The seminar provided delegates with teaching on Scriptural holiness, corporate worship, small group discussions, and opportunities for spiritual formation. By the end of NSH, dozens of delegates testified to their experiences of holiness, saying that God had freed them from their self-will and filled them with His love.

On August 9, NSH began with an extended evening of praise songs, Scripture reading and testimonies. The first full day, August 10, introduced the seminar’s first speakers, Colonels James and Sue Betts, National Chief Secretary and National Secretary for Personnel respectively, whose sermons bookended the day and challenged delegates to consider what the holy life looks like in community.

Envoys Bill and Diane Ury, national ambassadors for holiness, taught on holiness throughout the week, providing the delegates with deep biblical teaching and practical wisdom. Together, Envoys Ury covered holiness themes like the nature of holiness, the “Who” of holiness, full salvation, and holy living.

On Wednesday, August 13, Cricket Albertson, director of Titus Women, a ministry of the Francis Asbury Society, spoke on the missional application of holiness, focusing largely on the book of Acts.

Faculty members led discipleship groups called “Holy Huddles” by using a method for talking about Bible drawn from the book “The 5Q Method of Discipleship” by Matt Friedeman. Major Cam Henderson trained and resourced the faculty in the 5Q method before the seminar and offered subsequent trainings for delegates during the week.

Other highlights included a musical performance by the husband-and-wife duo, Jeremiah and Vanessa Gamble, known as Theater for the Thirsty. Their show “The Psalm King” movingly told the story of the psalmist and shepherd King David by depicting events from his life and the psalms that intersected those events. Delegates found the show to be illuminating, frequently funny and inspirational.

The seminar concluded with a time of worship and covenant on Thursday evening. National Commander Commissioner Merle Heatwole preached vividly on holiness, calling the delegates to embrace The Salvation Army’s legacy of holiness teaching and practice by God’s grace. The delegates were invited to covenant with God using John Wesley’s famous Covenant Prayer, which they prayed and signed. The Wesley Covenant Prayer provides a description of the holy life and reads:

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.