Rev. Philip McAlister
How can a high school physical education teacher become a Field Director? Good question. The answer lies in a missionary meeting in a Nazarene Church in Carrickfergus, N Ireland in 1983. It was then that God called Philip into the fulltime Christian ministry. Upon graduation in 1987 they were called to the Irvine Church on the West Coast of Scotland. It was there that their daughter was born.
The pastored there for four and a half years before returning to pastor their home church in Carrickfergus for 10 years. Philip was appointed as Field Director for Northern Europe by Dr. Franklin Cook, Eurasia Regional Director, in January 2002.
Philip is married to Ruth, They have three children, Stephen, who is married to Melissa, Jonathan and Ruth. Just recently they have become the proud grandparents of Vanessa, their first grandchild.
Jim Dorsey serves as the Director of Evangelism for the Church of the Nazarene in the USA and Canada. Among his various duties in this assignment, Jim leads NewStart, the denominational emphasis designed to resource existing Nazarene churches in sponsoring hundreds of new Nazarene congregations. Primarily due to the conversions in these new churches, record increases in new members for USA and Canada have been added to the church membership rolls in recent years. In 2004, ten years after launching NewStart, the 1,000th new Nazarene church was registered in the USA and Canada. As a result, the Church of the Nazarene has moved from starting one new church a month to nearly one new church per day. Jim began this assignment at headquarters full time in October, 2001. Every ministry assignment since his ordination in 1976 has been deeply involved in the process of starting and growing local churches. His last pastoral assignment involved starting a new church in southern California on the Anaheim District, where he served for ten years. The Saddleback Family Church of the Nazarene was launched on April 19, 1992 with 178 present for the launch Sunday. On its seventh anniversary of ministry, the church set a new record attendance with 685 present. The church became self-supporting in its third year and then helped to sponsor five other new congregations. They leased three different properties for weekly worship services and met in 29 different properties in their first five years as a church, not counting members’ homes. In addition to this emphasis for new church evangelism, Jim has also started created a number of resources for evangelism and discipleship for local Nazarene congregations. He serves as editor of GROW magazine, which features missional churches and leaders from across the USA and Canada in quarterly issues. The magazine is also available free of charge in a digital edition at www.GROWmagazine.org. In the book Best Practices in Discipleship, Jim met with a dozen leading Nazarene pastors to discuss how they were enfolding new members into their churches. The wide range of topics and insights into their best practices in discipleship provide guidance for any church interested in conserving new believers from fruitful their efforts in evangelism. This book is available free for all Nazarene pastors and staff. In the book Evangelism in Everyday Life, Jim uncovers key principles for sharing and shaping faith with those around us. This practical guide outlines the steps to naturally share your faith with others looking for spiritual answers in their lives. Both Jim and co-author Lyle Pointer believe this helpful book will guide believers into the everyday lifestyle of connecting others to an authentic faith in Jesus Christ. In the book entitled Missional Hearts: Best Practices for Effective Evangelism, Jim hosted a roundtable discussion with pastors of the top 50 growing churches to discuss how they were attracting and enfolding new believers to their churches. The first chapter describes the motivations for developing effective evangelism strategies, with following chapters sharing practical ideas from these dozen church leaders. Starting New Churches: A Starter Kit of Proven Ideas serves as an implementation guide for building a missional action plan for pastors interested in starting strong, new churches. These and many other new church resources are available free of charge for any Nazarene pastor or member upon request at www.NewStartUSA.org or by calling their toll free number at 1-800-306-8294. Jim and his wife Rhonda have two adult daughters, Rachel and Lydia.