Sent from NBC - Called to NBC
These years at Nazarene Bible College are my second time here because I attended and graduated from NBC. I loved my years as a student, and I appreciated that NBC offered me an opportunity to prepare for the ministry after receiving God’s call later in life.
I became a missionary and pastor quite unintentionally. Originally, I was a symphony musician. I earned degrees in Music Performance and was hired to play in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. God clearly led me to be a missionary-pastor by first sending me overseas working fulltime as a musician. Working daily with people from many nations, I needed to understand their language, history and culture to be successful working and sharing my faith with them. In one of the Nazarene churches in Hong Kong, I taught a new believers’ class and was the worship leader there. After 5 years in Hong Kong, I was hired to play in the Barcelona Opera Company, where I performed for 9 years. In Spain, in the Barcelona Church, I was a board member, later, church treasurer, and, eventually, was asked to pastor the Barcelona Church, which I did for 5½ years. By the end of those years in Spain, I had a clear missionary call and came back to the United States to study at NBC.
After graduation and ordination, my wife and I were sent by the Church of the Nazarene to South America as career missionaries. I ministered in the South America Regional Office for 4 years leading the NYI ministry and the Regional discipleship ministry. I co-authored a textbook in Spanish on worship, and taught many courses each year in the seminary there. For 2½ years we were assigned to the Southern Cone Field Office where I was responsible for 4 districts in southern Argentina. I was also a district superintendent for one district for one year during this time. In trips to the distant areas of Patagonia (a 1,000-mile trip one-way), I would also teach a seminary or ordination course, staying a week at a time in each place. Then, we were sent to Chile, where I was the National Coordinator of Ministries for 3½ years, responsible for all ministries in all 4 districts and 45 congregations.
We needed to return to the USA to take care of elderly parents, and God led Nazarene Bible College to ask me to start and direct a ministry degree program in Spanish for Hispanic pastors here in the US. The program was to be in Spanish using NBC’s Pastoral Ministry degree programs in English as the model. I supervised the translations of all 44 courses, found good textbooks in Spanish, hired and trained all adjunct professors, and recruited, admitted, scheduled and counseled all Spanish-speaking students from start to graduation.
In the 7 years since, we have graduated 11 Spanish-speaking students with a Bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Pastoral Ministries. I am now working to improve every academic aspect of the program: improve student learning, improve faculty skills, expand access to the best Spanish resources, upgrade innovatively the courses, and implement better assessments.
Professor Timothy McKeithen, Director of Hispanic Pastoral Ministries Program
Published: 11/18/2019
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