Christian — Holiness — Missional

A Living Faith: What Nazarenes Believe

Every organization that endures over time is based on a deeply shared combination of purpose, belief, and values. So it is with the Church of the Nazarene. It was founded to transform the world by spreading scriptural holiness — both a Great Commission church and a Holiness church at the same time. Our mission is to make Christlike disciples of all nations.

The present and future life of the Church of the Nazarene is defined by participation in the mission of God — an expression of the Church of Jesus Christ, made distinct not just by what it believes but by how it contributes uniquely to the kingdom of God.

We pray that our core values will continue to serve as a guiding light for those who must make their way through the light and shadows of the decades that lie ahead.

As members of the Church Universal, we join with all true believers in proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in embracing the historic Trinitarian creedal statements of Christian faith. We value our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage and believe it to be true to Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience.

God, who is holy, calls us to a life of holiness. We believe that the Holy Spirit seeks to do in us a second work of grace, called by various terms including "entire sanctification" and "baptism with the Holy Spirit" — cleansing us from all sin; renewing us in the image of God; empowering us to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves; and producing in us the character of Christ. Holiness in the life of believers is most clearly understood as Christlikeness.

We are a "sent people," responding to the call of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to go into all the world, witnessing to the Lordship of Christ and participating with God in the building of the Church and the extension of His kingdom (2 Corinthians 6:1). Our mission (a) begins in worship, (b) ministers to the world in evangelism and compassion, (c) encourages believers toward Christian maturity through discipleship, and (d) prepares women and men for Christian service through Christian higher education.

Essays

A deeper exploration of our three core commitments

1. We Are a Christian People

We are united with all believers in proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We believe that in divine love, God offers to all people forgiveness of sins and restored relationship. In being reconciled to God, we believe that we are also to be reconciled to one another, loving each other as we have been loved by God, forgiving each other as we have been forgiven by God. We believe that our life together is to exemplify the character of Christ. We stand with Christians everywhere in affirming the historic Trinitarian creeds and beliefs of the Christian faith and deeply value our heritage in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. We look to Scripture as the primary source of spiritual truth confirmed by reason, tradition, and experience.

With all the people of God we confess and praise Jesus Christ the Lord.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Church, which, as the Apostles' Creed tells us, is one, holy, universal, and apostolic. In Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, God the Father offers forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to all the world. Those who respond to God's offer in faith become the people of God. Having been forgiven and reconciled in Christ, we forgive and are reconciled to one another. As the one Body of Christ, we have "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." We affirm the unity of Christ's Church and strive in all things to preserve it (Ephesians 4:5, 3).

Jesus Christ is the holy Lord. For this reason, Christ's Church is not only one, but also holy — holy in its parts and in its totality, holy in its members as it is in its Head. It is holy because it is the Body of Christ, who has become for us righteousness and holiness. As Christ's one Body, our life together as a church should embody the holy character of Christ, who emptied himself and took on the form of a slave. We affirm the holiness of Christ's Church, both as a gift and as a calling.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Church — universal, including all who affirm the essential beliefs of the Christian faith. We affirm the apostolic faith held by all Christians, everywhere and at all times. We embrace John Wesley's concept of the universal spirit, by which we have fellowship with all those who affirm the vital center of Scripture, and we extend toleration to those who disagree with us on matters not essential to salvation.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Scriptures. The Church especially looks to the Scriptures, which are the church's only norm of faith and life. The Lordship of Jesus over the Scriptures means that we are to understand them through the witness of the Holy Spirit as they testify to Jesus. To confirm and correct our understanding, we honor and heed the ancient creeds and other voices of the Christian tradition. We also allow our understanding to be guided by the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us in repentance, faith, and assurance, and we test it by seeking the reasonableness and coherence of their witness to Jesus Christ.

We are especially called to witness to the holiness of Christ's Church as embraced in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. We affirm salvation by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior. Our special calling is to hold before the eyes of the world and the Church the centrality of holiness and to encourage the people of God to live in the fullness of the Father's holy love — remaining faithful to: God's prevenient grace and the means of grace, repentance, faith, the new birth, justification, assurance, the Christian community and its disciplines, and the perfection of love.

