Distinctively Nazarene

Last week I felt like a little kid on the first day of school. I had the unique joy of going back to school. I am working on a DMin at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. They bill themselves as "An Evangelical Seminary in the Anglican Tradition." Having spent the week immersed in the world of Anglicanism, I found myself reflecting quite a lot about the Anglican tradition and the Nazarene tradition.

At TSM, each day begins with Morning Prayer at 8:30 and Evening Prayer at 4:30. Eucharist is on Wednesday. This place is clearly Anglican. You can see it. You can feel it. You can hear it. The liturgy is unique. The vestments are unique. The whole thing is unique. It is a whole other world with a whole other ethos. From the Prayer that begins and ends the day, to the lectures throughout the day, the place oozes Anglicanism. There is absolutely no way a person could spend any time in this community and not sense the Anglicanism.

Theology (and Practice) of Ordination

Thanks to everyone who offered wisdom and guidance regarding the question of “pulpit supply” in churches that practice weekly Word & Table. I have thought much about what each of you has said. It seems, however, that I have inadvertently raised a much bigger issue – one that is appropriate to be discussed on a Sacramental-Nazarene blog. That issue is, of course, our theology and practice of holy orders.

Filling the Pulpit

So I need a little advice. We are going to begin speeding up our transition to weekly Eucharist. I will be starting a sermon series entitled "The Ways We Worship" the last Sunday of August. I will be basing it off Lester Ruth's article "A Rose By Any Other Name" which attempts to categorize protestant worship. Among other things, he notes that people tend to experience God in one of three ways: music, preaching, communion. The first week I will introduce the idea, and then I will spend three weeks each with songs in scripture (Mary's Song, Zechariah's Song, Simeon's Song), sermons in scripture (Peter @ Pentecost, Stephen @ the Sanhedrin, Paul @ Areopagus), and The Lord's Supper in scripture (institution, means of grace, frequency). I will then conclude the series on Christ the King with a sermon titled "The Worship of God and the Mission of God" that will tie in each of the three ways we worship with the great commission. We will be celebrating Holy Communion weekly from All Saints through Epiphany... and hopefully beyond.

Anyway, one thing has been going through my mind lately is a practical question. What do I do when I am gone for a Sunday?

MED524 (Frequecy of the Lord's Supper) Adopted!

According to www.gacorlando.com, MED524 dealing with the frequency of the Lord's Supper was adopted today at General Assembly. The new statement will read:

"... Acknowledging John Wesley's advice that elders should "administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord's day," and recognizing that a weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper was the New Testament and historic norm, we encourage pastors to see quarterly administration as a bare minimum. We further encourage them to move toward a more frequent celebration of this means of grace..."

Thanks to Br. Todd and the SW Indiana District, as well as JB and the Minnesota District for sponsoring this resolution and working toward a more sacramental alignment with the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Tradition to which we belong.

How to be a theologian...

Ben Myers post over at Faith & Theology - "Advice for Theological Students: 10 Steps to a Brilliant Career" - was too good, I thought, not to link to.

And as a (less humorous) counterpoint, his "Ten Virtues for Theological Students."

I figure most of us around here, whether formally or informally, either are or have been theological students, so this should hit home on some level.

2008 Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting

I don't know if any of you ever make it over to my other blog, and I know this is already late (the call for paper proposals' deadline is already up), but thought I'd let those of you know about this in case you hadn't yet. This year's Wesleyan Theological Society meeting will be held at Duke University, with guests including Jurgen Moltmann and James K. A. Smith. The title for this year's conference is, "Sighs, Signs, and Significance: Pentecostal and Wesleyan Explorations of Science and Creation." Here's the poster for the event:



Though this year's conference is dealing with "Science and Creation," there should be a fairly large "Nazarene" presence there (I can think of six or seven papers off the top of my head that will be from Nazarenes), so if you're in the area, or at all interested, you should all make it out to what is usually quite a good time. Peace.

Insights on Wesley

"For Wesley, there was no contradiction between sacramental and evangelical religion, as these terms were later formulated. He was both a Catholic sacramentalist - if by that is signified a deep attachment and devotion to the given forms through which God has promised to convey His grace and in which the believer is confirmed in faith and his life sanctified - and a revivalist who saw in the Supper a means not only of sanctification but of preaching unto conversion and justification. Without denying any of the richness of his Anglican eucharistic heritage, he broadened it to include new elements. This is paralleled by the fact that he adhered to the Anglican liturgy while at the same time adding characterist Methodist features, notably hymns and extempore prayer. The Catholic and Protestant features were present also in doctrine, and, as with baptism, Wesley strove for a genuine via media between the extremes of both positions..."

from John R. Parris, John Wesley's Doctrine of the Sacraments. London: The Epworth Press, 1963, pgs 95-96.