JESUS INVITES EVERYONE!

God became a human being (John 1:1-14), he was born into the world over 2,000 years ago and after living a few short years in Egypt (Matthew 2:19-22), Jesus and his family moved to a town called Nazareth. Jesus lived for 30 years in Nazareth before he began the first “Nazarene School of Ministry” with a group of very diverse followers (John 1:46). During his three-year preaching ministry, Jesus did lots of teaching and training, which forms the basis of our work today.

Jesus invites everyone to participate in training (John 1:37-39). Following His example, today the Nazarene movement throughout the world “recognizes all believers are called to minister to all people” (Manual, 500). “All Christians should consider themselves ministers of Christ and seek to know the will of God concerning their appropriate avenues of service (Manual, 503).

“The Church of the Nazarene recognizes a ministry of laypersons. It also recognizes that the layperson may serve the church in various capacities (Ephesians 4:11–12). The church recognizes the following categories of service in which a district assembly may place a layperson: pastor, evangelist, missionary, teacher, administrator, chaplain, and special service. Lay training is normally required, or greatly desired, to fulfill these categories.” (Manual, 503.1).

For this reason, the educational philosophy of our Board of Ministry is to train and qualify both laypersons and clergy through our first six classes. These six classes meet the educational requirements for a lay minister to become a church planter, bi-vocational pastor, teacher, lay evangelist, church staff minister and be qualified to receive a district minister’s license. At the same time, we have people taking these same classes who feel called to a lifetime of vocational ministry. In embracing this educational philosophy, we are following a practice that our Nazarene movement has embraced globally to fuel healthy, multiplying churches with training for both lay ministers and clergy in their first year of ministry development.

Thank you for your commitment to follow Jesus and better prepare to serve Him! We are here to serve you with excellence in all we do. If we can do that better in any way, please let us know. Welcome to our Board of Ministry.