APRIL 2005
Editor: Robin Wagganer
100th District Assembly Information & Schedule
Muslim Awareness Seminar Summary
General Assembly & Conventions
by John Calhoun, D.S.
For the first time,
Livermore Discovery Church is hosting our Northern California District Assembly
and Missionary Convention. This is the centennial year for our district.
The primary business of the
District Assembly is to elect ministers to the order of Elder and witness their
ordination by the General Superintendent. In connection with that, this is the
body to which each minister within the district gives an account by way of a
report. The members of this Assembly are delegates from each of the organized
churches throughout the district proportionately according to size of
membership.
The Northern California
District boundary includes the coastal counties starting with Monterey County
and going north to Del Norte County also including Lake, Sonoma, Napa and San
Benito Counties.
This is a time of
encouragement and inspiration when the District Church gathers for praise and
instruction. Please support these events with your attendance and especially
your prayers.
District
Assembly Schedule
Wednesday, May 4, 7PM
Centennial Praise Service
honoring our past District Superintendents. We have invited special guests and
are anticipating the presence of the Kinzlers, Mrs. Grady Cantrell, and family
members of Dr. Zachary, Dr. Coulter and Dr. Smee.
Thursday, May 5,
8:30AM-4:30PM
District Assembly
business with Dr. Jerry Porter, General Superintendent presiding.
Thursday, May 5, 7PM
Ordination Service with
three candidates for ordination this year.
Friday, May 6, 8:30AM
Nazarene Missions
International Convention with many inspiring challenges to support the Global
Church
Friday, May 6, 7PM
Youth and Mission Service
with Dr. Oliver Phillips challenging our youth to mission service.
Saturday, May 7, 8:30AM
Nazarene Youth
International Convention, electing a new District President.
NorCal 100th District
Assembly
Livermore Discovery Church of the
Nazarene
5860 Las Positas Road
Livermore, CA 94551
Phone: 925-449-5256
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100 Years of NorCal Blessings: San Francisco 
First Church
submitted by Jeff
Mammen from a 1926 reading
In the fall of 1905, some
Christian people were worshipping in a little store-room on what was then known
as City Hall Ave., facing Eighth Street off Market. Among these were L. J.
Tollifson, Thomas Matthews and wife, Bro. Garrett and others, who with the
encouragement of Rev. P. G. Linaweaver, then Superintendent of the Northern
California District and Pastor of Oakland Nazarene Church, were contemplating
the organization of a Church of the Nazarene in San Francisco, when owing to
some difficulty, they were compelled to vacate the premises and were without a
place in which to worship.
At this juncture, the
writer, a traveling salesman and a local preacher at the time in Howard St.
Methodist Episcopal Church, having been greatly blessed in a meeting he had
just attended at the First Church of the Nazarene, Los Angeles, felt definitely
called to throw in his lot with the Nazarenes, and to that end rented a store
room himself on Valencia St. near 14th St., and invited the City Hall Ave.,
friends to come there to worship, which was done. Meetings were held regularly
for several months until he received a letter from Rev. C. B. Langdon, an old
friend and Free Methodist Evangelist, then on the coast, and he wrote Bro.
Langdon and asked him if he would be willing to come to San Francisco and take
charge of a little band of holiness people who were bent on starting a Nazarene
work in San Francisco, and if so, would he come without promise of salary and
trust God for results. Bro. Langdon replied saying that he would come and
pending his arrival, the writer sent out letters to all Christian people he
knew around the Bay District, inviting them to a great holiness rally the
following Sunday afternoon in the Valencia St. Hall with Bro. Langdon in
charge.
The hall which had a
seating capacity of one hundred was well filled and a gracious meeting followed
at the close of which, souls sought and found the Lord, and several united
themselves together for the purpose of planting a Nazarene Church in San
Francisco. In January, 1906, Bro. Langdon having himself united with the
Nazarene Church in Oakland, was regularly appointed Pastor by the District
Superintendent, and organized a class of which the following were charter
members: Walter Hiskey, C. B. Howard, Bro. Nichols, Mrs. Eliza Schultz, Mrs.
