Watching Anderson Cooper on CNN tonight describe the horrors at a cemetery in Port-au-Prince was really heartrending. He spoke of those who brought bodies to the cemetery looking for places to bury or dispose of the bodies. In some cases, bodies were being shoved into any available space with no markers to indicate who they were burying. Cooper remarked that with the passage of time, there would be no way of knowing who was buried where.

I’ve visited some of the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried. In upstate New York, I walked through the woods to touch the stones and markers of my father’s ancestors, stretching back almost 200 years. I’ve walked among the stones and markers of Christ Church Cemetery in St. Michaels, Maryland, to touch the stones of my mother’s people.

Not too long ago, I visited the perpetual care cemetery in Florida where my parents are buried. While their markers are only bronze plaques in the ground, the record of their lives is available to be seen by those who visit that site.

This tragedy reminds us that God’s eye is on the most forgotten among us. The Bible says that God sees even the sparrow that falls in flight. The people of Haiti have not been forgotten by God. Though the names of a whole generation may be obliterated by the crushing weight of rubble and dust, God knows who they are. We can only trust in the beneficent grace of God and leave our questions at the foot of the cross. It is only by looking at the cross that we see the incomparable love of God who endured the tragedy of the death of his only begotten son.

The thousands who are lost in this incredible tragedy join the incalculable numbers of others lost in other tragedies who are known to God. Only God knows the communications that occur in the final fleeting seconds of life, when time stands still on the threshold of eternity. We can only believe that they are remembered by the One who breathed the breath of life into their beings and gave his only son for their redemption.

Grace and peace!

David Felter

About David J. Felter
David J. Felter is general editor and Holiness Today editor in chief. As general editor, he oversees editorial content in books and publications for the Church of the Nazarene. In addition to his role as editor in chief of the denomination’s primary magazine, to which he was elected in 2004, Dr. Felter also is the senior editor of NCN News. He pastored for 21 years in Iowa, California, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Kansas. Since 1985, Dr. Felter has held assignments at Nazarene Headquarters, having served as education program manager, coordinator of Evangelism Ministries, executive editor of Adult Sunday School Curriculum, director of Adult Ministries/Lay Training, and director of Communications Services. He and his wife, Sandra, have two married sons, David and Jib, and five grandchildren.

At the beginning of a new year the most common topic to talk about is the renewed goals we set for ourselves. We talk of goals that we know we probably won’t be able to meet, but we set them anyway. At the end of the year we look back with contentment, hopefully, but probably with regrets as well. And we translate those regrets into goals again that we set for ourselves for the coming year.

I don’t know if you ever noticed, but Western culture looks for points of improvement in everything. Last year was good, but one aspect could have been better. You did great, but next time you could maybe work on this one detail. It was a great event, but this one thing was really unnecessary. Those who are being born and raised in a Western culture couldn’t imagine school, work, or life without it. Things may be good, but they could be better.

Sadly, we often can’t regard our Christian life without thinking in this way. We tend to focus on how we can be better Christians. We judge ourselves according to standards we created during the years of Christian education we had. Some judge themselves according to how often they go to church, read the Bible, or pray. Others judge themselves according to if they can speak in tongues or if they “feel” God enough in their lives. And then we don’t just judge ourselves according to those standards, but we judge others as well.

Is it bad to set goals? Probably not. They help us improve, and they might help us become a better people. But at the same time anything (or anyone) that won’t or can’t live up to the standards of our culture (or our church) will get in trouble. They won’t be appreciated by others or even by themselves. Don’t we all at times feel like we can’t live up to the expectations we have of ourselves and our faith? And what if the standards we set aren’t according to God’s will? What if our striving for the best turns into a legalistic perfectionism?

Sometimes we might forget that we are children of God. He freed us from having to be perfect. We are holy because He is holy and He set us apart, not because we earned it. Sometimes we focus too much on the change and too little on the One who wants to change us through relationship with Him. Our focus for the future ought to be more on being loved by God and loving Him and others in return, while focusing less on improving, evaluating, and judging ourselves and others. Don’t we all believe that by loving God and others we will change anyway?

