To our shock, extreme sorrow and disbelief, We have found that the heretical and dangerous spiritually Taught in Spiritual Formation has infiltrated every denomination. Brothers and Sisters this includes the Nazarene Denomination. Thousands of hours have I and others invested in searching out this pertinent information. We have put together this site as to make ease for the Nazarene who will for the love of our Saviour check out these claims. In our culture where both Dad and Mom work we know physically they don’t have the time or the energy to search for the facts. Times are hard on the family that’s exactly why God provides a way for the average folk and He sends some to sound the alarm, GOD cares for his sheep and His sheep hear His voice! Its times like this, we need to ask questions. Start asking your Pastor the definitions of words that are being used, such as Spiritual Formation or Missional. Do these words mean what you like they mean? What about Lectio Divina or labyrinths? …what would the LORD JESUS CHRIST have me do?”…God commands us to study.

2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do in your study of these claims.
All we want is the truth.

John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

Doug S. Hardy

Nazarene Theological Seminary and Northwest Nazarene University have announced a collaborative spiritual formation retreat that will precede the 2009 Nazarene General Assembly in Orlando, Florida. This event begins with dinner at 5pm on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at the San Pedro Center, a Franciscan retreat center that is located about a dozen miles from the Orlando International Airport. The retreat concludes with dinner at 5pm on Wednesday evening, prior to the initial worship service that marks the opening of the 2009 Nazarene General Assembly.

Please click on this link to view the invitation given for this event:  http://www.nts.edu/general-assembly-spiritual-formation-retreat

IS THIS EVENT OF GOD?

DOES THIS EVENT REFLECT THE BELIEFS OF NAZARENE CONGREGATIONS AT LARGE?

Here is a list of the people who will be leading the retreat:

The retreat is being held at the San Pedro Center, a Catholic Franciscan retreat center.     http://www.sanpedrocenter.org/index.php

Examining the Speakers at this event:

DOUG STEVE HARDY

NTS inducts Dr. Doug Hardy as Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation
Dr. Douglas S. Hardy, Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation, was inducted into the faculty of Nazarene Theological Seminary on November 8, 2002 by the faculty and President Ron Benefiel.

Born near Boston and raised in Eastern Canada, Hardy is a graduate of Eastern Nazarene College (B.A.), Northeastern University (M.Ed.), Fuller Theological Seminary (M.A.), and Boston University (Ph.D.). He most recently served as Associate Professor of Psychology at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts. Hardy’s ministry includes pastorates in Berkeley and Glendale, California, and service as a spiritual director in the Boston area since1994. His professional activities and accomplishments reflect a wide range of interests in spiritual formation. An ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene, Hardy has written extensively in such professional journals as Journal of Psychology and Christianity, Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology, and Religious Studies Review.
–NTS

Dr. Hardy is one of several leading the Spiritual Formation Movement in our denomination. When you click on his link at the NTS directory and look at his vitae this is included under

Spiritual Formation/Direction Training

Participate in Ignatian Spirituality Book Discussion Group, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO (2003 – present)

Participate in Kansas City area Group-in-Formation for Transformative Spirituality (2004 – present)

Participated in a Peer Supervision Group of Boston-area Spiritual Directors that met monthly for case study review and support (February, 1995 – June, 2002)

Participated in a 24-week Ignatian Spirituality in Everyday Life Prayer Retreat at Boston College (November, 1999 – May, 2000)

Workshop for spiritual directors: Supervision, Ignatian Spiritual Ministries Professional Day, Jesuit Urban Center, Boston (March 22, 2000)

Graduate-level, year-long course: Supervised Practicum in Spiritual Direction, Weston Jesuit School of Theology (September, 1993 – May, 1994)

Graduate-level class: Spiritual Formation & Discipleship, Nazarene Theological Seminary (January, 1993)

Please notice that as early as 1999 he became involved in the spiritual practices of St.Ignatius. This is a Catholic saint. Dr. Hardy has only become more and more involved with the Catholic teachings and teachers. WE ARE NOT CATHOLICS!

Today he regularly takes Nazarene students to a monastery and encourages fellowship with the sisters there. He was quoted on a Catholic website: http://www.mountosb.org/publications/thresholdw04/ministers.html

The Nazarene Theological Seminary discovered the Mount through their professor of spiritual formation. When Dr. Doug Hardy moved to Kansas City from Boston, he intentionally searched for a monastic community and retreat center for his own spiritual renewal. He speaks highly of Sophia Center and the whole Mount community, saying “You provide the hospitable space I need for regular time of prayer and renewal.”

He continues, “Sophia Center has become a helpful place for our students to actualize their intentions to pray. In addition to assisting them with their personal devotion, the Sophia Center staff helps educate them about contemplative spirituality.” The students he brings learn about and practice centering prayer, meditation, silence and lectio. Spiritual direction with one of the sisters is also available. These are ways that help “build constructive bridges between Protestant and Catholic Christians.”

In addition, Dr. Hardy applauds the Mount for its “witness as a community of women committed to Christian vocation.” This is especially helpful for the Nazarene female students, a third of the seminary population, who find partnership encouraging and inspiring.