Rampe, and Mr. Joseph Grant, deaconess, and the writer, H.H.B. Ciprico.
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by Rev. John Wilcox, Santa Cruz
“You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!”
You will not want to miss this day filled with
missions. The mission to inspire, acknowledge, teach and bless our Lord and our
Nor Cal District friends and delegates with the mission of the church. We will
also have special keynote speaker Bob Prescott. See you at Livermore Discovery
for our District Missionary Convention May 6th at 8:30 am.
And, one of the highlights of the entire week, on
Friday, May 6th beginning at 7:00pm, the NYI, in conjunction with NMI, will
preside over a service no one will ever forget. This is a multi-cultural and
multi-generational gathering with our guest speaker, Oliver Phillips. It is a
FUN FRIDAY FESTIVAL OF PRAISE that you definitely won’t want to miss.
Tylenol for New Guinea
This year once again the District is collecting
Tylenol for our Nazarene Hospital in Kudjup, New Guinea. Our goal as a District
is to collect sufficient Tylenol to supply the hospital with enough pain medication
to last a year! If each church will give $20.00, this will help cover the
postage to send the Tylenol to this beautiful Pacific island.
Children’s Clothing Needed for Swaziland
Children live in the fields and in the roots of
trees; these children are orphans as their parents have died from AIDS. Along
side our Nazarene missionary Dana Harding; Swazi Bible college students are
sharing the story of Jesus with these abandoned children. However, these
children not only need to know about Jesus, they need clothes. Here is how you
can help. We are looking for CLEAN clothes any season, with buttons in place
and zippers that work with a minimum of one year’s wear left. Bring your
clothes to the Livermore church now or to convention in May. If a church would
like to send their boxes of clothes directly to Dana, contact our District
LINKS secretary Rebeca Ross, through her email at turtlefrog@aol.com.
Work and Witness
If you have not paid your World Evangelism Fund for
this year, consider taking a special offering this week to make that possible.
Part of the heart of Nazarene missions is being able to take a team of teens
and adults to somewhere in the world to build, repair or restore a church,
parsonage, school, or clinic. In order for our District to be able to
participate in this very important facet of the global church we need to pay
our World Evangelism fund by 90 %. Here’s the 90% BONUS: If we can top the 90th
percentile, then we can put our friend, Bob Kilpatrick, to work planning our
next Work and Witness Trip. (Here’s our Convention chant: “Let’s give Bob a
job...Let’s give Bob a job...!”)
Dimes: Always & Forever
Most of our local churches have participated again
this year collecting DIMES for the starving people in Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea
and the Sudan). We have topped the 500,000 mark for the very first
time...Hallelujah! We will also have a moment in our Convention to have more
collected and reported. So, if you haven’t sent them in yet, or if you’ve
collected more since you sent yours in, BRING THEM WITH YOU TO LIVERMORE.
Year End NMI reports!!
Local NMI Presidents! Pastors without a President! Please get your year-end report in to Carolyn Hart, District NMI Secretary (6120 Bava Court, San Jose, CA, 95123) as soon as you can...EVERY CHURCH needs to get their report in. It’s the one that asks for: Membership numbers, Mission Priority One goals and achievement statistics, Mission Education Credits, Ten Percent Giving, etc. Thank you for your cooperation.
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May 15th is World Day of Prayer. To
learn more, visit
Muslim Awareness Seminar Summary
by Rev. Terry Irish,
Sunnyvale
The Sunnyvale Nazarene
Church hosted Rev. Donald Fareed on Saturday, Feb. 5th, for a Muslim Awareness
Seminar. This one day seminar was a follow up to the November 28th, 2004
message Pastor Donald preached at SNC while Pastor Terry was out of town. The
title of his message, "Why I Am Not a Muslim", was posted on the
church's reader board, and received local TV and newspaper coverage, as well as
national attention when "Good Morning America -- Sunday" included
this topic in their broadcast that same morning. Not intended to be
confrontational or controversial, putting the title of his message on the sign
generated many phone calls, letters, and other forms of feedback - both
positive and not so positive. This event also launched Pastor Donald into the
national spotlight, and has given him countless opportunities to speak and
share his testimony to a far greater audience than would have been possible,
had it not been for the attention his message received that Sunday and in the
following weeks.