Dennis and Lara Mohn
About Dennis and Lara Mohn:
Dennis was born and raised in Germany and is now living and ministering with his wife, Lara, in the Netherlands. Dennis graduated from EuNC and currently serves as associate- and youth pastor in Zaanstad as well as regional communications coordinator for the Eurasia Region. Lara graduated from Erasmus University in Rotterdam with a master of science in clinical psychology. Currently she is pursuing her practical Ph.D. during which she works at a psychology practice. She is also actively involved in the youth ministry of the Zaanstad Church of the Nazarene.

One of the most important responsibilities of the people of God is transmitting from generation to generation the religious treasure we have received (Deuteronomy 6:4-25). I first benefited from this transmission as a child receiving from my parents and others of their generation. Before I could understand much at all, I was introduced to stories of God’s faithfulness, practices of spiritual discipline, and instruction in significant beliefs. There was not a great accumulation of financial capital to transfer, but there was a rich religious heritage.

I have been enriched by the religious tradition of the Church of the Nazarene. Like other Nazarenes, I received, value greatly, and want to pass on some things we highly value. We value our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage. We value the belief that God offers to all people forgiveness of sins. We, like Wesley, believe that God can do more than forgive sin; God can and will break the power of sin and deliver the person from bondage enabling holy, Christlike living. We value the Bible as the primary source of spiritual truth confirmed by reason, tradition, and experience. We value the mission to which we believe God has called us, participating with God in the building of the Church and the extension of His kingdom throughout the world. We value worship, music, printed materials, rituals, programs that teach and disciple children, youth and adults, church colleges, and heroes of the faith. These, and others, are valuables worthy of transmission from generation to generation.

Deuteronomy 6:4-25 suggests the importance of families in the transmission of faith from one generation to another. This passage directs the people of God to impress their children with the importance of their religious experience in three ways. First, we are to teach them in the context of our everyday relationships (verse 7). We want to teach many people the things we value most, but the people we spend the most time with are the people we are most likely to be able to help. As important as careful teaching is, we are also directed to show how important these things are (verse 8). I was fortunate. Not only was I taught the religious heritage, but also in rituals and practices these things were demonstrated to me. Third, we are reminded to tell the stories of God’s faithfulness (verses 20-21).

The people of God are always at risk of failing to pass on what they have received and experienced (verses 10-19). The issues are often more clear while the struggle is great and we are crying out for help. However, after God has delivered us and we have become comfortable in the places where He has taken us, we too often allow subtle erosion of things we received at great price. Then we may forget and fail to pass on the valuable heritage we have received.

So, I wonder, how are we doing at passing on the pearls of great value that God has entrusted to us?

There are many good sources of Christian insight and help available these days, but a good generic resource is surely not good enough. What are the sources you use to pass on the religious tradition of the Church of the Nazarene?

Involvement in worship, learning, and fellowship with other Nazarene families? Sunday school? Publications from Nazarene Publishing House, Holiness Today, Sunday school curriculum? Church camps? Nazarene colleges? Exposure to Nazarene missionaries and other models?

What are the stories of God’s faithfulness that you tell to family and friends to help them understand why your religious heritage is so important to you?

By Kenneth E. Crow

Kenneth E. Crow is a native of Nebraska. He graduated from SNU with a major in religion and later, while pastoring in Boulder, Colorado, earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at the University of Colorado. He has served as a Nazarene missionary in South Africa, as a pastor of Nazarene churches in Minnesota and Colorado, as a professor and registrar at MidAmerica Nazarene University and Nazarene Bible College. He recently retired from serving as the manager of the Research Center at Nazarene Headquarters.

Should a Nazarene church fly its nation’s flag in the sanctuary? Is it proper for a denomination that is “international” in scope and purpose to fly a symbol that is merely “national?” There are reasons for answering “no.”

