I have not been particularly good at blogging my church experiences lately. I have pictures from a few churches and really need to share a few of them. Why? Because I think it is a good opportunity to point out what churches do. And, since most of my readers don't get go to some of the places I go, it is a good opportunity for us to learn from each other.

For example, I recently preached at Grace Nazarene Church in Nashville. The pastor is Ken Dove (and, yes, it would be great to have a name like "Pastor Dove.")

First a little about the Nazarenes. Wikipeida has a good introduction:

The Church of the Nazarene is an international evangelical Christian denomination that emerged primarily from within the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition of the 19th century Holiness movement. The denomination is commonly referred to as the Nazarene Church, and its members referred to as Nazarenes. The mission is "to respond to the Great Commission of Christ to 'go and make disciples of all nations' (Matthew 28:19)," In December 2006 this was expressed more succinctly as "to make Christlike disciples in the nations." This frames the global mission of the denomination. In 2009 the General Assembly indicated in its revision of Article XI of the Manual the means for accomplishing its mission: "making disciples through evangelism, education, showing compassion, working for justice, and bearing witness to the kingdom of God." Since 2001, the three "core values" of the Church have been identified as "Christian, missional, and holiness."

I always enjoy a denomination that considers being missional as one of its "core values"! However, for most non-Nazarenes, their most fascinating doctrinal belief relates to sanctification (hence the post title). However, this issue has been a point of discussion for the Nazarenes as of late. You can see a helpful Christianity Today story about that here (if you are interested, be sure to read the links at the bottom of that story).

But, my focus here is my visit to the church.

The church building has a great location right on Briley Parkway in Nashville. And, driving up is like heading into a park.

The church has a large entry foyer and they specifically built out to create a welcoming environment at the entry way. You can see the brick in the background where the building was enclosed to create a welcoming space.

The foyer had a welcome center-- something that I would think would be universal today, but I am still surprised to find lacking in many churches.

I was impressed that the church works hard to celebrate its history. The hallway has a well done historical overview.

One of the more interesting things to me was the presence of prayer benches / altars at the front.

This is the first time I have seen something like this, but Ken tells me that this is common in Nazarene churches. (Under each bench is a slot for Kleenex boxes, so they are full service!) At one point during worship, Ken called for the elders of the church to come forward and pray for two persons with physical needs. We gathered around the benches.

Ken Dove was a Nazarene evangelist before becoming a pastor and he has a great love for sharing Christ. Part of that is expressed by his study of Billy Graham, upon whom Ken did his doctoral thesis. And, Ken has quite a collection of Graham paraphernalia!

My personal favorite was the Popular Science article:

Ken only has one vice that I can see-- he has a Thom Rainer section in his library. ;)

I had a great time being at Grace Nazarene and hope I was able to encourage the folks there during my message.