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Dec, 01, 2009 0
Hans Deventer returning home to the Netherlands following the 2001 General Assembly in Indianapolis.
As I reflect on my first visit to a general assembly, the word that describes it is "huge." When you come from a small district of 11 churches and 1,600 Nazarenes, a general assembly is like…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
It was a contentious meeting, the likes of which the Palo Alto zoning board had not seen in a long time. Things were getting out of hand as opponents of the addition of a liquor store to a local strip mall near the high school shouted out their objections and proponents defended their right to open…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
On an ordinary Monday in November, three others and I headed from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to the country's southern area to prepare for a Work and Witness team. However, when we stopped in Saint-Michel along the way, what we saw at the Saint-Michel Church of the Nazarene wasn't ordinary. On the…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
As I sat down at the computer to write what was on my heart, the phone rang. On the line was a district superintendent who told me the sad news that one of his pastors had just surrendered their credential. "Conduct unbecoming a minister" was the reason given. The superintendent told me of the…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
My life is an answer to prayer. I grew up in the Los Angeles area as an at-risk child with a single mother. My mother worked constantly, my father was half a continent away, and my older sister, Susie, became my parental figure. I was not taken to church or taught about the Heavenly Father whom I…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
The Nazarene founders might have chosen October 1907 as the church's official anniversary date, for that's when a new denomination was created at the First General Assembly in Chicago. However, the Second General Assembly, in October 1908, expanded the infant denomination's numbers and made the…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
The faithful and busy lay people of Saint Clair Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Toronto, Ontario, taught me—then a neighborhood teenager—how to fish for perch and pickerel and to dream about muskies in Canadian lakes and rivers. Among these people was my unforgettable fishing mentor, Mr. Paddle.…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
I walked today where Jesus walked . . . literally. I was on the cobblestone streets of Nazareth, His hometown. I had come there specifically to view the place where the opening chapter of the Christmas story was written.
I noticed a sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English on a light post in front of a…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
When churches speak of “revival,” the model most often referred to is the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, and there are good reasons for this. The disciples obeyed Jesus, they gathered together in harmony as He commanded (“with one accord in one place” [Acts 2:1 KJV]), and they waited obediently…
Dec, 01, 2009 0
Ahab was one wicked king! So evil, in fact, that the Scripture says that Ahab "did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him" (I Kings 16:33). He was one dark king!
Scene One: God sent the prophet Elijah to confront King Ahab and to declare…