Some countries have a state church, or an established church, which is the only church recognized and supported by the government. Some countries, such as the U.S., do not. James Madison, the fourth U.S. president, argued that “disestablishment” (i.e., having no state-sponsored religion) would enable religion to flourish more than if a church had government sanction. A comparison of countries with a state church and those without one seems to bear out Madison’s wisdom.

In some Nazarene churches in the U.S., one may see the American flag. But in the Nazarene churches in Europe one will seldom, if ever, see a national flag displayed. Even in many state churches the flag of that nation is missing.

The Church’s ultimate allegiance is to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to any nation. Thus the only appropriate symbols to have in the sanctuary should be Christian symbols, not political or national ones. This is even acknowledged in the pledge of allegiance to the flag that U.S. school children are taught. It declares that this is “one nation under God.” It is not the other way around. God is not under the nation—any nation!

The Christian faith is for all peoples. If we are to display a national flag in Nazarene sanctuaries, perhaps we should display the flags of all nations to which the Great Commission compels us to go. The New Testament urges us to pray for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:2), and the apostle does not limit this admonition only to one’s own government leaders. We are to pray for all who are in authority everywhere.

As an international church, our sanctuaries should be places where anyone on earth can feel welcome. This writer knows European tourists to the U.S. who were shocked to see the national flag displayed in churches, thinking, because of their background, that they were in a state church.

Displaying the flag in a church breaks down what Thomas Jefferson advocated as the “wall of separation” that should be erected between church and state. In the days of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, how would we have felt to see the Swastika displayed in a Christian church, as it was in many German churches? Of course we believe most any nation’s flag today, including Germany’s, represents far better values than did the Swastika. Nevertheless, it is a potential danger to the Christian faith when the church appears to align itself with earthly powers.

Increasingly our congregations contain a mix of persons from different countries who are grateful for their own homelands. As Christians we are diverse but we are all one in Christ. We are first and foremost citizens of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19), and we worship together with gratitude to God, who rules over every tongue, tribe, and nation, and in whom, in Jesus Christ, we are all one by the working of the Holy Spirit.

This Spirit who unites us as one teaches us through Scripture that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we all are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:2). When we eat and drink at the Lord’s table, we affirm that we believe in “one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic Church.” It makes sense that the local church should reflect this universality in its worship, its space, and its symbols.

But a national flag is a symbol of difference, advertising that the given nation is separate from all other nations. It speaks of a particular history that may be good, bad, or ambiguous, and has no power to save from sin and give eternal life. When within our places of worship we visibly or symbolically call attention to the difference we have with people from other nations, by allowing the flag (a symbol of difference) to compete for attention with the Cross (a symbol of salvation for all), we contradict what we preach—that regardless of our earthly citizenship, we are all one in Christ and in the Spirit. It is the mission of the Church to bring all people together, not to display their national or ethnic differences.

We may proudly and properly show our patriotism on national holidays and many other occasions. There are times and places when and where it is very appropriate to affirm by our words and actions “I am an American,” “I am British,” “I am Canadian,” “I am Mexican,” “I am Chinese,” “I am Cambodian,” and so on, to the exclusion of others. For instance, Americans celebrate their patriotism on Independence Day, July 4, and on numerous other occasions. Other nations have their own patriotic events. But that is not the reason any of us gather in God’s house to worship.

Many service men and women have fought and died defending what their country’s flag represents. They deserve the deepest gratitude from their fellow citizens. But when we come before our one God in worship, and when we approach the Lord’s table, we set all national differences aside. Instead of the flag, we look to the Cross for our salvation. We sing with John Bowring:
“In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.” (In the Cross of Christ I Glory)

Yes, Christ’s cross towers over all civilizations, empires, nations, national histories, and national flags, all of which are now, or shall someday become, mere “wrecks of time.”

By Rob L. Staples

Rob L. Staples is professor of theology emeritus, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City.

A few decades ago, Walter Broughton reported a study finding that what we believe affects our ministry. For example, if we believe in the providence of God—which holds that God’s purpose is achieved in partnership with His people, the Church—this tends to cause us to increase our ministry to people in need. It is a compassionate belief.

