Over 125 leaders from throughout the Middle East met 3-5 May for the first Holiness Summit in the Eastern Mediterranean Field.

The event included lively, God-glorifying worship in Arabic as well as strong Biblical teaching and preaching on the topic of holiness.

“Almost everyone present responded in some way to the teaching and it was exciting to see them seek the Lord and His sanctifying power,” said Lindell Browning, the field strategy coordinator for the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

According to Dr. Louie Bustle, the denomination’s Global Mission director, seeing the pastors and members of the Church of the Nazarene being blessed by the Spirit and responding to the holiness preaching and teaching is evidence of a movement of God in the Middle East.

Presenters included Bustle, Browning, Gustavo Crocker, the Eurasia Regional director, David Wilson, the denomination’s general secretary, along with several district superintendents. The Eastern Mediterranean Field’s representative to the Regional Advisory Council led an afternoon of discussion with a question and answer session. Every country on the field was represented.

For the duration between the summit and Pentecost Sunday, 23 May, the challenge is for the pastors to preach, pray and fast and ask God to pour out His Spirit on the movement that has now started in the Middle East.

"It was God-honoring to see believers from the very same people groups that were in the upper-room during the Pentecost experience the blessing of the Holy Spirit in their lives," said Crocker.

The holiness summits are grassroots-led movements involving a network of pastors, lay people and district leaders seeking to join what God is doing in their region. They host several speakers for a three-day celebration of holiness, which empowers people for ministry.

The church in the Middle East felt led to bring a summit to their field as the model had already proved successful in the United States.

The first two holiness summits were held in the U.S., in 2008—one in Ohio and the other in Colorado.

Both summits delivered clear, focused holiness sermons, rather than discussion or debate, and modeled simple formats so that other districts and pastors could easily organize summits in their districts and churches.

Those two summits inspired a multiplication of new summits such as the one just held in the Middle East.

“This has been the greatest event in the last 10 years on our field. The teaching and preaching, emphasizing holiness like we have not done before was wonderful for us,” said one of the participants.*

* name omitted for privacy.

Click on the image to view more pictures of the Eastern Mediterranean Holiness Summit.