By virtue of the universities where I’ve taught I’ve been privileged to know some of the finest preachers and leaders in the Church of the Nazarene. Hearing them preach and watching them act enabled me to draw correlations between what they believed and how they behaved. Just recently three of them (Jim Bond; Jim Diehl; Reuben Welch) have published books that are, for me, especially interesting because they show how their theology and biblical perspectives flowed into effective ministries.
Fleshing out a text from Exodus, “For he is a God who is passionate about his relationship with you” (34:14, NLT), Jim Bond’s Talking, Listening, and Walking with the Relational God (Meadville, PA: Christian Faith Publishing, c. 2024) “has been on the back burner” for many years. Now in his eighty-eighth year, he has written the book in order to glorify Christ, joining Paul is declaring: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He “entered into relationship with Jesus at the age of five. It would be accurate to say that throughout my life I have ‘talked, listened, and walked with the relational God’” (p. xi). He also writes from a “simple” perspective, trying to make “God’s transforming truth simple, coherent, and livable” (p. xi).
Reared in Pampa, Texas—a panhandle town of some 20,000 people—Bond remembers it an “idyllic place for me during my adolescence” (p. 3). It was a good place in part because of the local Church of the Nazarene his family attended. He loved the church, including Sunday school! “Here I heard my teacher talk about a wonderful, mysterious man named Jesus” (p. 161). Then one Sunday morning the pastor finished his sermon with an altar call. Jim’s much-respected older brother, Bill, responded. Thinking if it was good for Bill it would be good for him, Jim went forward and knelt at the altar. The pastor’s wife knelt with him and “said, ‘Jimmy, why don’t you just open the door of your heart and invite Jesus to come in?’” And at that moment: “I did. And He did!” (p. 162). He was not a prodigal needing to be saved from a sordid life. Instead: “What happened to men was powerfully positive: I was saved to a marvelous, miraculous, grace-filled life, living in intimate, personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ” (p. 162).
As he matured he more fully understood what it all meant, finding, with Tim Stafford, that: “If you want a personal relationship with God, He has already done everything needed to make it possible. We need only open the door of our heart and invited Him to come in.” He’d found new life in Christ and he came to understand it as a part of the “prevenient grace” that drew him to Him and continues to sustain him. In time Jim became a faithful member of the Church of the Nazarene, ever-thankful for the life-giving message he heard as a child. In hindsight, however, he rather laments the fact that “legalism governed our behavior.” No smoking, drinking, movies, dancing, etc. “Frankly, I did not rebel. For the most part, I played by the rules book, and it did me no harm! In my latter years, I have met many of our vintage who are still carrying baggage over those ‘man-made rules.’ My counsel has been: ‘Get over it!’ It is small consolation; but I am comforted by reminding myself that the leaders, pastors, and people of that era were doing the best they had been taught. I think legalism in my denomination is passe at this time. Good riddance! I am all right with guidelines, not rules!” (p. 165).
In addition to church, young Jim Bond found basketball! As a sophomore he started, alongside his elder brother, for the Pampa Harvesters, and they lost only two games. The next two years they went undefeated, winning two state championships, and Jim was named first team all state. As one of the nation’s premier athletes he then played for the South team in the all-American high school game in Kentucky. “We won the game. I scored fifteen points and got some key rebounds. Following the game, I was named to the Chuck Taylor 1954 First Team High School All-American Basketball Team” (p. 168). Following the state championship game a sports editor called him “Gentleman Jim Bond”—a label that stuck and perfectly describes him. Many collegiate scholarships were offered him and he initially decided to attend Texas A&M. But he felt uneasy with that decision and felt God leading him to Pasadena College, a Nazarene school that had a basketball team.
At Pasadena he enjoyed sustained success. Though it was a tiny college the basketball team defeated many opponents from larger schools and Bond was “named to the NAIA all-American team during my sophomore year.” He and some Pasadena alumni put together an AAU team that won the Southern California AAU championship and then went to the national finals, where he was named the “Most Promising Young Player of the tournament” (p. 169). He was then asked to join the Phillips Oilers AAU team, which led to him being asked to join the U.S. Olympic team in Melbourne, Australia, though he was not part of the active roster. Returning to school in Pasadena he continued playing basketball and become quite legendary, earning membership in several of Halls of Fame. Throughout his storied career “Gentleman Jim” sought to both give witness to his faith and live out the Gospel while on the court. The “greatest gratification is that it provided me a lifelong platform for witness to Christ, my Savior and Lord” (p. 171).