However, a belief in God’s providence that emphasizes the sovereign power of God working out His will apart from our participation has the opposite effect. It tends to cause us to see intervention in society by the church an unnecessary interference in God’s design. It is a “discompassionate” belief, according to Broughton.

This study continues to be a challenge to me. I wonder how often what I believe about the causes of social problems affects my support for the ministries of the global church. Max Weber argued that “When a man who is happy compares his position with that of one who is unhappy, he is not content with the fact of his happiness, but desires something more, namely the right to this happiness, the consciousness that he has earned his good fortune, in contrast to the unfortunate one who must equally have earned his misfortune.”

When middle and upper-class Christians, including Nazarenes, talk of their comparative wealth in terms of God’s blessing, they imply that their good fortune is an evidence of God’s favor—the result of their righteousness. At the same time, although we rarely say it as directly, we also imply that the poverty of the poor is an evidence of God’s displeasure—the result of their unrighteousness. It would be a surprise if believing this prompted me to generously support ministries to people in financial need.

I wonder how our taken-for-granted beliefs affect our compassion for other people.

How is our involvement in the ministry of the Church affected by unexamined “compassionate” or “discompassionate” beliefs?

By Kenneth E. Crow

Kenneth E. Crow is a native of Nebraska. He graduated from SNU with a major in religion and later, while pastoring in Boulder, Colorado, earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at the University of Colorado. He has served as a Nazarene missionary in South Africa, as a pastor of Nazarene churches in Minnesota and Colorado, as a professor and registrar at MidAmerica Nazarene University and Nazarene Bible College. He recently retired from serving as the manager of the Research Center at Nazarene Headquarters.

A few weeks ago I had the television on and came across a program celebrating the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” As I heard the stories of the events that led to that historic walk on the moon I was confronted by a statistic that has captivated my mind and heart.

When I first heard it come over the airwaves I could hardly believe it. Through the miracle of DVR I pushed the replay button two different times to make sure I got it right. The speaker was flight director Gene Kranz, who oversaw a team of engineers whose assignment was to guide the astronauts and their spacecraft to the moon and back. From takeoff to splashdown they were the ones making the critical decisions regarding the direction and safety of the mission.

Did you know that the average age of Kranz’s team was just 26? Here were a bunch of “young bucks” just out of college who were inspired by the mandate of President Kennedy to have a man on the moon by the end of the 60’s. They were driven by a dream and mentored by a group of visionaries who were willing to believe their potential was worth the risk.

Here’s what hit me as I thought about that image—“If God can use a bunch of twentysomethings to get a man on the moon, what can He do with the young people of our day in bringing His kingdom to this earth.”

I’ve got two children who fall into this age group so I’ve been challenged to think about what it is going to take the Church to be involved in taking a “giant leap” in our day. Here’s what I’ve come up with. First of all we’ve got to communicate a compelling vision. Somewhere, through someone, our young must encounter a message that invites them to dream the big dream of God. Second, we’ve got to admit that the church in the U.S. is facing a “new day.” The quicker we come to realize that “we’ve never been here before” the sooner we will realize that all generations are standing on common ground and have something to bring to the table as we seek to fulfill God’s mission. Third, we’ve got to be willing to release upon our young the responsibility needed to make things happen. Today’s church could use a heavy dose of their passion for Jesus finding expression in the world.

I want to be a part of a Church where the desire to reach this world for Christ means taking the risk of turning passionate, but inexperienced young people loose to make a difference.

How can we make that happen?

About J. Scott Shaw
J. Scott Shaw has served for the last 17 years as the pastor of Bremerton, Washington, Church of the Nazarene. He is greatly challenged to experience the coming of God’s kingdom and the living out of His will in today’s world. He and his wife, Vicki, have two grown children, Jeff (newly married to Stephanie) and Katelyn, a student at Northwest Nazarene University. He enjoys reading the sports page, discovering the humorous things of life, and standing on his deck with BBQ tools in hand.