2. We Are a Holiness People

We are called by Scripture and drawn by grace to worship God and to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. To this end we commit ourselves fully and completely to God, believing that we can be "sanctified wholly," as a second crisis experience. We believe that the Holy Spirit convicts, cleanses, fills and empowers us as the grace of God transforms us day by day into a people of love and spiritual discipline, ethical and moral purity, and compassion and justice. Holiness in the life of believers is most clearly understood as Christlikeness.

We believe in God the Father, the Creator, who calls into being what does not exist. We once were not, but God called us into being, made us for himself, and fashioned us in His own image. We have been commissioned to bear the image of God: "I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44).

Our hunger to be a Holiness people is rooted in the holiness of God himself. There is none like Him in majesty and glory. The appropriate human response in the presence of such a glorious being is worship of God as God. God's holiness is expressed in His gracious redemptive acts — encounter with the God who reveals and gives himself makes worship possible, and worship becomes the primary way of knowing Him. We worship the holy, redeeming God by loving what He loves.

Our worship takes many forms — praise and prayer with the faith community, acts of private devotion, thanksgiving, and obedience. Evangelistic sharing of the faith, compassion toward our neighbor, working for justice, and moral uprightness are all acts of worship before our God of blazing holiness. Even the ordinary tasks of life become acts of worship and take on a sacramental significance as worship of a holy God becomes our way of life.

Jesus Christ revealed the one holy God to us and modeled worshipful holy living for us — informing our understanding of holiness through His life, sacrifice, and teachings, particularly the Sermon on the Mount. As a Holiness people we seek to be like Jesus in every attitude and action. By His grace God enables believers who worship Him with their whole hearts to live Christlike lives. This we understand to be the essence of holiness.

We believe that holiness in the life of the believer is the result of both a crisis experience and a lifelong process. Following regeneration, the Spirit of our Lord draws us by grace to the full consecration of our lives to Him. Then, in the divine act of entire sanctification — also called the baptism with the Holy Spirit — He cleanses us from original sin and indwells us with His holy presence. He perfects us in love, enables us to live in moral uprightness, and empowers us to serve.

The Spirit of Jesus works within us to reproduce in us His own character of holy love. He enables us to "put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24). Having had the divine image restored in us, we acknowledge that we have not yet arrived spiritually; our lifelong goal is Christlikeness in every word, thought, and deed. By continued yieldedness, obedience, and faith, we believe that we are "being transformed in his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

As a Holiness people, we identify with the New Testament and the Early Church. We identify with the Arminian tradition of free grace (Jesus died for all) and human freedom — the God-given capacity of all to choose God and salvation. We also trace our heritage to the Wesleyan Revival of the 18th century and to the Holiness Movement of the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Through the centuries the holiness people have had a magnificent obsession with Jesus. We worship Jesus! We love Jesus! We think Jesus! We talk Jesus! We live Jesus! This is the essence and overflow of holiness for us."

3. We Are a Missional People

3a. Our Mission of Worship

The mission of the church in the world begins in worship. It is as we are gathered together before God — singing, hearing the public reading of the Bible, giving our tithes and offerings, praying, hearing the preached Word, baptizing, and sharing the Lord's Supper — that we know most clearly what it means to be the people of God.

Worship is the highest expression of our love for God — God-centered adoration honoring the One who in grace and mercy redeems us. The primary context for worship is the local church where God's people gather, not in self-centered experience or for self-glorification, but in self-surrender and self-offering. Worship is the church in loving obedient service to God.

The local church in worship is at the core of our identity. It is in the preaching of the Word, the celebration of the sacraments, the public reading of Scripture, the singing of hymns and choruses, corporate prayer, and the presenting of tithes and offerings that we know most clearly what it means to be the people of God. Our mission of worship is foundational, and it will include a continued commitment to the starting of new congregations.

