Dealing with tragedy is an all too common experience for pastors. During such times, a pastor may feel overwhelmed at the senseless nature of the event, or at a loss to give a word of comfort that might speak to the depth of grief.

On April 7, our mid-week prayer group interceded for those involved in the mine explosion that devastated Montcoal, West Virginia. We were visited and interviewed by a TV news team, since we are in a county where coal mining has a long history. Many in our congregation have friends or family connected with the industry.

One person out of 30 commits suicide in Slovenia. Out of two million inhabitants, there are only around 1,000 Evangelical Christians.

Slovenia, the northernmost republic of the former Yugoslavia, is a small country about the size of New Jersey that lies just south of Austria and just east of northern Italy. Shortly after the Church of the Nazarene started a church there, SloNaz Mission was established in the capital city of Ljubljana (population 350,000).

Micayla Simmons is a high school senior from Ohio who is also a full-time post secondary student at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU). Check out her perspective on life and issues facing students.

Friends and free time:
We hang out with each other at someone's house and watch movies or play games on the Wii. We also drive to the city and go shopping or go out to eat. Since our free time is so scarce, we mostly just spend it relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

Maintaining faith:

Janine Tartaglia Metcalf is pastor of El Cajon, California, Church of the Nazarene. She and her husband, Ed, have two grown sons. Coming from a journalism background, she shares compelling faith and vocation stories.

I've been thinking about revival-maybe because it's spring and my spiritual clock anticipates a protracted meeting usually in the autumn and spring in the local church. My thinking has turned to prayer for revival. It's on my heart and mind each time I enter my daily devotional times. My Web surfing usually parallels what is occupying my mind, and I read this on-line in a scholarly paper:

Is there a distinction between revival and awakening?
RENEWAL: When God touches the heart of a single individual
REVIVAL: When God touches a community of faith

"Jesus is Lord!" was a common greeting among New Testament believers. They confessed a lifestyle of radical obedience to the Lordship of Jesus.

In the fullness of the Spirit
"Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, . . . was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil" (Luke 4:1, TM).

If Jesus was tempted, you and I will be tempted as well.

Q. It seems that many who attend church as children and teens drift away when they enter young adulthood. Many churches seem to find it difficult to minister to this age group. What can be done?

One prominent Christian ethicist is fond of saying that the primary task of the Church is to “be the Church in contrast to the world.” What he means by this is that our witness as the Church begins with authentically proclaiming and living out the radical new kingdom that God has introduced through the life and work of Jesus Christ.

By bearing witness to the unique ways of Jesus, we present a clear contrast between the ways of “the world” and the ways of God . . . this contrast is actually the difference between life and death.

The call of God is a process. Whether it is a call to vocational Christian ministry (i.e., the pastorate) or the calling to another vocation, the initial prompting, ongoing preparation, and necessary affirmation in God’s call are spread out over a lifetime.

My own calling to vocational ministry probably came most clearly to me when I was 16 years old. The clarity of this call was affirmed by my local church pastor who, to this day (over thirty years since that initial sense of calling) still serves as an encouraging voice to me.

Rolf Kleinfeld and his wife, Debbie, were missionaries for the Church of the Nazarene from 2003-10. Serving on the Asia Pacific Region, Rolf was field strategy coordinator for the Southeast Asia Field in Bangkok, Thailand. They have two grown children, Joshua and Susan, and three grandchildren.