The Life Saving Station
On a dangerous sea coast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life-saving station grew.
Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life-boat crews to do this work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and there was a liturgical life-boat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life-saving as the primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. They did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet, another life-saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
Holiday Park Vision Statement
Holiday Park Church of the Nazarene is a Life-Saving Station. We pull men and women from the wreckage of sin and offer them new life and hope through Jesus Christ.
The Holiday Park people in continually seeking a deeper relationship with God; have a burden for those not yet members of God's family; have a clear balance between reaching out to new people and nurturing those within the fellowship, restoring those that have gone astray, and take the initiative in meeting the needs of others. Our people, by seeking to know and serve God, through the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit, will be an influence in our community as to the reality of God.
Our desire is to be:
- People whose love is forgiving, unconditional, and self-sacrificing.
- Men and women of faith who allow themselves to be inconvenienced and made uncomfortable in order to become active participants in reaching people and bringing them to the knowledge of God's love in Jesus Christ.
- Men and women who are genuine, authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, sharing their faith with family, friends, and associates through relationships of love, acceptance, and forgiveness; while helping individuals come to Christ and have their needs met in the Body of Believers.
- Men and women whose lives are totally surrendered to the Lordship of Christ and equipped to minister to the hurts and needs of those in the community around them.
- Men and women of vision and faith in the promises of God; who are willing to let God dream his dream of reconciling the world to Himself through them, and who will not be satisfied with what is, but are willing to step out in faith to follow God's direction for the future.
- Men and women with a generous, giving spirit who hold things in trust and do not own what God has given, but are stewards of God's resources and whose desire is to share what God has provided with churched and unchurched alike.
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Holiday Park Church |
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