Some choices are very hard to make.  Choosing a restaurant to eat at can be very hard but I must admit, to this point in my life, I have never had to make a choice that has been as hard as this particular one.  “Was it harder than choosing my wife?”  Yes.  “You mean it was harder than choosing to accept God’s call on your life to go into full-time ministry?”  Yes.  “What about harder than choosing to come to Frostburg, Maryland?” Yes.  “It couldn’t have been harder than choosing to plant a new church in Frostburg?”  Yes… it was.  This one beats them all.  The choice to stay with the Church of the Nazarene or to leave and become an independent church has been the hardest, most painful choice I have ever had to make.

Why is that, you ask?  Because all of the other choices made some sort of sense.  But this one was different.  To be honest, it really didn’t make much sense to me.  After all, I had been brought up in the Nazarene Church; I had been called into ministry in the Nazarene Church; I received my education at Nazarene Bible College; I had become an ordained Elder in the Church of the Nazarene; and I was pastoring a church plant that was supposed to become a Nazarene Church.  So why in the world would I even give thought to not being a Nazarene Church?

Because I sensed God saying, “No.”  That’s it.  Not much of an explanation is it.  But for some reason or another, every time conversation would lead to talk of New Beginnings becoming a Nazarene Church, something within me would cringe.  As this continued within me for some time and as it came closer to the time for us to organize, I thought it might be good to talk to others at New Beginnings who were members of the Church of the Nazarene—just to get their thoughts on organizing.  I was surprised when several of them sensed the same hesitancy within them when the idea of organization was presented to them.  So, I began to take my “No” a little more seriously.  I started wondering if there was something to this.

All along, my wonderful wife, Connie, was telling me that I needed to get away to some place and make sure that I heard what God was telling me.  On something as important as this, she said I could not afford to just come up with the answer on my own.  And deep down… I knew she was right!

Before doing so, I wanted to talk to my District Superintendent, Ken Mills—a godly man whom I love to death and think the world of.  I wanted to just run by him what I was struggling with and my thoughts on everything—mostly wanting some more prayer support and some direction.  After much conversation, I came away from that meeting with him asking me to help him change the Church of the Nazarene.  We both agreed that change comes from grass-roots movements—not from top-down directives.

With all of these thoughts swimming around in my head, I was more confused than ever.  On one side, I was excited about the possibilities of helping to change a church—being a rebel and having my D.S.’s okay to do so was rather exciting!  Yet on the other hand, there was still this deep down feeling that something wasn’t quite right.  So on Monday, December 9^th, 2002, I took off for a personal prayer retreat. 

Oh, let me mention one other thing.  The Sunday before I left, someone came up to me after my Discipleship Class.  In the class, I had asked them to be praying for me over the next couple days as I would be on a prayer retreat, waiting to hear from God.  This person, who really hadn’t spoken into my life very much, said to me: “After you mentioned you were leaving for a prayer retreat, I felt impressed that I needed to tell you, ‘You may hear some things you don’t want to hear.’”  How’s that for encouragement?  But in reality, he was very right.  I had to prepare myself not just for what I wanted to hear, but for what I might not want to hear as well!

To be honest, when I left my house, there were mixed emotions about this whole ordeal.  I was excited about having some time alone with God… time that I haven’t really had ever!  Yet on the other hand, I was scared to death.  I wasn’t sure what I would hear. 

I spent the first full day, Tuesday, just reading and praying.  I read the book of Matthew and went for a walk down by the Shenandoah River.  I sat and prayed and sensed that God was calling me away from the Church of the Nazarene.  But honestly, that wasn’t good enough.  I wanted more.  I wanted to be so sure of this decision.  And while I sensed God calling me away, I didn’t really have the answer to “Why?”  In fact, here’s an excerpt from my journal entry that day:

As I mentioned down at the river, I am really looking for a solid, clear answer on whether or not New Beginnings should organize as a Nazarene church or become an independent church.  Everything within me seems to be pulling towards the idea of independent—but at the same time, I struggle with what people are going to think and the idea that I want to be absolutely sure of whatever it is you have called me to.

As I saw that group of ducks on the water, I didn’t really think you would use them to show me your answer.  But I have do admit, it was pretty funny that as I was praying about what direction to go, they all just took off!  I guess I’m not really ready to say that those ducks leaving was my answer, but I’m open to letting you use them.

I will say this… when those ducks left, I really felt alone.  There wasn’t anyone else around during the whole time I was out there but at least I wasn’t alone—until the ducks flew off.  Again, maybe you were trying to show me that I would be alone in this decision and I may need to get used to it.

Or maybe you were speaking through that chunk of ice that was in the water.  As I continued to pray, I heard it begin to “break away” from its resting place.  Again, are you telling me to break away from the church?

I guess through all of this, the bottom line—and I told you this by the water—is that I will continue to be faithful to what you call me to do.  I was reminded that you called me to preach your word… and I obeyed.  I was reminded that you called me to Colorado Springs… and I obeyed.  I was reminded that you called me to Frostburg Church of the Nazarene… and I obeyed.  I was reminded that you called Connie and I to plant a new church… and I obeyed.  And every time I obeyed… you have been faithful to bless each step.

