 |
| Photo by Houstonian |
Lori Ward (Pastor/Teacher, South Korea)
I’d like to write about holiness expressed through hospitality. We are invited by Christ to open ourselves in vulnerability, welcome, and service to others. When we welcome the stranger, when we share a meal, when we open our homes, when we are present with others in celebration and suffering, we engage them with the love of Christ. The work of Christ in us enables us to lower our guard and to invest our lives intimately with others, especially those who live in the margins. Holiness expressed through hospitality does not set us up as proprietors, but as hosts—broken and consumed by those we love and serve, that we may embody the presence of Christ in our world.
Steve Walsh (Pastor, Australia)
Using the insights provided by Floyd T. Cunningham's Holiness Abroad: Nazarene Missions in Asia, as well as the research found in J Fred Parker's Mission to the World: A History of Missions in the Church of the Nazarene Through 1985, and Cunningham's Our Watchword & Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene, my essay would seek to examine the relationship between our emerging contemporary understanding of the theology and experience of entire sanctification and the international and intercultural dissemination of our distinctive message by endeavoring to answer the question "What might Hiram F Reynolds say to the Church of the Nazarene today?" Reynolds addressed the concerns of his contemporaries who worried about "doctrinal confusion, and a low standard of experience" in churches planted on foreign mission fields, which would lead the church to be ashamed to call its progeny "Nazarene". I believe this parallels concerns especially of the American church as the denominational demographics change dramatically. The essay would consider the tensions between missional strategies aiming at both the indigenisation and internationalisation of the Church of the Nazarene as it wrestles with the forces of globalisation and localisation. From its inception, the Church of the Nazarene was both "missionary-oriented and American-centered"The pragmatic Reynolds, one of the founders of the Church of the Nazarene, and the architect of early Nazarene mission policies and strategies, who maintained that "the work and manifestations of the Holy Spirit are practically the same in all countries" has much to say to the Church of the Nazarene today on such issues as contextualisation of theology, holistic ministry, and missional strategy.
Jason Robertson (Olivet Nazarene University)
Over the past year I’ve been contemplating our tradition’s emphasis on the “radical optimism of grace.” This notion made sense at the turn of the 20th century when optimism was woven through the fabric of American society. But does it work for a generation that is not given an optimistic outlook on most areas of life? “Optimism” is an anemic notion better suited for the social sciences. Millennials and Xers have to fight to be optimistic about the future, and older generations seem more optimistic about days gone by. From my experience those who are most passionately teaching radical optimism are hardly optimistic about the direction our world is going. The disconnect for their younger audience is obvious. I think our tradition needs to recover the robust, biblical notion of hope. Hope draws us into the future with expectation of something better for the world, as well as our own souls. I would make a distinction between hope and optimism and then suggest the holiness tradition should recapture the essence of hope as a lived reality in light of God’s kingdom, past, present, and future.
Tara Smith (Pastor, Indiana)
I would like to discuss holiness as participation in the life of God. When Nazarenes recall that the word "holy" means "to be set apart," we still struggle to understand what this could possibly mean concerning a human life. So we fall short in our practical application: to be holy is to be particularly good at following rules; to be holy is to be counter-cultural; to be holy is to love slightly better (more often?) than the average person.
It's my suggestion that we apply the word holy quite literally to God, who is something other than we are; i.e., set apart. To "be holy as [God] is holy" is to participate in God's life. This may mimic the rule-following, counter-cultural-operating, optimal-loving lifestyle, but its source is never any of those things. Rather, the source of holiness is only ever God, and thus our stake in it only ever our participation in the divine life.