Everyone is accountable for something to someone. Accountability is simply inescapable. The ramifications are enormous. Whether the setting is business, industry, education, family life, or ecclesial organizations, we are all accountable.

The topic of accountability crosses our minds almost daily. Hardly anything we do does not imply some sense of our accountability. Think of the relationships you’re in. Accountability plays an important part in every one of those relationships. Even casual friendships imply some limited sense of personal accountability. Sometimes we don’t even recognize such accountability because we are so accustomed to it.

In my work as an editor, I frequently think about the levels of accountability present in my life. I am first of all, accountable to my Lord and Savior. He is watching my life and knows everything there is about me. He knows my thoughts. He sees my actions. He reads my motives. Nothing escapes my Lord’s attention. If that was the end of it, it would be a simple matter of knowing that my life was under observation. But it doesn’t end there. Those thoughts I think, those attitudes I employ—all my responses to life, will meet me someday in the courtroom of accountability.

I am accountable to my wife and family. My behavior, the sum of my character, stems from promises I have made for which I am accountable. As a husband, parent, grandparent, brother, or extended family member, the web of accountability reaches every facet of my life.

I am accountable to my church. My vow of membership means something special that I must take seriously. While it sounds terribly old fashioned to call it a “vow of membership,” there is a sense in which I am accountable for the promises I made in the vow I took to become a member of the church.

As an editor, I am accountable to editorial standards; standards of excellence and accuracy to which I am committed professionally. Beyond these standards, however, I am accountable to the theological and doctrinal statements of my church. I cannot dispute, ignore, or contest such statements as long as I am standing in the relationship I am with the church. The vow of church membership is a commitment to the beliefs, practices, and standards of my church. I may think some things need to be changed, and it is my prerogative to work for change where I believe no matter of conscience will be compromised. But to unilaterally decide that I will no longer be accountable to the promises and affirmations of my vow is not possible.

I am accountable to my readers. They have the right to expect my best work. They have the right to expect my truthfulness and my concern. Every reader may vote with his or her feet, as we used to say in the local church. A subscription to Holiness Today marks a commitment of accountability. As editor in chief, I will perform my mission to the best of my ability, for in the end, dear reader, I am accountable to you.

In this age of questioning, cheap grace, and blurred lines between the church and the world, accountability is not a hot topic of discussion. Let me say it with reverence, humility, and consideration: the church, yes, our church, the Church of the Nazarene, is finally accountable to God. Our accountability will not be to the pundits or to those who want to water down the message, replacing it with a more accommodating message. Our accountability is to the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ.

In a time when just about everything is up for grabs, and everything is subject to negotiation and renegotiation, it is important that we remember accountability. What kind of shape will the church be in when I step aside? I cannot participate in anything that erodes, weakens, or substitutes the full gospel embraced by the Church of the Nazarene. We are a holiness church. Compassionate ministry, higher education, and a global reach are wonderful marks of God’s honoring and blessing. We must never forget, however, that we are, and hopefully always will be, a holiness church. To this message, I hold myself accountable.

About David J. Felter
David J. Felter is general editor and Holiness Today editor in chief. As general editor, he oversees editorial content in books and publications for the Church of the Nazarene. In addition to his role as editor in chief of the denomination’s primary magazine, to which he was elected in 2004, Dr. Felter also is the senior editor of NCN News. He pastored for 21 years in Iowa, California, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Kansas. Since 1985, Dr. Felter has held assignments at Nazarene Headquarters, having served as education program manager, coordinator of Evangelism Ministries, executive editor of Adult Sunday School Curriculum, director of Adult Ministries/Lay Training, and director of Communications Services. He and his wife, Sandra, have two married sons, David and Jib, and five grandchildren.

Recently we took part of our youth group on a weekend trip to Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. Together with the local youth group we organized a couple of outreach activities. Friday night we had a youth service. On Saturday we cleaned the streets of the community around the church and in the evening we organized a family celebration with bouncing castles, barbeque, live music, face painting, and other fun things to do for the whole family.