Here I find myself on the threshold of another “obey” moment.  And to be honest, this may be one of the hardest ones to follow through with.  Why?  Because at least the other one’s made some sense.  But many will look at this and say that there’s no reason why we can’t stay Nazarene.  And the only thing I have to go on to this point is that you say “no”-or at least that’s what I think you are saying.  When people ask me why and I tell them… it probably won’t make a lot of sense to them.  Then again… maybe it will.

As I mentioned to Connie and Jim, maybe I am at a point of having to get beyond what other people will think of me and Your church.  Maybe I need to quit being a people pleaser and just worry about being a God pleaser.  I know that I have tried to please you, Jesus, but at the same time, there’s a side of me that wants people to recognize my efforts and praise me or thank me.  I realize that this may be “normal” but I don’t know that I want to be “normal.”  I really do want to get to a point where I am so faithful and obedient to you that I do what the world would consider stupid things… things that don’t make a lot of sense to them.  Noah’s the kind of guy I want to be.  He never saw rain but was faithful to build this boat even though he saw no need for it.

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Well, here it is, 10:21 PM on Tuesday evening… and to this point, every thought that I have seems to be in favor of not organizing and leaving the Church of the Nazarene.  It’s just one of those things that I can’t explain.

Every time I consider staying with the Nazarenes, I get an uneasy feeling.  As I was thinking about this earlier today, I realized that the only time that I felt okay with this whole thing is after my talk with Ken Mills… but even then I felt somewhat reluctant.  I was okay with being a change agent in the church, but I still didn’t feel a great deal of peace about the whole thing…

As you can tell, I still hadn’t received the answers I was looking for.  I had a feeling what the answer was, but I just didn’t have a peace about all of this.

Well, on my second full day of the retreat, Wednesday, I awoke to an ice storm!  Trees were covered with ice and it was drizzling outside.  After breakfast, I sat down and read through the book of Mark.  The reason for reading through the Gospels is I wanted to re-read about the life of Jesus and I thought that somewhere in the words of Jesus I would find the answers.  While I didn’t really find the answer to my specific question, I did find truth that would be part of this decision.

In the midst of the ice storm, I decided that I would go for another walk.  I grabbed my umbrella and took another walk down to the Shenandoah River… to my praying spot that I had established the day before.

I got there and started praying and thinking and after quite a bit of time, it finally dawned on me… I am not a Nazarene!  I don’t think Nazarene; I don’t believe Nazarene (fully); and I don’t do Nazarene things.  It was then that the light bulb finally came on!  I realized that this decision had nothing to do with the church itself… it had more to do with who I am personally.  And I finally realized that it would be impossible for me to lead a Nazarene church when I myself am not a Nazarene at heart!

Now why was this such a big deal?  I recently had received an e-mail from someone who told me that one thing they learned from me was to be authentic—to be real!  And as I was standing by the river, it finally occurred to me that I was not being real.  I was not being true to myself and who I really am.  Allow me to go back in time…

In my junior year of college, God started to really deal with me—He started to shape me for my future ministry.  My very close friend, Jeff Hall, (which by the way, was God-appointed… we are so different it’s not even funny!) started me on the path of rethinking what I believed.  And as I read the Bible and compared it to what I had been taught… not everything lined up.  And it was during the final year or so of college that I started to wonder if I really belonged in the Church of the Nazarene. 

Several Nazarenes (some District Superintendents and some professors) told me that I did, but deep down I questioned it.  But not wanting to make too big a deal of it, I gave into the idea and continued doing Nazarene things—like pastoring a Nazarene church.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that not only were my beliefs not fully Nazarene, but neither were my methods.  And as I quickly tried to do non-traditional and some non-Nazarene things in a Nazarene church, I quickly caused disunity!  So rather than kill a church, I sensed God calling Connie and I to plant a new church—one that did things a lot different.

From the beginning, Connie and I were ready to plant a church whether it was Nazarene or not.  We had come to love Frostburg and the people and had sensed God calling us to plant a church.  He didn’t say a Nazarene church, but we assumed that since we were Nazarenes, it would be a Nazarene church. 

Let me quickly add… it is not the “things” that we were doing that played a part in this decision.  Ken Mills has been very open to new ideas and different ways of doing things.  No, this has much more to do with who we are than what we do.

I have always wondered why the Church (the universal Church) has not been able to get along with each other.  The Nazarenes seem to have a hard time with the Baptist.  And the Assemblies of God seem to have a hard time getting along with the Methodist.  And the… well, you get the point.  It just seems that we have a hard time working together as the church should.  Yet, it seems to me that Christ said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

I recently came to the conclusion that the reason that we can’t get along is because we draw lines in the sand where no lines are necessary.  We draw up our doctrines and find our Bible verses to support them and then we start creating divisions over them.  We say, “We are the Baptist… and this is what we believe.”  Or, “We are the Nazarenes… and this is what we believe.”  And all along, neither side can prove that they are right.  Neither side has been able to give me proof that believing the other doctrine will keep a person from entering the Kingdom. 