Graduating from Pasadena College and marrying his wonderful sweetheart Sally, Bond attended Nazarene Theological Seminary and began his pastoral ministry. From Olathe, KS. to Casper, WY, to College Church in Nampa, ID, he flourished as a pastor, gaining considerable attention throughout the denomination. Then he felt called to apply for a missionary assignment and was sent to Brazil. He and Sally began with a year of language study but unexpectedly got involved in a dispute over speaking in tongues. After prayerfully studying the scriptures he took a position that led to his recall from the mission field! But he was soon called to pastor Lakeview Park Church in Oklahoma City, followed by three years pastoring First Church of the Nazarene in Colorado Springs, CO. Difficulties in that church led to him moving across the campus to become chaplain and professor of practical theology at Nazarene Bible College. Three years later Bill Draper, president of Point Loma College in San Diego, asked him to become the special assistant to the president. Two years later, when Draper was battling cancer, Jim took his place representing the college across the educational zone. Following Draper’s death the college’s board of trustees elected Jim to succeed him. He didn’t immediately respond but took a week to fast and pray. The last day of his retreat, “Suddenly, the blessed Spirit came! My anxieties were calmed and the Lord flooded my would with assurance of adequate grace daily for the task.” Consequently, “Sally and I spent the next fourteen years of our lives at Point Loma. It was the most challenging, fulfilling, and fun years of our ministry” (p. 197). (And for those us who worked with him during those years it was a wonderful time!)
At the General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in 1996 Jim Bond was elected to the Board of General Superintendents, the highest office in the denomination, serving eight years in that position. About his election—and his years of service—he says nothing! But he does devote a number of pages to his understanding of leadership. He sees himself as a “democratic leader” and so he has been. Let others call you to leadership rather than seeking it. Above all, “the leader of any Christian organization must be a fully devoted follower of Jesus who is living Christlike!” (p. 203). Understanding this we understand why Bond devotes most of his book to theology—no doubt rooted in H. Orton Wiley’s three volume Systematic Theology studied by most Nazarene ministers 60 years ago, but amplified by a number of more recent works. Gentleman Jim’s life bears witness to the everlasting truths he learned as a disciple of Christ. Affirming his belief in God’s existence, he cites both distinguished scholars and personal reflections on the beauty of Colorado’s high country which has always been a vital part of his life. God not only exists but has created all that is. Because He is Love he made a world open to his revelation and invitation. We can enter into a relationship with Him, listening and walking with Him. Despite the ravages of sin, we can be restored to fellowship with our Creator. We can not only be forgiven but cleansed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk rightly with Him.
As he devotes many chapters to explaining these doctrines Bond remains ever the evangelist and pastor, urging readers to come to Christ and enjoy new life in Him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jim Diehl successfully pastored churches in Iowa, Georgia, and Colorado. He served as district superintendent of Nebraska and Colorado. And he was elected a general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene, serving eight years in that office. He worked as vice president for development at Mid-America Nazarene College for a few years and while he was there and I got to know him and his wife Dorothy, mainly because my wife Roberta did secretarial work for him. (Many years later, when I was retiring from Point Loma Nazarene University, Jim was presiding over the district assembly. After briefly noting my contributions to the church Jim launched into a celebration of Roberta’s expertise as his office manager! I then recognized whom he most valued!). Although he did many things well, Jim Diehl is best renowned for his preaching. Few men I’ve heard have the almost magical ability to stand behind a pulpit and quickly elevate his hearers. Mixing biblical truths and personal anecdotes with a contagious sense of humor, Diehl proclaims the Gospel in thoroughly winsome ways. During the COVID panic, when he could not move about the country preaching, he decided (in his mid-eighties) to launch a series of pod-casts to continue his preaching ministry, calling it “10 Minutes to Refuel with Pastor Jim Diehl.” Hundreds of folks tuned in to listen for 59 weeks. Then a friend offered to transcribe the tapes into a book, and it’s now available: Refuel, Refresh, Revive (Dust Jacket Media. Kindle Edition, c. 2023). “You will need to understand,” he says, “that these were not originally written out—rather, they were spoken.” He calls his talks “sermonettes” designed “to refuel, refresh, and revive your soul in the midst of your busy week. They’re not “devotionals” exegeting and expositing a passage of scripture. Nor are they structured to develop a thesis, as one does writing a book. Rather they are texts or ideas that come to him that led him to develop a brief message.