The problem with his background in Spiritual Formation is that it stems from associations with people who do not believe as we Nazarenes do concerning many things. Such as salvation through the Blood of Christ, not by works. Ephesians 2:8,9

Remember that we belong to the Protestant group because the Roman Catholic Church worships idols and took the Bible out of the hands of the laypeople.

We find that Dr. Hardy is replacing the Word of God with methods that in his own words are, “from all of the centuries of the Christian Church. And across all different cultures of Christians. So we want to draw broadly and widely. Doug goes on to say. “It’s not a matter of if you are using the Bible, but how; there are many different ways.”

You can hear this in entirety at : Practicing Holiness: Spiritual Formation in every day life.Doug Hardy“Spiritual Formation in Everyday Life”Ourmedia  click

Please check out -  Naznet.com - Contemplative Spirituality / Lectio Divina = Transcendantal Meditation?

What is Contemplative Prayer and Why Should Nazarenes Care?

Taken from “My Denomination does not promote new age spirituality through Spiritual Formation!

Seminary students and graduates, of every doctrinal persuasion, are being trained in ever increasing numbers to introduce certain spiritual disciplines into the lives and prayer habits of those within their spheres of influence. When the term “spiritual discipline” is used, it is almost always referring to the incorporating of “contemplative prayer” into the lives of church members. Many churches are even introducing contemplative prayer into their children’s programs.Contemplative prayer is, by far, the main practice promoted by the Spiritual Directors who lead church members onto the slippery slopes of spiritual formation. It is also called soaking or centering prayer. The terms spiritual formation and contemplative prayer are practically synonymous.The most widely accepted and pervasive of the two movements within the evangelical church is the Spiritual Formation movement. Pentecostals, Charismatics, and non-Pentecostals alike are being influenced, through almost identical Spiritual Formation programs that promote this unbiblical form of prayer. Contemplative prayer is actually not prayer at all, but rather a “Christianized” form of unbiblical, eastern meditation. Most of us know it by the name, transcendental meditation (TM). It is rightly associated with Hinduism and New Age Spirituality. Webster’s dictionary defines a contemplative as one who practices contemplation. To contemplate means to ponder, to meditate upon. So what’s wrong with that?Well, nothing is wrong with pondering or meditating upon things—as long as they are the right things, and as long as the pondering and meditating does not become obsessive. The only thing upon which we can appropriately meditate on obsessively is the Written Word of God. Psalm one instructs us to do that. So how do we apply Webster’s definition of contemplate to what is known today as contemplative prayer? Can we apply it at all? No, we cannot. The term “contemplative prayer,” is an oxymoron. The two words, contemplate and prayer, are contradictory, and mutually exclusive one from the other. How does one ponder and meditate upon something while at the same time communicate with God about it? It cannot be done. The two may be closely related but are definitely separate activities.Add to that, the contemplative’s practice of eastern meditation (transcendental meditation [TM]), which is “clear your mind of all thought,” and we have yet another contradiction. How does anyone meditate on something with a blank mind? The answer to that is—they don’t. They can’t. It is simply not possible.Eastern meditation and contemplative prayer both mandate clearing all thoughts from the mind, and opening the spirit to receive the thoughts of someone or something else. New Agers are not ashamed to admit that when they are in that thoughtless state, they are essentially at the mercy of any number of spirit beings. The goal is reaching a place of no thought whatsoever. That state is called, among other things, entering into the silence—also referred to by Christians as, “The Secret Place.” The term contemplative prayer is not only oxymoronic, as the one automatically cancels out the other, but it is also a very deceptive and erroneous term. Contemplative prayer traces its roots to a group of monks called, The Desert Fathers. The Desert Fathers taught that it didn’t matter what method you used to seek God—all were good, and they unashamedly sought and implemented non-Christian, eastern, methods of meditation into their spiritual practices.  Scripture commands us not only to meditate upon something—the Written Word of God (Psalm 1:2), but also to refrain from learning the way of the heathen (Jeremiah 10:2). Without going any deeper into the subject of contemplative prayer, we see that it is derived from Hinduism (Christian contemplatives do not even try to deny this) and is diabolically opposed to the scriptural form of meditation prescribed in Psalms chapter one verse two.  There is little argument that spiritual formation programs and contemplative prayer go hand in hand. In addition to contemplative prayer, the spiritual disciplines include, but are not limited to, yoga and labyrinth walking. The latter are widely promoted within more liberal evangelical congregations. Just because your local congregation may not, as yet, be familiar with any of these things is no reason for assuming that your denomination has not already jumped on the contemplative bandwagon. Take a look at the list of denominations which have instituted these programs in their theological seminaries and key churches:

Andover Newton Theological School

Assemblies of God (AG Theological Seminary)

Baptist (Baylor University & Dallas Theological Seminary)

Church of God (Mount Paran)

Methodist (Dubuque Theological Seminary)

Moody Bible Institute

Nazarene Theological Seminaries

Presbyterian Theological Seminaries

Wheaton College