Donald -- a former
Shi'ite Muslim -- came to the US from Iran more than 20 years ago, and has been
serving as a Christian Pastor and evangelist to Muslims since the early 1990's.
Recently, the Lord opened the door for him to begin preaching and reaching out
to between 25-35 million Muslims every week via a San Jose satellite station
owned and operated by a Muslim. Donald's ministry - Persian Ministries
International - is involved in numerous training and speaking events in and
around the Bay Area.
Islam, which means
"Peace through submission (or surrender)" is the world's fastest
growing religion, with approximately 1.2 billion followers worldwide - 1 out of
every 5 people living today. According to Pastor Donald's research, only 8% of
the churches in the Bay Area are involved in or believe in missions. While
thousands of churches are closing daily, mosques are opening, and many are
moving into those buildings.
In the Islamic world
there are many views on how to interpret the Koran. In fact, everything is
Islam is open to interpretation. Contrary to the New Testament, which has one
interpretation and many applications, there are three different viewpoints,
espoused by the three basic types of Muslims:
1. Cultural or Secular
Muslims-these Muslims may know a verse or two from the Koran, and say they are
Muslims, but they don't really know or practice Islam.
2. Moderate Muslims -
they know the Koran, but seek to make their faith relevant to modern life. They
don't follow all of the teachings in the Koran, often skipping some parts. They
try to interpret the Koran so they can live in peace with Jews and Christians.
Verse 10:94 of the Koran reads, "Allah says to Mohammed: 'If you have
doubts, go to Christians and Jews. They have the truth.'"
3. Fundamentalist
Muslims-they believe and practice such teachings as Koran 9:29, "If you
don't believe in Islam, we will get you." They take the harsh verses of
the Koran, and use them to justify many actions, including the most well-known
aspect of their fundamentalist beliefs - Jihad. The basic interpretation of
Jihad is "an inner struggle with sin." A fundamentalist Muslim
believes in a more radical interpretation of Jihad that allows them, by any and
every means, to force the world to yield to the teachings of the Koran and make
the infidels convert to Islam.
Since the 9/11 attacks on
the World Trade Center, two trends have emerged: 1) Many Americans have sought
out and joined the Islamic faith. 2) Many Moderate Muslims have begun
questioning the teaching of the Koran, and have been leaving Islam.
If you would like a
cassette tape of the message Pastor Donald preached on Nov. 28th, please send a
check for $5 to SNC. The Seminar was recorded in both audio and digital video
formats. If you would like more information about this Seminar, or would like
more information about PMI, please contact them at: PMI P.O. Box 18961 San
Jose, CA 95158 408.445.2772. You can also e-mail them at Gospel4Persians@Aol.com or on the web
at www.PersianMinistries.org.
An excellent web site
resource is available to provide additional information. Founded by Christian
actor Kirk Cameron, who knows and understands that salvation is only available
through Jesus Christ, the web address is www.LivingStreams.org
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General Assembly and Conventions 2005
from NCN News, March
25, 2005
"Be My
Guest" Feature
Thousands of Nazarenes
are gearing up to converge on Indianapolis, Indiana for the 26th General
Assembly in June 2005. Hospitality is a welcome element associated with this
event. Now, a new opportunity is being announced on the General Secretary's
page of the headquarters Web site. According to Gay Leonard, communications
consultant working with the General Secretary's office, 'Be My Guest' is an
opportunity for Nazarenes to host a Nazarene from another part of the world for
a meal during General Assembly. All the details are available at http://nazarene.org/gensec/beMyGuest.html.
Persons interested can visit this page to receive information and to fill out
and submit a form in order to participate.
Leonard stated, "We
would like to get exposure for this ministry so that hosts can be recruited
particularly for Nazarenes from the six world regions attending General
Assembly." For further details please contact Marolyn Miner in the General
Secretary's office at mminer@nazarene.org.
