It’s now more than 10 years since the International Spiritual Life Commission reported their thoughts to The Salvation Army. Unfortunately, in some areas the emphasis has been placed more on what they didn’t do, especially in terms of baptism and the eucharist, than on the calls that they made to Salvationists and the corps they are part of.
I’ve been looking at them recently and within the Call to Soldiership I discovered this:
“We believe that soldiership is discipleship…”
The reality is though that for many soldiers, soldiership has actually been a route to playing an active part in the life of the ‘club’ rather than a commitment to radical, life-changing service. The Articles of War, or Soldier’s Covenant, that they signed hasn’t really made a significant impact on their lives. Why this is the case has been discussed a lot in recent days and in my opinion is a combination of poor teaching, an emphasis on ‘Army’ subculture rather than mission, poor leadership and changing times.
When you read the Soldier’s Covenant it really requires a radical commitment. Too often the emphasis has been placed on the commitments not to drink and being active as is possible in the corps programme, rather than on those of response and obedience to the Holy Spirit and living by Kingdom values.
I heard today of two corps which are well known in this Territory that have changed the format of their evening meetings. The band and songsters are now only on duty about once a month and when they are not taking part the majority of the members are absent. When one of the corps has a Bible Study they only get about 25% of the number of people who go when the band or songsters are taking part. Is this radical commitment to the Lord, or is it membership of an interest group?
Real discipleship is costly not cosy. Yet despite this cost it ultimately leads to a life that is defined by the beauty of a relationship with the Father and assurance in His promises.
When our leadership team in the corps felt led to have our evening meeting go deeper into prayer, worship and the word we decided not to have the songsters on duty. This change took place about 3 years ago and since then there have been some songsters that have not come to an evening meeting. I was a songster at the time and part of the leadership team and I had no problem with the change…. I also couldn’t understand why people that had come on a Sunday evening for years and years could suddenly not come just because they weren’t on duty any more. Also, some other non-songster corps folk stopped coming and still don’t come…. but, the Sunday evening meeting is great with those there truly wanting to be there…. wanting to go deeper with God.
It would be interesting to know whether the people who ‘leave’ meetings when sections are not ‘on duty’ feel that it should only be soldiers who should be in the band and songsters. Somehow I don’t think that survey would ever get done though!