From Sampler to Sower

Dr. Nina Gunter; General Superintendent, Church of the Nazarene

Session five began in College Church on Monday evening of the Holiness Summit at Olivet Nazarene University.  Our time of corporate worship was especially encouraging as the song selections focused on God’s promises to stand beside His people.  The Olivetians sang the song “Through the Fire” which encourages

Just hold on,
My God will show up
and take you through the fire again.

Together we sang the chorus “I Will Sing Praise” which restated the promise in these words:

No matter the storms that come my way,
No matter the trials I may face,
You promised that you would see me through.
So, I will trust in You.

And perhaps most powerfully, the Olivetians sang a rendition of the third psalm which declares:

But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head. (Psa 3:3, ESV)

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As you know if you followed this blog before we fell off the map for a month, our youth group is currently running a series called mybrandnewlife.org.  A core component of this series is seeking to get into the Word through daily devotions which we provide on the website.  An essential objective for us, then, is to find a way to bring students back to the site every day.  As a result, we’re running some web-based contests.

To be honest, Water’s Edge’s Funniest Videos didn’t work so well, and we even extended it’s run an extra week to try to get more submissions in.  However, our current contest is a little more fun

We called it Macro-Middletown.

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Dr. Louie Bustle, Director of Nazarene World Missions

After a great lunch with a good friend, Tony Fightmaster, talking about the excellent scholarship opportunities that exist at ONU for Nazarene students, I returned to College Church for session four of the Holiness Summit on Monday afternoon. One of the highlights of the worship service was hearing George Wolfe sing Larnelle Harris’ song “Were it not For Grace.” Especially after my concerns about the implications of the self-help book metaphor for sanctification from the preceding presentation, those words “Forever running but losing the race, were it not for grace” were especially apropos.

The speaker of the hour was Dr. Louie Bustle, the World Mission director for the Church of the Nazarene. Preceding his message, a student read from Luke 24:49, which Bustle cited as Christ’s promise to give his disciples power through the Spirit.

After citing that verse, Bustle acknowledged the common question in the denomination’s theological circles: Are we Wesleyan?  Or are we American Holiness?  Bustle’s answer: “I say yes.  But even more than that, we should be Biblical.”

And then he spent the next 30 minutes completely ignoring Scripture.

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The third session of the Holiness Summit at ONU followed very quickly on the heels of session two.  After a 15 minute break we filed back into College Church’s sanctuary, being met at the door by ushers passing out half sheet fill-in-the-blank handouts for a message entitled “Sanctification for Dummies.”

I wasn’t sure what to think of these portents, especially following the depth of Dr. Quanstrom’s message.  It was a morning session rather than an evening service.  The congregation gathered were primarily pastors, university professors and theology students.  I wasn’t sure we were really eager to hear the doctrine presented for the sake of “dummies.”

The presenter for this second session was Rev. Mark Fuller, pastor of the Grove City Church of the Nazarene in Grove City, OH.  Chaplain Benson prepared us for his message with an invocation in which he declared “We don’t want to be mere dabblers, but doers.”  After a time of worship, a student read Romans 12:1-2 from the New Living Translation – certainly more accessible than some of the other translations, but it left me wondering if something of the power of that passage was lost in translation.

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Dr. Mark Quanstrom, Professor of Theology, Olivet Nazarene University

Our first full day of the Holiness Summit at Olivet Nazarene University began Monday morning in the sanctuary of College Church of the Nazarene in Bourbonnais, IL.  ONU’s chaplain, Rev. Michael Benson opened the service with a quote from James Allen’s classic As A Man Thinketh.

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn, no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.

This is not just some new-agey thought inspired by The Secret.  It is an affirmation of a Wesleyan holistic psychology which affirms our actions and our achievements are shaped and driven by our affections.  And it was a good reminder that what we think about these things really matters.

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Dr John Bowling; President, Olivet Nazarene University

As I mentioned earlier, I’m spending a few days attending a Holiness Summit at my alma mater, Olivet Nazarene University.

I wasn’t privy to much publicity about the event in advance. Our denomination is approaching our quadrennial General Assembly, and the scuttlebutt going around the denomination is that they will be reconsidering the wording of our 10th article of faith regarding Entire Sanctification.  I was expecting a theological conference at which people presented papers and we discussed the implications, listening to a variety of voices and working through the ideas together.

In reality, a Holiness Summit is a lot like camp meeting, without the campground.  There are a total of nine services over a period of 2 days and 3 evenings.  Worship, and preaching, and not much discussion or dialog,  unless you count the aftermath in the coffee shops of Bourbonnais as pastors seek their caffeine fix after sitting through so many sermons.

That’s not to say the Summit hasn’t been good.  I’m really glad I came, and have gotten some good out of (most) of the preaching.  I’ve definitely been refreshed and encouraged.  And the best part is catching up with old friends from around the region.  It’s just not been what I expected.

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You’ve probably not noticed, but I’ve not been posting much lately.  I kinda wish I had a good excuse.  Maybe I could claim I gave it up for Lent.  Or that I’ve been swamped by really important ministry stuff, or that I’ve been working on a total makeover of the blog.  Or that I was hard at work as the secret architect behind President Obama’s toxic assets plan that’s singlehandedly revived Wall Street over the last 18 hours.

But no.  No good excuses. Just a season of busy-ness coupled with a relapse of laziness.  That and the intersection of a surfeit of work writing daily devotionals over at mybrandnewlife.org and a dearth of things I felt I needed to say.

Like I said, not good excuses.

But I’m climbing back in the saddle again.  I’m spending a few days at my alma mater attending what they call a “Holiness Summit.”  Wasn’t really sure what to expect when I signed up to attend.  Turns out it’s a couple days of a lot of preaching.  An opening service on Sunday followed by two days with four services a day.  That’s a lot of time in a pew.  But it’s been good, at least in moments.

You can follow in nearly-real-time on my Twitter feed @pastorbuhro.  I’m also planning on summarizing the services here on this blog as well as sharing my reactions.

That means there’ll probably be a flurry of posts here in the next couple of days.

I’m just making up for lost time.

Please feel free to chime in with comments below.  I’d love your help processing some of the things I’m hearing this week.