Olivet Nazarene University Digital Commons @ Olivet Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today Church of the Nazarene 8-1-1995 Herald of Holiness Volume 84 Number 08 (1995) Wesley D. Tracy (Editor) Nazarene Publishing House Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cotn_hoh Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, and the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Tracy, Wesley D. (Editor), "Herald of Holiness Volume 84 Number 08 (1995)" (1995). Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today. 44. https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cotn_hoh/44 This Journal Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Church of the Nazarene at Digital Commons @ Olivet. It has been accepted for inclusion in Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Olivet. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE BENNER LIBRARV Olivet Nszatanedjniver^ k a n k a k e e , ttL jm o is Our Nazarene chaplains 183 full-time chaplains are engaged in spiritual representing our warfare extending beyond denomination in such the secure, friendly diverse fields of ministry as fellowship of the local correctional facilities, church. hospitals, marketplace, and Chaplaincy Ministries, military. through the district chaplaincy directors, is chaplains and families. You can be a point of executing a new and Each district will be contact for your local powerful Prayer Network to requested to adopt two or church and become a build ties of prayer and three full-time chaplains to partner in prayer through encouragement from local pray for during the next two Operation PNC (Prayer churches to our Nazarene years. There are presently Network for Chaplains). Editor’ s Choice Three Starts—No Finishes similar situation: “Your god is my dev­ the offering plate. Maybe we could de­ il.” velop a computerized plate that would Adjusting to the Times play the right music for each offering. She was the smartest starling, or Cope suggests a trumpet fanfare and a grackle, that I ever saw. You know crash of cymbals when a brother drops those obnoxious birds, bigger than a in a really big check. “He passes it to sparrow, dark like a blackbird, but the lady next to him, and we get a smaller. They seem to be everywhere. French horn salute . another big But in these days of insecticides, how check, and a tuba bellows out.” The does a farm region starling find insects plate comes next to a college student as to eat, particularly in the middle of a he observes the “passover.” Loud si­ rainstorm? lence. Cope’s next gift is a dime from a I k n e w it w o u l d h a p p e n . After all, we little girl, and we hear a dainty flute for have listened to people who blamed I looked out of my ground floor mo­ tel room. Just outside my window, I just a second. everyone from Janet Reno and Presi­ “So on and on it goes as we hear dent Clinton to the Hong Kong police saw her. I watched as she showed me that she had adjusted to changing times. trombones, drum rolls, triangles, and for the tragic bombing in Oklahoma oboes to signify the size of the offer­ City. Now it is God’s turn. On WDAF She was collecting grasshoppers from the grill of an old Pontiac. Why fight ings. Such a system strikes us as ut­ radio (Kansas City), God has been terly preposterous, as well it should.” blamed for the deaths! the machine age? Adapt to it. Why A woman named Betty sent in a po­ fight the rain and chase grasshoppers in Cope goes on to point out that in Je­ em about how we must accept the fact the wheat fields? Let the cars do it. She sus' day, giving was pretty much that that God sometimes calls children had learned to work the Super 8 park­ way. The rich actually hired trumpeters home to heaven because He “gets tired ing lot. In the shelter of the car’s to herald their generous donations. Says of calling just the aged,” and because bumper, she enjoyed a three-grasshop- Cope, “Based on pride, it was too often “angels are hard to find." The radio sta­ per lunch while other birds who had not a show-and-tell religion.” tion is selling copies of the poem and adapted to change went all the proceeds go to the disaster relief. cold and hungry. I am thankful that the listeners are try­ The next day at ing to help victims, but the notion that church, a young couple, God killed the children in Oklahoma about 30, went to the al­ City is a folk theology blasphemy. tar. It was the first time I couldn’t come up with a whole Are we really dumb enough to think they had ever attended editorial. Can you take these that God blew up the building, that the church, but they re­ whoever did this dastardly deed was sponded to the invita­ thought “starters” and finish just doing God’s will? Or maybe God, tion. The first person to them? in irresistible predestinarian force, pray with them was an overcame some good citizen and in­ elderly cane-brandish­ spired him to mass murder? ing lady. “Die out to You don’t suppose, do you, that the self! Die out to self!” murderers were in fact sinful people she called out. The young man shrunk You will get a better view of disci- who had trampled over everything that back in surprise and fear. I thought of pleship in the “stewardship spots” for God has done to save them, and insist­ the starling and how it had adjusted to each Sunday service in September. ing on serving the devil, they blew up changing times as another saint ad­ These were developed in cooperation the federal building? Or does God have vised, “Put it all on the altar. Put it all with the Stewardship Services office. to take the rap? on the altar.” Several of the “spots” were written by I do not serve a God who blows up Stewardship Planned Giving representatives. day-care centers to recruit cute little an­ In Righteousness Inside Out, Mike You may also learn in this issue that gels. If you do, then I must say to you Cope talks about having a musical ac­ Christian stewardship for you may in­ what John Wesley once told a man in a companiment for each gift dropped in clude adopting or sponsoring a child, A ugust 1995 1 AUGUST 1995 VOLUME 84, NO. 8 FEATURES 16 The Case for Adoption PRISCILLA RAUE 20 Sometimes God Says Yes SUSAN BATES 24 Selena MARCIA ALICE MITCHELL 28 Sponsoring a Child ... A Powerful Partnership CAROLINE WIGHT 30 Spotlight on Stewardship 40 God Wants to Forgive Who? 20 G. D. AU STIN SPECIAL REPORT 4 Oklahoma City Bombing cm m Num G c o lu m n s 3 General Superintendent’s Viewpoint, i e r a l d d . i o h n s o n 11 In a Woman’s Voice, r e b e c c a l a i r d 12 Into the Word, r o g e r l . h a h n 35 Nazarene Roots, s t a n i n g e r s o l 2 4 37 Over 60, c. e l l e n w a t t s 45 When You Pray, e . d e e f r e e b o r n 46 Observer at Large, i o h n c . b o w l i n g i DEPARTMENTS 1 Editor’s Choice, w e s l e y d . t r a c y 6-9, 42-44 News, MARK GRAHAM. BRYAN MERRILL 14 The Readers Write n 38 The Nazarene Family, b r y a n m e r r i l l 41 The Question Box 4 0 47 Marked Copy, m a r k g r a h a m COVER PHOTO 48 Late News, m a r k g r a h a m , b r y a n m e r r i l l Dennis Frates, Bandon, Oregon, coastline VIEWPOINT Adoption: God’s Idea by Jerald D. Johnson doption is a marvelous into a home after an adoption takes relationship to us. He has a special possibility. The concept place.” Three months after receiv­ plan whereby He adopts us into His appears to be bom in the ing our six-day-old baby boy, my family. He makes us His sons and heart of God himself and wife was expecting our second son. daughters. We are invited to sit at seems to carry with it What joy all of our children have His table. He does not want us to be His approval and even brought to our lives. When I say on the outside looking in. Rather, special blessings. God there is absolutely no difference in He desires us to be on the inside was the first adoptive parent,our ac­hearts toward any of our chil­ looking out. We become His heirs cording to the Bible. “Whendren, the believe me it’s true. Adoption Afullness of time had come, God sent is a decision we would make all over his Son ... so that we might receive again with exactly the same child. adoption as children” (Galatians Often I have said if you looked at 4:4-5, n r s v ).