The whole day of serving the community was underlined with the slogan “The church has left the building.” A group of 60 young people spread throughout the community in groups of four or five. They washed street signs, swept sidewalks, cleaned playgrounds, and helped people remove bulky waste. In the end there was a big pile of full trash bags, old furniture, broken fridges, mattresses, mirrors, old beds, and so on. Next to that was stack of used working gloves, shovels, brooms, and used cloths.
The young people were exhausted but had many stories to tell of how people were surprised that others would help them clean out their yard. People were happy that things finally were gone. Others applauded them because they cleaned the streets. And every time when the question was asked, “Why do you do this?” the answer was, “We like to help!” In the evening many people from the community showed up for the family celebration.

Later that night I spoke with a couple of our young people. One girl told me that she was so amazed and astonished by the impact they had on the local people by “only” cleaning up a little and having a barbeque. She couldn’t believe the fact that we reached so many by just serving them.

It is interesting to see how young people discover something we often thought of being a standard given. Fact is that we can talk about it a lot but they probably won’t really understand until we literally take them down that road. Another fact is that we lose much of our impact in communities because we narrow the ways church works. Many of our outreach activities are based on a few successful strategies from the past, which eliminated many other methods of impact.

Our young people mostly thought of evangelism as preaching the gospel, altar calls, visitor friendly services, and asking people if they are saved (then if not, making them repent). This is what they thought was expected of them. But on that Saturday many of our young people experienced that “only” serving others reaches beyond all verbal communication.

The questions to think about with your own church family in mind are: Would your community be any different if your church weren’t there? How much “only” is taking place in your church? How much of your personal impact gets lost because of unrealistic expectations?

By Dennis Mohn

Dennis was born and raised in Germany and is now living and ministering with his Dutch wife, Lara, in the Netherlands. Dennis graduated from EuNC and currently serves as associate pastor in Koog aan de Zaan as well as district youth pastor for the Netherlands.

It is an early August morning in Africa on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month of Islam. Just after 5 A.M., the first of five daily calls to prayer began to be broadcast over a distant PA system, loud enough to be heard through locked hotel windows miles away.

After opening the balcony doors, I sit listening to nearly an hour of continuous “calls” to prayer. I know this represents a month of daylight fasting of food and indulgent behaviors. I am transported back to memories of the last time I experienced these sounds— more than 40 years ago, as a young child living with my family in Morocco.

In a reflective mood, my memory carries me nearly two decades forward from Morocco to a Washington, D. C. suburb where, in my late 20s, as a wife and mother of a toddler and an infant, we lived in a new housing development with a large contingent of Orthodox Jews. Friday evening walks past neighbors’ homes revealed families sitting by candlelight around the Shabbat table in front of open windows. Observant Jews, they used no power sources (electricity or cars), conducted no work (cooking and cleaning), and stayed within their eruv (defined community) during the Sabbath. Bearded, yamulked fathers with prayer shawls and side curls pushed strollers while modestly dressed mothers with head coverings held the hands of young children, walking as families to and from synagogue—Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday evening.

I thought about practices of the faithful within our own families, churches, communities, and denominations.

External religious practices, however frequently evidenced, are not the only definition of faithful believers around the world. In fact, Jesus’ call in Matthew 6 for Christians to enter a prayer closet or to practice private fasting makes the case for a less public observance of our good deeds. Yet, the larger question, for me, is am I secretly relieved to be able to privately practice my faith; would I be ashamed to be a part of such public displays? And, in turn, how have I developed my own guidelines for faithful observance?

Raised decades ago in an evangelical denomination in a more conservative part of the U.S., I learned that legalism regarding external behaviors was an important way of life within worship communities. Somehow “holiness” was not defined as a way of the heart, but as a list of behaviors that believers didn’t practice. Far beyond the pulpit expression of the jingle that “we don’t smoke, chew, or date girls who do,” the “faithful” were called, among other things, to avoid television, movies, and other entertainments, and for women to not cut their hair, wear jewelry, or use make-up while wearing high-necked, long-sleeved, long-skirted clothing, even avoiding wearing slacks and jeans. Even wedding rings were forbidden for ordained ministers and their spouses. The concept of being “worldly” was both a fear and a damnation.

