I need more sleep…
but I’m not going to take any… at least until baby #2 gets here…
So, this past week on Wednesday and Thursday we had our annual continuing pastoral education seminars or “Ambrose Training Days” as we call them. Basically, some body of education in the Nazarene church, sponsored by the college, sets up a mini-modular course for the pastors on our district… and they feed us and pay for hotel stay, if needed (Bob and I are 25 minutes away from where it’s held, so we save them a couple bucks in that regard).
I’ve been to two of the previous seminars and they were based around Franklin Covey style leadership (apparently, they’ve been based on Covey for around 4 years). That was good and all, but this year was a refreshing change. We had Dr. Mark Quanstrom from Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois. He also wrote a book called A Century of Holiness Theology which I read when first offered a position in a Nazarene church (props to me). I would like, therefore, to reflect on what we talked about a little.
First off: I finally get the whole Wesleyan Entire Sanctification thing… or at least how different Nazarenes approach it… sort of. The thing is, there isn’t really a clearcut understanding, unless you’re an old-line Nazarene. Not that there’s disagreement, just different perceptions of the concept. I fear I wouldn’t be able to give our discussions justice in a blog synopsis, so suffice it to say that it fits well with the progressive thrust and wholeness that, say, A.B. Simpson puts on the topic.
Another interesting item that came out of this week: Nazarenes, when they first felt called to Holiness, saw themselves as calling nominals back to God. That is, a mission to the churched to reclaim what it means to follow Christ (hmmm… fits with the theme of this blog, doesn’t it?). That brings up an interesting point: are we still called to witness to the Church today? Interesting. What became apparent, in some of the questions and reactions, is that at some point (like all the Holiness era denominations) we became more of a preservation of belief and lifestyle. For example, the early Nazarenes felt a strong call to holy living and, therefore, chose to do those things that glorify God (ie: social justice) and avoid the things that don’t. Later, in reaction to the mainline liberal movement among other things, holiness began to be defined in terms of “what we don’t do.” That is still a struggle for many today as the older generations of Nazarenes try to let go of their legalistic past and the younger ones attempt to figure out what it means to “do” what is holy. (BTW, this applies to all the Holiness movements including, to some degree, the C&MA, Pentecostals, Baptists, and so on).
Most significantly for me, however, was when Dr. Quanstrom got to tell us a bit of his journey as a pastor for 20-some odd years in a church in Belleville, Illinois (right across the Mississippi from St. Louis). Essentially, God posed him the question: “are you, as a pastor, paid to pray?” You can see where that comes from, right? With all the expectations of pastoral ministry–visitations, sermons, finances, etc–where do we have time for deepening relastionship with God OR it doesn’t seem like we are being paid to deepen that relationship and intercede for the people. But he said that is exactly what we are called to do and, through his testimony of prayer, showed how “being paid to pray” is how we should view ourselves in ministry. Hmm…
Obviously there was more to this seminar, including stuff that put me off a little, but hopefully this brings you (the immutable reader) into where I’m at in relationship to this church and denomination which I have adopted–or maybe has adopted me–for this time and place, anyway. Hope I did it justice and made it an interesting read. We’ll see, I guess. Just an add note: one thing that kept coming up in my mind was how my Alliance background and theological training helps me approach a lot of these topics. In other words, if you’re reading this, Dr. Pyles, I still consider my self part of the C&MA 
~Jon