NMI 24/7 Prayer Plan
Around-the-clock concerts
of prayer will be held for seven days during the General Assembly and
Conventions. "The purpose of the 24/7 prayer plan is to intercede for
revival in the Church of the Nazarene," said General Nazarene Missions
International (NMI) Director Nina Gunter, "and for the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit upon all the meetings and events of the General Assembly and
Conventions."
Each region of the world,
including USA/Canada, has been assigned a day to pray during June 23-29. A
person in each region has been named to coordinate blocks of prayer time during
each of the 24-hour periods. The Board of General Superintendents and the
directors of Sunday School Ministries and Nazarene Youth International, along
with NMI, are providing specific prayer requests for the General Assembly and
Conventions.
Gunter said, "Along
with the Million Hours of Prayer, the Prayer Brunch, and the prayer rooms in
Indianapolis, this new prayer initiative will mobilize Nazarenes all around the
world to intercede to God on behalf of the important decisions being made and
all of the services and activities of the Nazarene quadrennial gathering."
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SoloCon is a gathering of
single adults supported by The Church of theNazarene Sunday School Ministries.
This year's SoloCon West takes place on Memorial Day weekend at PineSummit Camp
in Big Bear Lake. This year's speaker will be Dr. Harold Ivan Smith, a very
well known andinspirational speaker. The weekendwill include workshops,
devotional times, as well as outdoor activities andfellowship opportunities. Theweekend
is geared toward all single adults-the never married, divorced, and widowed. For
more information orregistration forms, you can visit the SoloCon website at www.solocon.org.
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by Suzanne Sands, GGCC
The San Francisco Board
of Supervisors and The Commission and Department on the Status of Women
presented the Women Making History Ceremony and our very own, Dawn Stueckle,
was chosen as a 2005 Honoree by Supervisor Fiona Ma! 11 women were honored at the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting on March 22. Dawn was recognized for
her passion for youth and the community as demonstrated through her work as the
Executive Director of Sunset Youth Services.
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Clergy Development is
launching a new e-mail communiqué entitled Soul Care as a resource to Nazarene
pastors. The first two components will be New Every Morning, a Monday-Friday
e-mail message containing a biblical promise, an inspiring quote, and a brief
prayer. Iron Sharpens Iron is a quick read, skill-idea-how-to communiqué that
will come out twice a month.
Through Soul Care, Clergy
Development wants to come along side our clergy to encourage them, to remind
them of how vital their ministry is to so many people, and to affirm how much
they are treasured on the ministry team of the Church of the 
Nazarene.
The New Every Morning
component of Soul Care arrives via e-mail Monday through Friday. It offers an
encouraging scriptural promise, a thoughtful quotation and a prayer. A second
component called "Iron Sharpens Iron" is a twice-a-month resource
e-newsletter that shares ministry ideas and encouragement.
Visit www.nazarenepastor.org/soulcare.html to
subscribe.
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from NCN News, March
25, 2005
Olathe College Church of
the Nazarene pastor, J. K. Warrick joined another area pastor and legal expert
to debate the issues surrounding the pending vote on the marriage amendment in
the state of Kansas which takes place April 5, 2005. Warrick squared off
against the pastor of an influential congregation in the Johnson County, Kansas
area. Warrick's opponent claimed that homosexuality is neither a sin nor a
choice, but rather mistakenly labeled as a sin from a "literal reading of
some passages of the Old and New Testaments." Warrick responded, "We
believe that it (homosexuality) is absolutely wrong. Therefore as a culture we
need to find some way to defend marriage and to define marriage."
A law professor from the
University of Kansas joined the two pastors for the debate, which took place
before an audience of 150 at Johnson County Community College.
Warrick concluded by
saying, "If you have no moral absolutes, then about anything is OK. If you
have an absolute, which I do, then I must bring my thinking, my worldview, my
understanding of life and marriage ... into conformity with the word of
God."
In response to his
opponent's plea that Jesus welcomed the marginalized, the outcasts into his
fellowship, Warrick responded, "There are many, many stories in the
Scripture that indicate when a person comes to Christ, they come as they
are. But he does not leave us
where we are. He transforms us and changes us and makes us into the people he
would like us to be."
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