A Son of the Holiness Movement Is Dead: Now What?
Photo by David Tomaseti on Unsplash
My coach died on April 7, 2024. Thousands lost their coach, mentor, and advisor when Rev. Dr. Keith Wesley Drury passed away suddenly. Many of his colleagues knew him as a friend–not always a given in academic settings. He quietly lived more deeply than he preached (and he was never short on words).
The Wesleyan Church has lost a singular voice: a son of the Pilgrim Holiness Church through and through, Keith Drury turned down a General Superintendent position after years in denominational leadership. He was a youth pastor with the work ethic of a farmer, a popular writer who believed holiness is for ordinary people, a leader who equipped pastors with “strategetics,” a professor who saw every classroom as a lab, an exceptionally savvy parliamentarian, a hiker with an old-fashioned holiness appreciation of camping out in God’s creation, a retiree who abstained from further book publishing to make room for others, only very occasionally lobbing public conversational grenades that had church leaders sweating.
Many profiles capture angles of Coach’s life: turned down by Asbury Theological Seminary, he was accepted to Princeton; ordained in The Wesleyan Church, he led in denominational youth and Christian ed roles; having taught at Indiana Wesleyan University, he helped launch Wesley Seminary. He was the son of a Pennsylvania Pilgrim Holiness District Superintendent, grandson of a Yorkshire coal miner. Dr. Sharon Drury has lost her husband of 56 years; Rev. David Drury and Dr. John Drury, their dad.
I’m one of thousands of students he coached. It’s been a while since our last communication, but his influence shapes my thinking in ways that have become second-nature now. He stewarded his considerable influence to equip others and gave me the gift of seeing my name printed in book acknowledgments for the first time. Just out of college, it meant the world.
Hagiography doesn’t fit the mischief captured even in his obituary, though: “Drury loved to get people thinking…perhaps most remembered for the timeless Holiness for Ordinary People. He was a teacher, speaker, leader, advisor, author, futurist, mentor, encourager, and provocateur...”
If “provocateur” sounds like there’s substantial subtext, there is. Check out his tongue-in-cheek 2004 send-up, “Wesleyans Need to Quit Sending Daughters to the Youth Conventions” (still relevant today). Nearly ten years before that, he gave his infamous address, “The Holiness Movement Is Dead,” infamous in large part because he delivered it to the Presidential Breakfast for the Christian Holiness Association.
But Coach wouldn’t want me to “waste” space eulogizing. He was open about his goal of equipping a generation of writers. Students entered his undergrad worship class with fear and trembling. Drury made sure you’d written a useful booklet integrating the history, theology, and practice of worship by the end of the semester.
As one of those students, I have no question: he’d tell me to tell you something useful. He’d have a good hunch how many people have never heard of him. He’d want me to direct visual focus for those skimming. So here are Four Ways Keith Drury Put Ministerial Training in Hiking Boots.
Part of his unique voice came from being more like John Wesley than like a Wesleyan—because he wanted people to be saved and sanctified. Here are some habits that shaped his effectiveness in equipping the church.
#1. Drury was laser-focused on contextualizing practical spiritual formation and pedagogy. For him, ministerial training should be portable: every classroom a lab, every thousand-mile-long hiking trail a classroom. It’s demanding to train apprentices, but that was how he trained 18- to 22-year-olds to become pastors.
(Drury’s lab-like practicality is why I heard him lecture the first time. A friend in his Church Leadership class needed to be absent. Students weren’t docked for absence—if you found a substitute to sit in for you, because in ministry if you can’t show up, you’d better find someone to fill in. I sat in for my friend, taking notes faster than I’d ever written.)
#2. Drury was realistic about ministerial training context and objectives. God calls all kinds of people to pastoral ministry. A few students might relish learning the physics of combustion engines, so to speak, but most need to learn how to drive, why oil changes are important, and how to change a flat tire. Coach was more than capable of talking combustion-engine physics, but he defied any split between academic work and competence. For him, if a student graduated understanding Aquinas but incompetent in the local church, he and the university had failed you and the church. You better know how to handle a funeral with sensitivity, how not to introduce change, and why the parliamentary difference between receiving and adopting recommendations can be enormous.
#3. He understood human nature and never underestimated how leaders leverage processes. Coach made parliamentary law interesting in part by showing why it matters. “People hate voting ‘no’ on things,” he said. “If they’re at a stalemate and tension is building, someone needs to move to ‘table’ the topic. ‘Tabling’ puts it on indefinite hold. And it lets people vote ‘yes’ on something in the meantime. Sometimes they just need more time to think.” (This remains some of the savviest local board advice for small towns and churches I’ve ever heard.) He was also one of the only people in the room to grasp the fact that everyone thought The Wesleyan Church had just voted to merge with the Free Methodists—and why they were all wrong.
#4. He raided the attic of church history for parts to read and meet today’s needs—and tomorrow’s. Dr. Ken Schenck has mentioned Coach’s habit of ribbing Nazarenes about the expense of their denominational headquarter…bathroom fixtures. It seems like a random thing to tease our Nazarene siblings about–except Drury was well-read. And Nazarene founder Phineas Bresee specifically addressed church buildings: “We want places so plain that every board will say welcome to the poorest.”
If Coach focused on something seemingly irrelevant, there was always a reason (often found in history). He was pointing them to their founding values. (He levied critiques at others having already prodded his own denomination.)
To contextualize well—to apply theology well—we thankfully have a church history attic stuffed with all kinds of resources, examples, blueprints, disasters, spare parts, and tools for practitioners to tinker with. John Wesley delved into “primitive Christianity.”
