Teaching the Articles of Faith
A few weeks ago, I asked my father (the pastor of our church) if I could do some lessons on the Nazarene Articles of Faith for the church on Wednesday nights. This is part of the "grassroots movement..." I'm lucky to have a local church that is willing to put me up in front of them to talk! He said that would be fine. He and my mother are out of town this week, so in his absence he has asked me to begin the Articles of Faith lessons this coming Wednesday. Before he left to go out of town, he asked me about the lessons. He said, "So your gonna teach on Wednesday night, right? I then asked if I could have more than one Wednesday night to teach and he responded, "How long will it take to teach the Articles?" My response was this, "A year or more, dad, but I guess I will settle for two Wednesday nights." I love my father, but it is difficult sometimes to come to common ground with him.
So I teach the Articles of Faith on Wednesday night. By the grace of God, I might get through the Trinity.
With the Spirit's help,
Joseph
So I teach the Articles of Faith on Wednesday night. By the grace of God, I might get through the Trinity.
With the Spirit's help,
Joseph
posted by Joseph | 9:07 AM
2 Comments:
A number of years ago, I taught a young-adult SS class at a Nazarene church in a Naz-college town. Most of the members of that particular class had some connection with the school or other--having gone to it, working at it, etc.... I can't remember how long the series was (I think about 6 weeks), but I walked the class through the aricles of faith, drawing parallels and comparisons with the Nicean Creed as we went. I can't remember how many times people said, "I didn't know we believed that!" I think the series was enriching for all involved, including me. So I wish you the best in this sereis. I hope that it gets members of the congregation interested to the point where you can devote more time to the articles.
I also think it would be interesting to teach the articles geneologically, showing how they have changed and developed over the years. But doing history and denominational theology at the same time might really be too much!
Good for you, Joseph - and it is very encouraging to know that your dad would give you such a platform (although it is discouraging that an idea such as teaching about the Articles of Faith would be so novel or unusual!).
My father preached through the articles of faith during Lent and continuing on between Easter and Pentecost (I think that's about the right chronology). I was very proud of him for doing this, although I wasn't around to be a part of it and haven't had the opportunity since to talk to people in the congregation to see how it went over. I was able to listen to some of his sermons on the church's website and, while I would have liked to take him to task on ceratin things he said, it was all in all pretty good, all things considered. Still, I think we've got hard work to do here, and as you've discovered, most nazarenes have a dreadfully poor knowledge of what the church of the nazarene actually believes.
Kevin's idea here is a good one - given world enough and time, it would be spectacular to teach through the articles of faith by looking at each one and how it has evolved over the years. The book I've mentioned before, A Century of Holiness Theology (by Mark Quanstrom) has an appendix that charts the evolution of each article. While they haven't changed as much as SOME might expect, it is astonishing how much we've tweaked our doctrine over the years, and even more interesting (to me) why we've found it necessary to do so. Indeed, Christian teaching is always both a response to and an expression of the cultural milieu (despite what the Vatican says or believes), and it fascinates me how we have responded to the various cultural shifts that have taken place during our century or so of life as a church - what a strange and interesting time to be coming up as a church. And what a unique heritage for a 'new(-ish)' church to have: we've come up alongside Charistmatics and Pentecostals and other such churches, most of whom are either far more reformed/calvinist than we could ever be, or are just devoid of a theological tradition altogether - so I think it's a unique opportunity that we have inherited a Wesleyan-Arminian theology, although it means we have a constant battle to retain it and not be assimilated into either the reformed/calvinist/baptist family or the generic evangelical/megachurch paradigm either.
I'm totally with Joseph: we have to teach our people about Wesley - not in a way that idolizes him (any more than any other saint and father of the church - heroes, not idols), but in a way that honors who he was and we are because of who he was (and who his followers were). And we'd do well to just start w/ teaching our folks the articles of faith - anyway and any time we can. Keep it up, Joseph, and I hope to hear about more of this going on!
(P.S. Although - and this is a topic for the sacramental nazarenes blog, I suspect - our articles on baptism and the Lord's Supper need a good tweaking before I'm happy - but we'd still do well with learning what we already believe about them in the current formulation, and then think about how it might be improved - more on this soon on the other blog.)
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