Hiram F. Reynolds (1854-1938) was a minister and general superintendent in the

Church of the Nazarene The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged in North America from the 19th-century Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism. It is headquartered in Lenexa within Johnson County, Kansas. With its members co ...

Biography

Reynolds was born 1854 in

Lyons, Illinois Lyons is a village in Lyons Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 10,817. The Chicago Portage National Historic Site is located in Lyons. History Lyons was incorporated in 1888, though activit ...

. He was converted at age twenty-two and began preaching the following year in the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

church in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. Reynolds was ordained deacon in the Vermont Conference by Methodist Episcopal Bishop Andrews in 1884, and was ordained elder in 1886 by Methodist Episcopal Bishop

John Fletcher Hurst John Fletcher Hurst (August 17, 1834 – May 4, 1903) was an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first Chancellor of the American University in Washington, D.C. Biography Born on August 17, 1834, in Salem, Dorchester County ...

. In 1895, Dr. Reynolds joined the

Association of Pentecostal Churches of America The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged in North America from the 19th-century Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism. It is headquartered in Lenexa within Johnson County, Kansas. With its members co ...

. He was elected Home and Foreign Missionary Secretary two years later. When the Association merged with the Church of the Nazarene to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene in 1907, Reynolds was elected general superintendent along with

Phineas F. Bresee Phineas F. Bresee (December 31, 1838 – November 13, 1915) was the primary founder of the Church of the Nazarene, and founding president of Point Loma Nazarene University. Early life and ministry Bresee was born on a farm near Franklin, New ...

. Re-elected the following year during the Second General Assembly at Pilot Point, he continued in that office until his retirement in 1932. During most of his superintendency, he also served as Secretary for Foreign Missions and in 1896 began the ambitious program of

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

witness to the Cape Verde Islands. Reynolds was also a founder, influential in the naming, of

The Eastern Nazarene College The Eastern Nazarene College (ENC) is a Private university#United States, private, Christian college in Quincy, Massachusetts. Established as a Holiness Movement, holiness college in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1900, the college moved to Rhode Isla ...

Notes and references

1854 births 1938 deaths Nazarene General Superintendents Eastern Nazarene College founders People from Chicago American Nazarene ministers People from Cook County, Illinois {{US-Christian-clergy-stub