Drury also raided the church history attic for perspective that extended beyond current events, top-of-mind controversies, and denominational silos. He scavenged lessons, tools, and ideas that could help the church wisely steward its mission to pursue, preach, and live salvation and sanctification, if the church chose to do so. In the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, Drury knew the roots of Wesleyan holiness revivalism and saw the profound identity crisis unfolding.
In the context of deep reliance on Providence, Drury spent some of his best energy honing timing: knowing something and naming it are two different things. Knowing what to name and when is priceless. Hordes of colleagues can testify to his savvy EQ. Even so, his 2004 footnotes on his 1995 “The Holiness Movement Is Dead” show his uncertainty about the outcome of the address.
I think he was simply trying to gauge it too soon; it’s even more relevant now.
He was right then, but more needed to fall apart before the full impact of his pronouncement could be felt. Almost 30 years later, its relevance echoes loudest beyond the original context. The expansions, contractions, crises, and reshuffling since 1995 across all of American Wesleyan Methodism, even across the whole vat of “evangelical soup,” have only brought his assessment into sharper relief. Calling time of death on the holiness movement was a canary in the coal mine for every bit of poorly contextualized American evangelicalism characterized more by syncretism than simplicity, humility, and anointed lay leadership.
By the grace of God, there are signs of life—the 2023 outpouring not the least—but it’s deceptively easy to smother new life, subtly to control it, define it, tame it, or claim it (see church history’s attic).
A son of the holiness movement is dead, but he modeled a few ways to welcome the breath of God into dry bones. Coach knew the power of “show, don’t tell.” In addition to staying rooted in basic spiritual disciplines:
#1. Live so simply your shirt cuffs, square footage, and hood ornament say welcome to the poor. Keith and Sharon worked hard, lived frugally, invested with savvy. Even while he was a denominational leader, they plunked their growing boys in hand-me-downs. And they were generous: Keith gave students the chance to develop a love for the outdoors. While living in a modest house, Coach lent students kayaks and camping gear, equipment students couldn’t afford. No poor student pulling into Coach’s driveway felt self-conscious about the size of their own family home.
#2. Spend time with young people instead of griping about them. Trust while sowing seed that if some gets choked out or withers, some will land on good soil. Be ready to practice what you preach. Coach was a good sport, knew himself, had good boundaries, and knew some of his apprentices would eventually leave ministry. He knew how often people ask for advice and how few take it. He stayed in the game anyway.
#3. Invest locally. Drury remained persistently, defiantly committed to the local church, local works of mercy, and the value of belonging to a theological tradition. However flawed denominations may be, he engaged and prayed for the particular. (Caveat: Coach encouraged women preparing for ministry to go wherever we could find opportunity to follow our calling, though he grieved when his denomination incurred its own losses.) Keith and Sharon were married for over 50 years: they weren’t naïve about the challenges of life together. But in an era of disillusionment, Coach continued to advocate for commitment. He knew who he was and allowed himself to be shaped and formed locally and by his tradition.
#4. Expect Acts 2. Coach knew the Wesleyan Methodist history of abolitionism and womens’ preaching and ordination and the ways the holiness movement neglected its heritage. He stewarded his influence and genuinely welcomed women and people of color. Every time—every time—there’s genuine revival, two hallmarks accompany it: the Holy Spirit pours out on women, and people worship together across racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic divisions. If those features aren’t present, keep praying for revival. You don’t have it yet.
One of the great gifts of the Wesleyan holiness heritage is testimony. Recently I came across this excerpt from Coach’s old website. It’s from 2004 when he was still teaching. Sometimes he had brooding days, but this is different. It’s the kind of stake most Christians have to make at some point in their pilgrimage.
And Keith Drury was a Pilgrim to the end. At some point, most ministers face a time when they need to hear this kind of testimony from someone clearing the trail ahead:
While writing to a former student today I dug out this old journal entry to share with them…I suppose one advantage of journaling is you can dig out old things and relate them to the struggles of others. And it reminds you of your own trials that we too soon filter out as we rewrite the history of our own spiritual lives. That entry:
I may lose all my faith through this. There may be none left. What then? What will I do?
I know. I'd preach the gospel anyway. I'd work in the church anyway. I'd lead people to Christ anyway. I'd mentor people anyway. I'd organize people into groups so that they could become like Christ…anyway. Anyway. It may not be so important that I have faith than I give it. That I do your work on earth with others, than I have your smile upon my head. You've been hiding from me, Lord. For two years now. Perhaps I will never again feel your presence, sense your touch, or even have faith in you. Perhaps I shall go to hell and in the end be rejected by you. So be it. You can pay me or not, I intend to work for you. I will work at bringing in your kingdom even if you do not let me be in it. In that sense I can't lose my faith—it is too stubborn, and it is not a feeling at all but the stubborn insistence that I am your son and your worker even if you never again look my way.
Recently I’ve gotten a dozen emails from former students or pastors experiencing such a “dark night of the soul.” I don’t know if I can help them—they have to walk through that lonesome valley alone—not even God seems to walk…at least he seems to have abandoned us. But I can dig out my journaling and share it to say that I got to the other side of that “threshing floor.” It was not long after this writing that God returned in a felling-sort-of-way. However I have never since then experienced the depth of emotions and feelings I had before. It became a transition for me—I no longer work for the pay, I work for Christ because that is who I am. I am his and I will serve him no matter what the emotional paycheck.
What about you? Are you ready to give your anyway?
Elizabeth Glass Turner is a writer and editor with a Wesleyan Methodist ministerial background in the local church and campus ministry. She curates FireFall, a newsletter amplifying the voices of women in church leadership and higher education.