply the offer of truths to be believed or an ethic to be enacted, but a pattern of life that is transparent to the divine, a beauty to be encountered and in which we are invited to participate. Evangelism is bearing faithful witness to the beauty of Christ in such a way that others are invited to touch, feel, taste, and try on for themselves. Thirdly, evangelism is a fundamentally non-competitive, non-violent practice. When we understand evangelism as the offer of beauty, we surrender our control over that along with our need to produce outcomes and results. Saints, rather than megachurch pastors, become our exemplars, and apologetics is, as Barth says, meaningless. The practice of evangelism is less interested in doing whatever it takes to secure conversions, grow churches, or achieve the spread of Christianity around the world. Rather, evangelism is to be practiced as an act of prayer and gratitude in ways that are receptive and from a posture of vulnerability. 3. Do you have a favorite passage or chapter in this book?

also not a throw-away ending. It is brief, but I would suggest taking some time with it. 5. What specific ways can this book equip, encourage, and/or instruct ministers?

Ministers often feel pressure (both externally and internally) to produce results, and we live in a world that imposes certain expectations of success and achievement that the Church has unfortunately yielded to, shaped as it has been by centuries of dominance and hegemony in the world. I want to offer a different way of thinking about the mission of the Church that is pretty out of sync with the prevailing notion that our primary job as Christians is to grow churches and extend our reach throughout the world. Our primary calling is instead to bear faithful witness to a gospel that is social, embodied, and hopeful without trying to predict or control the results of that witness in terms of the conversions we might produce. I recognize that, when misunderstood or distorted, my emphasis on beauty, witness, and participation rather than production and securing of results can give license to those who simply dislike evangelism and would rather focus on other things. But when understood rightly, I believe it is possible for evangelism to become a practice that is captivating and exciting. The one sure thing about beauty is that it entices us to share it with others.

I think the chapter on beauty is probably one of the key chapters in the book for all the reasons I just named. While the analysis of various pluralisms is important as a way of reading and understanding our context, the theological lens that I develop there focusing on aesthetics is the more distinctive contribution I try to make to rethinking evangelism. It also undergirds the intrinsic connection I believe exists between evangelism and nonviolence. 4. If you were sitting beside the reader, what portion of the book do you feel you would want him or her to spend extra time on, and why?

For sure, readers should take time with the chapter on beauty, but the Epilogue is

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IF YOU STAY TOO CLOSE TO THE SHORE, YOU MISS THE STARS!

radition says in that 1577, Sir Francis Drake, an English sea captain, wrote this amazing prayer as he departed England to attempt the circumnavigation of the world: Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Drake was suggesting that too often we dream too little, live too safely, and travel too close to the shore. In so doing, we miss the glorious stars seen only when sailing deep seas. Recently, Carol and I attended the annual Urban Ministry Summit in Indianapolis. This event was hosted by Jay Height (coordinator of compassionate

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ministries for USA/Canada), Shepherd Community Church, Mark Bane (director of evangelism and new church development), and the USA/Canada Regional Office. Approximately 75 men and women gathered there who are either engaged in ministry in the urban core or are called to do so. We were moved to tears as we listened to heroes tell their stories. We have many urban centers of impact: Pete in Albuquerque. Lauren in Chicago. Jenee and Femi in Kansas City. Jacob in Akron. Adam in Anchorage. Paul in Little Rock. Austin and Irene in Peoria. Marlene in Owosso. Kyle in St. Louis. Jay and Allen in Indianapolis. They told of many challenges. Often the hurting people with whom they work and in whom they see great progress are drawn back to their old ways. Often these important urban core ministries do not having enough financial support or physical strength to continue. However, they also told us of pressing on in their weakest moments and discovering that God is always faithful. The brightest stars often shine in the darkest times. They have discovered that the challenges of reaching out are worth the effort, and God seems incredibly close in their weakest moments.

BOB BROADBOOKS

USA/Canada Regional Director

USA/Canada Regional Office Church of the Nazarene 17001 Prairie Star Parkway Lenexa, KS 66220

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