His first sermonette, “Mother Goose at Bear Creek Park,” recalls a time when both he was with his wife, Dorothy, were in a Denver hospital. While there he “received a report from the urologist that I had a cancerous tumor in my bladder” that was “‘high-grade cancer, very aggressive’” (p. 16). To process the troubling situation he took his dog for a walk in a the nearby Bear Creek Park and encountered a flock of Canadian geese. As he approached a mother goose and her chicks she spread her wings over them to protect them. As he walked away, Diehl saw a feather on the ground and picked it up. At that moment, “I felt as if the Holy Spirit of God whispered in my ear, ‘That’s what I want to do for you and Dorothy. I want you to come on in close to me now and let me cover you with my feathers—and under my wings you will be safe’” (p. 17). That led him to ponder verses from Psalm 91, which assured him that “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the destruction that lays waste at noonday” (vv. 5–6). Fear not! Then the next morning he looked out his bedroom window and saw a feather in his backyard. “It was not lying on the ground—it was sitting straight up. I’ve lived here five or six years and had never seen a feather in the yard—ever! And I haven’t seen one since. As I picked up that feather, I really believe the Lord winked at me and said, “What do you think of that, son? What do you think of that?” I said, “Lord, I can’t imagine” (p. 19). “So now I have two feathers. I don’t worship these feathers, but they’re symbols to me that God is taking care of us, and God will take care of you!” (p. 19). Thereafter both Dorothy and Jim came back to health and he urged hearers “during the wonderful Easter week, resurrection Sunday, or anytime—get under the wings of God and take refuge and don’t fear. God is bigger than any situation! God is bigger than “What’s the matter?” Get under His wings!
In “Don’t Jump off a Bridge to Rescue a Hat,” Diehl reflects on a lesson learned at the beginning of his ministry. Attending a conference he heard a seasoned preacher warn against unwise responses. “He was talking about a bridge over a river. ‘Jump off a bridge to rescue a child and you’re a hero; jump off a bridge to rescue a hat and you’re a fool.’ I knew that had to mean something high-powered. So I wrote that down in the back of my Bible along with all the other truths I was learning. That has come back to me over and over across the years: ‘Don’t jump off a bridge to rescue a hat’” (p. 50). After reflecting on the incident where Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, Diehl urged hearers to avoid wasting time worrying about or doing non-essential things. Take, for instance, the “worship wars!” To him it’s a “disgrace! Worship wars! What is that? Are we going to sing the hymns and the gospel songs? Or are we going to sing choruses?” Sadly: “This issue has started more church fights than I can count: Are we going to keep the choir and let them be part of the worship, or are we going to dismiss the choir and have a praise team? That’ll stir up the troops for sure” (p. 52). After pointing out similar issues that distract us, Diehl confessed that he was recently worrying about an issue and “said, ‘Lord, what are we going to do about this?’ The Lord said to me in my mind, ‘I didn’t die on the cross for a structure; I died to win people to Jesus.’ I let the thing go; I had to move on. You know, it’s a hard thing to keep ‘the main thing the main thing,’ but that’s my plea with you today and with me, that . . . we refuse to jump off a bridge for a hat. May we live to focus on the main things— not the minor things that don’t make an eternal difference anyway” (p. 53).
Discussing two of the persistent temptations we face—“If Only” and “What If ?”—Diehl urges us to focus on what is, not what might have been. Satan works us over with “simple words: If only. Yes, If only. If only I’d never moved to this town. If only I had graduated when I had a chance. Now, we need to be careful with this one—If only I had never married her or married him. If only I wouldn’t have done that stupid thing—that was more than stupid; it was wrong. If only I had . . . If only I had not . . . If only!” (p. 124). It’s an old, old story, evident in Numbers 14, wherein “All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!’” If you’ve done wrong or made a mistake, Jim says, “put it under the blood of Jesus! It is all there; I’m not going to let the devil rob me of my peace because of something in the past.” Do you know that you cannot change the past? So give it to God!!” (p. 125). When we’re not obsessed with “If Only” we may get troubled by “What If?” Reflecting one of his bouts with cancer, he confesses “the What ifs started up in my mind: ‘What if the cancer is beyond the bladder? What if he must remove my bladder? What if I can’t be traveling and preaching anymore because of complications?’” But the treatments proved successful, and “I’m still feeling fine, my energy is still running strong, and God keeps opening doors for my preaching ministry. In fact, I’m preaching more than when I was a pastor! All of that is to say, ‘God is bigger than the What ifs.’” (p. 126). So He Is and that’s Good News!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When I spoke at Point Loma College’s 40 years ago I met Reuben Welch, the college chaplain. Returning to the campus in 1982 as a visiting professor, my wife Roberta and I became friends with Reuben and Mary Jo. As he was retiring that year he encouraged me to consider replacing him as chaplain and doors opened for me to do so in the fall of 1983. He was ever-encouraging and we were truly blessed to know and rely on him and Mary Jo. When I moved into his office as chaplain, I found he’d left me a rock on which a student had painted the title of one of his books—When You Run out of Fantastic . . . Persevere.” That simple phrase, in many ways, sums up much of his philosophy and what he stressed in his messages. In the Church of the Nazarene he was truly a legendary preacher, leaving his imprint on numbers of young people. In addition to preaching he published several books, most famously We Really Do Need Each Other. Inasmuch as he is now nearly 100 years old, Reuben’s daughter Susan decided to put together some of his recorded sermons to celebrate his life and ministry. The collection is titled I Think I Think: Vintage Sermons by Reuben Welch (Kansas City: The Foundry Publishing, c. 2024; Kindle Edition).
