Pilgrim Soldier

In the editor’s comment of last weekend’s Salvationist (8 July) he asked the question, “Why are some readers so quick to fire off a letter on cosmetic issues and then the silence is deafening when it comes to sharing good news?”. This was off the back of a mailbag full of responses to a letter about uniform, but only a handful sharing about positive things happening in corps.

In response I sent the following letter:

In the Editors comment for the 8th July issue he asks the question “Why are some readers so quick to fire off a letter on cosmetic issues and then the silence is deafening when it comes to sharing good news?” and I can almost imagine the reaction in some quarters! There were almost certainly some Salvationist who were made angry by this question as it suggests that issues like uniform-wearing, musical styles etc are critical of their Salvationism.

There in lies the problem. For far too many people, the things that make The Salvation Army what it is today are uniforms, brass bands and our “unique ministry” to those who society ignores. However, of all those things the only one that matters in anyway at all is the last, and lets be honest there are not really many Salvationists involved in that ministry outside of the professionals and officers!

The simple truth is that for many The Salvation Army is little more than a social club, where they can meet their friends on Sunday and at practices during the week. It’s a place where they can sing on a Sunday and thank God for the things that He does for us and then go home proud to be a Salvationist! Few of our Soldiers live their lives according to the promises they made when they signed the Articles of War. Few can probably even remember what they signed!

We think that the answers to our problems lie in the past and if we keep on doing those things God will supply our every need. But instead we only need to take one thing from our glorious birth and that is the passion that the early day Salvationists showed! Not a passion for the things that make up the modern day Salvation Army, but a different type of passion. A Passion for souls! A Passion for work! And above all a Passion for Christ!

This morning I received an e-mail from the Editor, Captain Dean Pallant, asking whether he could publish an edited version of the letter. Having read his edited version the writing made it the letter I wish I had written so I gave permission. So watch out for it if you get the Salvationist!

The distressing thing though is that so many Christians are all to willing to get on the bandwagon about the irrelevancies of life, both Church and secular, but seem unable to see the good that is being done for the Kingdom. There is so much good going on around the world in God’s name and in The Salvation Army, yet we are blinded to it.

Yesterday two things stood out for me. The first was my discovery of Jude 17-23 which I spoke on for my morning prayers. Those who want to detract from the good by concentrating on the little things that make no real difference to the Kingdom. Instead we should be building ourselves up and doing those things that Jude implores us to do.

The second thing was the discovery of another ministry that is striving to be relevant to modern culture and meeting the needs of the community. The Freeway can be found in Hamilton in Ontario, Canada and runs a coffee house with a creative edge. Visit their site and find out more! The thing that stood out though is that they are trying to be church in a way that is meeting a need in their community and is totally outside the box in terms of a traditional understanding of church. To me they embody the Jude teaching!

This post is a bit of a mish-mash of thoughts but I hope it makes some sense. I’ll leave the last word to Captain Pallant though as he has a much better command of the English language than me:

“There are many mission-critical issues to debate … We will not always agree with each other but let’s keep the discussion … focused on building the Kingdom by sharing positive and encouraging experiences.”