discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 204 204 Future Church new era of mission. However, every day that the Church fails to mobilize adequate resources for world evangelism, 55,000 unreached people die without ever hearing the gospel. Every day the Church fails to mobilize itself, opportunities are lost. The Church can and must go so that “those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand” (Romans 15:21, quoting Isaiah 52:15). Questions for Reflection 1. What reasons do we have to be optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the Christian world mission? 2. What factors highlight the need for strategic partnerships in the third millennium? 3. What should be the Christian response to increased persecution? 4. What are some elements of a theology of suffering? What is your theology of suffering? 5. What explanation would you give for the rapid growth of the Church in several non-Western areas? 6. What are the characteristics and purposes of God that should lead us into global mission? 7. How will you personally respond to the call of God to global mission?
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 205 APPENDIX CASE STUDY: MISSION IN THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE The Church of the Nazarene was born at the end of the great century of Protestant missions. That timing may have something to do with the missionary ethos that characterizes Nazarenes. It certainly seems more than a coincidence that a denomination born in an era of intense Protestant missionary activity is today a major missionary-sending denomination. As several groups were coalescing into what would become the Church of the Nazarene, two global visionaries emerged to nurture and shape the missionary vision and strategy of the new denomination. Both of those people, H. F. Reynolds and Susan Fitkin, were part of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America in the northeastern U.S., one of the three groups that merged in 1908 to form the Church of the Nazarene. When those three Holiness groups united at Pilot Point, Texas, leaders did not need to figure out how they were going to start a global outreach program. They already had one going. Prior to the merger, all three of those groups had overseas missionary work with the Pentecostal Churches of America in the East and the Holiness Church of Christ in the South being the most active. At the time of that 1908 union, the man who would become one of the most famous names in Nazarene missionary history was already on the field. The previous year, 1907, Harmon Schmelzenbach had left what would become Southern Nazarene University to go to Africa where he remained as a missionary without furlough until traveling back to the U.S. for the 1928 Nazarene General Assembly. After that assembly, though he was in frail health, Schmelzenbach insisted on returning to Africa where he died the following year. After the 1908 merger, H. F. Reynolds became the denomination’s mission administrator, taking on the task of integrating the separate missionary endeavors of the three groups into a unified enterprise. Reynolds was also elected as one of the three Nazarene general superintendents. The passion for world evangelism that Reynolds brought to the general superintendency may have been what assured that world mission would frequently occupy center stage in the Church of the Nazarene. In 1913-14 H. F. Reynolds made an around-the-world trip. He spent an entire year away from the U.S., visiting every Nazarene mission field. That trip, 205
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discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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