In the book’s forward, Ron Benefiel (a pastor who became president of Nazarene Theological Seminary before returning to Point Loma to assume a variety of assignments) recalls that Reuben “became chaplain of Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) when I was a student there in 1968.” The Vietnam War was igniting student protests, national leaders were assassinated, and the times were certainly challenging. “Reuben Welch took center stage as our college chaplain in the middle of those times. He was an engaging speaker with a great sense of humor. But, much more than that, he was a New Testament scholar who knew how to speak words of wisdom and truth to an auditorium full of radicalized college students. For many of us—I daresay most of us—he became one of the most influential people in our lives. For those of us going into pastoral ministry, he was our model of what good preaching could be. For those of us who simply needed counsel from someone over the age of thirty whom we could trust, he was the listener who showed us what it meant to care for others. We all wanted to be like Reuben!” (p. 7).
Explaining why she selected the sermons for the book, Susan, says: “I think I think . . .” is a phrase that’s always been associated with my dad, almost as much as “We really do need each other.” It captures the marvelous tension he maintained between what he was sure about and what he was still considering. That openness to new ideas, a tentativeness about non-essentials, is one of the qualities that endeared him to so many. Preparing this collection of my dad’s sermons has been a joyful journey. I have been blessed over and over as I’ve listened to numerous cassette recordings of him preaching, some from as early as 1968. At ninety-nine years of age, his voice is so much weaker now; getting to hear him in his prime has been a poignant treat. I have chosen ten of my favorite sermons to include in this volume, all previously unpublished” (p. 14). For those of us who have heard him speak, reading the sermons allows us to remember how he spoke. Reading some of the sermon’s titles—“He Did Not Have to Survive,” “When God Contradicts God,” “Give Your Bod to God”—reminds us of the phrases he coined that stick with us.
Common to all his sermons was a healthy dose of Scripture. Welch read extended sections and quoted many more. One sensed that he sought to get into the heart of biblical passages and to graft them into his heart. Unlike classic expository messages, his were extended meditations on what the scripture under consideration reveals. He would explain and then chew on the text, repeating it and rephrasing it, wondering at what it meant for him and his hearers. He invited hearers to think with him. Thus the book’s title, “I Think I Think,” captures a great deal of his mode of preaching. For example, after reading most of Hebrews 11, he noted that he hears the text telling us that “faith is not just something you have, faith is something you do!” (p. 23). In fact, he declared: “Faith needs to be teased a little bit into something active like ‘faithing’” (p. 26). After revisiting the long list of biblical heroes—Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, et al.—Reuben takes us to Calvary, saying: “‘Oh Jesus, what are you doing hanging on that cross between two thieves?” Can you hear him? ‘I’m faithing, I’m faithing!’ You see, it’s not just something we have; it isn’t something we carry around with us. But. It. Is. Something. We. DO. Amen! Well, what about us? We’re making our choices, making our decisions, walking our walk, offering our offerings, making our sacrifices, but mostly, we are living and working and walking and doing . . . That’s faithing, isn’t it? Well, actually, I hear another word from these saints. You know what I hear them say? ‘It pays to hang on!’ I’m sure there is a more theological way to say that, but the only other theological term I can come up with is, ‘’Don’t quit!’” (pp. 27-28).
Don’t quit! Hang in there! Persevere! That’s a consistent refrain in these sermons. That Reuben’s done—and God willing so will we who know and love him.