3b. Our Mission of Compassion and Evangelism

As people who are consecrated to God, we share His love for the lost and His compassion for the poor and broken. The Great Commandment and the Great Commission move us to engage the world in evangelism, compassion, and justice — inviting people to faith, caring for those in need, standing against injustice and with the oppressed, working to protect and preserve the resources of God's creation, and including in our fellowship all who will call upon the name of the Lord.

The story of the Bible is the story of God reconciling the world to himself, ultimately through Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:16–21). The church is sent into the world to participate with God in this ministry of love and reconciliation through evangelism, compassion, and justice. The Great Commission and the Great Commandment are two expressions of a single mission, two dimensions of the one gospel message.

The mission of the church extends to all humanity — as all people, being created in the image of God, have ultimate value. God has created us as whole persons, and it is our mission to be ministers of His love to people as whole persons — body, soul, and spirit. It is with a spirit of hope and optimism that we engage our God-given mission in the world, trusting in the ability of God's grace to transform lives broken by sin and to restore them in His own image.

3c. Our Mission of Discipleship

We are committed to being — and inviting others to become — disciples of Jesus. Christian discipleship is a way of life: the process of learning how God would have us live in the world. As we learn to live in obedience to the Word of God, in submission to the disciplines of the faith, and in accountability to one another, we begin to understand the true joy of the disciplined life and the Christian meaning of freedom.

By studying and meditating on the Scriptures, Christians discover fountains of refreshment on their discipleship journey. Invigorated by the washing of the Word, disciples discover to their happy surprise that they are being "transformed by the renewing of their mind" (Romans 12:2). The Christian way opens before them like a high and open road — nerved by God, they proceed on a way of life that eclipses mere human and cultural values.

We affirm the life-giving value of the classic spiritual disciplines — prayer and fasting, worship, study, solitude, service, and simplicity — as both natural expressions and intentional commitments in the life of the believer. Discipleship requires mutual support and loving accountability through Sunday School classes, discipleship groups, Bible study groups, prayer meetings, accountability groups, and Christian mentoring.

"God has given us to each other to strengthen each other's hands." — John Wesley

3d. Our Mission of Christian Higher Education

We are committed to Christian education, through which men and women are equipped for lives of Christian service. In our seminaries, Bible colleges, colleges, and universities, we are committed to the pursuit of knowledge, the development of Christian character, and the equipping of leaders to accomplish our God-given calling of serving in the church and the world.

Our mission of Christian higher education comes directly out of what it means to be God's people. We are to love God with our whole "heart, soul and mind" — to be good stewards in the development of our minds, our academic resources, and in the application of our knowledge. In Christian higher education, faith is not compartmentalized but wonderfully integrated with knowledge as faith and learning are developed together.

Christian character and the equipping of Christian leaders for service in the church and the world are forged in the context of learning about God, humanity, and the world. As a redeemed people called to Christlikeness, we participate with God in the work of redeeming humanity — and our faithful witness to the Lordship of Christ will continue to require a vital commitment to Christian higher education in present and future generations.

Conclusion

At the turn of the 20th century, the Church of the Nazarene was born. P.F. Bresee and others were deeply convicted that God had raised them up for the express purpose of proclaiming to the church and the world the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. There are unmistakable marks of providence on this denomination. From a fledgling movement, the Church of the Nazarene now exceeds 1.3 million in membership and is ministering in 119 countries of the world.

At the turn of the 21st century, the future of this denomination has never been brighter. Many believe that we were raised up not for the 20th century, but for the 21st. We are positioned to make a major contribution to our postmodern world — grounded in our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage with its radical optimism of grace. We believe that human nature, and ultimately society, can be radically and permanently changed by the grace of God.

We have an irrepressible confidence in this message of hope, which flows from the heart of our holy God. With clarity of vision, total commitment, and firm faith, we view the coming century as our day of greatest opportunity for making Christlike disciples of all nations.

"The sun never sets in the morning."

— P.F. Bresee, Founder

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Used by permission of International Church of the Nazarene.