Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1915)

Phineas was the primary founder member of the Church of the Nazarene and the founding president of Point Loma Nazarene University.

Phineas was born on a farm in Franklin, New York. Aged 18 he was converted to Christianity in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in Davenport and gave his first sermon. In 1857 he helped his family move to Iowa and he entered the ME ministry. In 1860 he married Maria Hebbard (they had 6 children).

He was pastor in Iowa for 25 years (1857-83), He had been a pastor for 10 years including being a circuit preacher. station pastor and presiding elder when, as he preached, he experienced a fresh fire in his soul. He had a close encounter with the Holy Spirit and sanctified wholly, It changed his life -his doubts frustrations/disappeared and were replaced with a heart filled with love and desire to wholly live through the Holy Spirit.

In 1883 he relocated to the Southern California Conference on the West Coast, where he ministered in 4 churches in the Los Angeles area and served as presiding elder. At the First methodist Church in Los Angeles he found a small group of active holiness people - this is where his work as a special force to promote scriptural holiness began. 4 years later in Pasadena he held special meeting featuring holiness evangelists

When he became Presiding Elder of the Los Angeles district he promoted a holiness revival through out the area…Opposition stirred. The bishop was not a holiness man. Phineas was sent to smaller less influential churches. He saw the churches were doing nothing for the the ‘needy’ .people. He was invited to help organize an independent mission, Penial Mission

Phineas proposed that the Conference made it a regular appointment or let him remain at the mission as a methodist leader… Proposal was rejected and he left with 'almost unbearable sadness’- the leaders thought it would hurt the image of the church.

After 37 years, in 1894, he withdrew from the MEC to serve as pastor to the Peniel Mission, an independent ministry to the homeless in Fort Street Methodist Church, Los Angeles. A rift developed between Phineas and the Peniel founders, Rev. T.P.Ferguson and his wife. Phineas wanted a church that ministered to the whole family; they wanted to focus on the ‘down and out’.

October 1895 Phineas, with Dr. Joseph Pomeroy Widney , joined with numerous lay people to form a new church. Widney suggested 'Church of the Nazarene (C.of N.) - because it identified the ministry with the toiling masses of common people for whom Jesus lived and died.

News of the C of N spread across the USA. Phineas -General Superintendent (20 years). October 13th, 1908 C of N official opening.

A car accident in 1900 slowed him down!!

In 1915 he died and went home.

The Church of Nazarenes now includes congregations in more than 160 countries. The 30,000 Nazarene churches around the world now has has a total membership of more the 2.5 million.

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