And so I found myself getting very frustrated… frustrated with the idea that we have made some of our doctrines essential beliefs.  In other words, we must not only accept Jesus’ forgiveness for our sins and become His disciple, but we must also believe what John Wesley or John Calvin—or any other person for that matter—said about the rest of Scripture—particularly the apostle Paul’s writings.

It’s interesting that in the 1^st century, Paul got a bit upset about this very thing as well. In 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 we find Paul stating: “Now I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ or ‘I am of Apollos,’ or ‘I am of Cephas,’ or ‘I am of Christ.’  Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

What does this have to do with who we are?  Well, I have discovered that I am not ready to travel the path of the early Corinthians.  Over the last two days, I have become very aware of the fact that I have not been called to pastor a church that gets involved in picking sides.  I want to agree with Paul in Romans 14: “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things… Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls…  Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.”

There are many things in Scripture that can be interpreted many different ways.  And as I mentioned earlier, I am not the one to determine which is right and which is wrong.  That being said, I have sensed that I have been called to pastor a church that “introduces people to Jesus Christ and His life changing power and provide everything necessary to become His disciple.” (By the way, if that sounds familiar, that is New Beginnings’ purpose statement!)  I have not been called to minister only to those who believe the same as me.  Nor have I been called to make sure that people understand Nazarene doctrine and follow it.  I have been called to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ and allow Him to mold and shape individuals as He sees fit.   

With all of this said, I hope that you can better understand why New Beginnings cannot be a part of the Church of the Nazarene.  To do so would be false advertising.  The way that I see it, New Beginnings has been called to be a church that agrees on the very basics of Christianity and allows for varying beliefs when it comes to things such as eternal security, predestination, entire sanctification, the specifics of the Second Coming, etc.  This explanation that you are reading is not intended to go into details of what we believe; rather it is an explanation of why I believe, as its pastor, that we cannot become a Nazarene church. 

Let me address one more issue before I close.  I must admit that the idea of helping to change a church was appealing to me.  After all, as I mentioned before, there is the excitement of being a maverick and doing things that other people haven’t done.  But as I prayed about this, the words of Jesus kept coming to mind. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32).  As I read about Jesus, His mission wasn’t to come and change the “organized church” of the day (the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, etc.).  His mission was to call sinners to repentance. 

As I thought about those words, I realized that I was not called to try to change a church… I was called to reach lost people for Christ.  Could I do both?  Maybe.  But one thing I have learned… I am not wired to bring about change over the long haul (Refer to Exhibit A: Frostburg Church of the Nazarene).  And honestly, not everyone in the Church of the Nazarene is ready for the kind of change I am proposing.  I’m not sure that it ever will be nor should it be. 

Just a thought… I wonder what would have happened if Phineas F. Bresee (the founder of the Church of the Nazarene) would have decided to stay in the Methodist Church to try to change it?  I guess there was a time when someone had to leave a mainline denomination and do things differently.  And as a result of his leaving, there are many people who are thankful that he did.  Am I saying that I am ready to start a new denomination?  No way!  My point is that there are times in history when people broke away and God blessed that decision!

Let me close.  I want to be sure that a couple things came across throughout this explanation.

1.      I am not upset with nor do I disapprove of what the Church of the Nazarene is and what they stand for.  On the contrary, I am very thankful for the relationship I have had with it and hope to keep a good, loving, working relationship with it.  There will always be a special place in my heart for the people called Nazarenes.

2.      I am not saying that New Beginnings is better than or “more right” than any other church.  We are simply part of the larger Body of Christ and we are willing to partner with any and all churches that are about advancing the Kingdom of God.

3.      This decision has been based on who I am as a person and, as I have discovered, I am not a Nazarene at heart—I am simply a follower of Jesus.  The choice to leave the Nazarene church is based on the fact that I have been called by God to lead this local Body and I am not capable of leading this church to be a Nazarene church nor do I feel that God has called me to do such.

Finally… this has been the hardest decision of my life to this point!  I hope and pray that as you read this explanation you got a feel for some of the time and anguish I went through to come to this decision.  This was not a spur of the moment decision—this has been a decision in progress.  Much time, thought, and prayer went into this decision and personally, I wish we could stay in the Nazarene church—it would have been much easier.  But, as I have mentioned before… this was not about being easy; it was about being faithful to God.  And as best as I know how, I have been faithful once again to accept God’s call. 

My fear in all of this has been that I might repeat what Saul did in 1 Samuel 15.  Saul was given a command by God to utterly destroy the Amalekites.  When the time came for battle, Saul defeated the Amalekites, but did not fully comply to God’s commands.  Saul decided to keep some of the things that he considered to be good… even though God said destroy them.  This mistake cost Saul his kingdom and God’s blessing on his life. 

Sure, I could plant a church in Frostburg and we could call it a Nazarene Church… that would be a good thing!  But honestly, that is not what I sensed God calling me to do.  He gave me pretty clear instructions on what to do and I must be faithful to carry out His plan.

Does this mean that there couldn’t be another Nazarene church in Frostburg?  Of course not!  It just means that Butch Bowersox is not the guy to lead it!