Forty years later, the pockets of these specific careful observances are fewer and further between than in the past. Yet, the tensions between the “historic” and the “modern” practices of our faithfulness are stronger than ever. Sadly, in some places, they primarily distinguish within groups of Christians rather than between believers and non-believers.

So, I sit at the balcony hearing the recording of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, I am thinking about what represents faithfulness in my own life in 2009. Largely freed from organized rules on externals, I am responsible for earnestly seeking my own values and guidelines for holy living. As Paul admonished, “Everything is permissible—but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible—but not everything is constructive.” (I Corinthians 10:23)

In our “freedom” from the external rules of the past, have we developed internal “prayer closet” guidelines that are our exemplars of faithfulness? It would be a tragedy to exchange “freedom from legalism” for “freedom from faithfulness” as we move from other-defined faithfulness to our personal prayer closet faithfulness.

As we seek a “form of godliness,” let us not “deny its power” II Timothy 3:1-5a). In seeking the sanctified life—one that is totally surrendered—may we faithfully “live a life worthy of the calling [we] have received” (Ephesians 4:1).

Anita Fitzgerald Henck lives with her husband, Bill, in Azusa, California. She is a faculty member and director of the M.A. in Organizational Leadership Program at Azusa Pacific University (APU), in addition to teaching in APU’s doctoral program in higher education leadership. She is fascinated by leadership transitions and organizational change and feels blessed to be able to study and teach in these fields. Anita and Bill are the parents of Alayna (Ben) Effinger of Waldorf, Maryland, and Andrew, a senior at Point Loma Nazarene University. They are members of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene.

In all the excitement surrounding the call to be a “missional church” I find that there are still a few details that are in the process of being worked out. One of them has to do with developing some sort of understanding of what “commitment” looks like in the Body of Christ.

Now at one level some might feel that I am raising the wrong question for those of us in the “holiness tradition” have always viewed “commitment” as a “single-minded, whole-hearted” devotion to Christ. That standard has resonated with a clear call to “present ourselves as living sacrifices” to God. “Commitment” is found in a life that expresses that every word and action be done for God’s glory. But when we look at the issue through the eyes of today’s church culture the question is legitimate.

The “missional” mindset has shifted our attention from merely attending programs and services toward a renewed focus on people and relational ministry. We’ve moved away from being consumed with “attracting” people to our events and sought to send them into the world as Christ’s empowered servants. Gone are the days when people feel the need to be in church “every time the doors are opened.” But with it has come a new sense of “disconnection” to the local church.

 In the church I pastor I’ve seen individuals become so busy as they engage in various aspects of the community that they that have little time or energy left to connect with the Body of Christ. Yes, they are active building lots of relationships and “doing good” but my pastoral heart wonders whether their connection to Christ is strong enough for them to make a “Kingdom difference.” I wonder if in the midst of all of their social networking they are giving attention to “spiritual formation.”

 So I wrestle with the issue—seeking on the one hand to encourage people to be active followers of Jesus in the world—while proclaiming on the other hand the need for the “salt” to stay connected to Christ and His Church to the point that it can retain its saltiness.

 I’ve got feelings about what commitment ought to look like but would like to know what you think. And by the way, if any of you could help me figure out how to express this missional ministry in my annual report, let me know.
 

About J. Scott Shaw
J. Scott Shaw has served for the last 17 years as the pastor of Bremerton, Washington, Church of the Nazarene. He is greatly challenged to experience the coming of God’s kingdom and the living out of His will in today’s world. He and his wife, Vicki, have two grown children, Jeff (newly married to Stephanie) and Katelyn, a student at Northwest Nazarene University. He enjoys reading the sports page, discovering the humorous things of life, and standing on his deck with BBQ tools in hand.