Holiness, John Wesley, and the Church of the Nazarene
I grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. As a youth I enjoyed sports, mostly basketball and football, and hanging out with my friends. We attended the local Lutheran church until my high school years.
My older brother, Eric, received Christ in 1972 and began attending the local Assembly of God church. Soon after, I started attending and committed my life to Christ at a youth rally in October 1972 (I still have vivid memories of the moment.). The following summer, I experienced a powerful infilling of God’s Spirit at a youth camp. It was during this period I first received my call to preach and teach God’s word.
In 1982, I spent the summer at Last Days Ministry, Texas, founded by the late Keith Green. It was there I was introduced to the Wesleyan-Holiness doctrine of sanctification. Soon after I returned home, I began to read the writings of John Wesley. In early 1990, my wife and I joined the Church of the Nazarene, and I began ministerial studies for ordination the following year. In 1996, I was ordained elder on the Washington Pacific District and pastored churches in Vancouver, WA and Antioch, CA.
My undergraduate studies were completed at Taylor University and my M.Div. at Nazarene Theological Seminary. My Ph.D. in Theology was earned at the University of Manchester, UK, with research completed at Nazarene Theological College, UK.
I have published numerous articles and books on John Wesley and early Methodism, including:
John Wesley’s ‘A Plain Account of Christian Perfection’: The Annotated Edition (2005).
A John Wesley Reader on Eschatology (2011).
Wesley & Aldersgate: Interpreting Conversion Narratives (2019).
I serve as editor of www.wesleyscholar.com, which offers all of Wesley’s works and other sources materials on early Methodism.
My wife Ruth and I reside in Oakley, California, and have five children and eleven grandchildren.
Dr. Mark Olson has been teaching for NBC since 2011.
Published: 06/22/2020
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