Prof. McKeithen, Graduates Samuel Martinez, Maria Teresa Martinez, Marlene Opperman
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