Phineas F. Bresee

[1] He also served a term as a presiding elder (now district superintendent) and was a delegate to 1872 General Conference of the M. E. Church, held at Brooklyn, New York.

In Los Angeles, he was a trustee for the University of Southern California and worked with J. P. Widney to save the College of Liberal Arts there.

Bresee became convinced that the best ministry for the urban poor was to create strong churches that ministered to entire families.

In October 1895, Bresee and Dr. Joseph Pomeroy Widney, a leading Los Angeles physician and former president of the University of Southern California, joined with numerous lay men and women to form a new church.

Widney suggested the name "Church of the Nazarene", because he said it identified the ministry with the toiling masses of common people for whom Jesus lived and died.

During these years, Bresee continued serving as pastor of Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene until 1911, when he retired from that position.

When a group of women wanted to create a Bible school in Los Angeles, Bresee consented (somewhat grudgingly) to assist them, and became the president of the college, serving in that capacity until 1911.