Pilgrim Soldier

It’s been a quiet month blog-wise, mainly because I don’t really get time to process some of my thinking these days. This college thing seems to have taken up all my free time!

Anyway, today was our Sure Foundations class, which is basically a Church history class. We were given a handout that included some text from a book that believe it or not was published in Godalming, which both Zoe and I have had a look at during our research for an essay. That’s beside the point a little I should get on with the actual post!

This handout included the following:

“[The Church] did not see the need to go to the people on the streets but took the view that the people must go to it.”¹

I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity in many places today. There are still churches and corps across the country that seem to think that people will just instinctively come into them and see no reason at all to reach outside the building, which of course many actually think is the church in the first place. In fact what is becoming clearer as we study the history and circumstances leading to the birth of The Salvation Army is that little seems to have changed in the last 200 years. Society has moved on but the Church is still stuck, by and large, in a bubble that seems to protect it from the world outside it. This is true of the Army whether we like to admit it or not.

There are corps in our Territory, and across the western world, which are quiet simply so stuck in their way of doing things that God basically doesn’t get a look in. It’s not that the people aren’t Christians, it’s just that many of them long since gave up listening to, or at the very least acting upon, the voice of the Holy Spirit. They are almost exactly like the churches that William & Catherine Booth despaired so much of when they set out on their God ordained task. Ironic isn’t it?

However, there is encouraging news. Many of those who are training have some sort of experience of this sort of corps and none of them, or at least those I’ve spoken with, want this malaise to continue. I suspect though that there will be some difficult times ahead, when many ‘Army’ people lament the loss of ‘the Real Army’ yet I suspect that the real ‘Real Army’ will start making an even bigger impact than it already is!

One of the things that happens during these two years we’re spending in college is that occasionally we are let out onto the unsuspecting public. In our first year we get 3 placements, 2 in local corps and one in a social service centre. In the last couple of weeks we’ve received information about the first two of these.

The first will be in a little over 2 weeks when we go to a Social Service centre for a week. Because of the girls we are staying in London and are heading off to the King’s Cross area to Faith House which has an outreach to the homeless, drug addicts, and into the sex worker community in that area. I’m feeling really excited and totally terrified all at the same time as it is exactly where I wanted to go, but will be totally out of my/our comfort zones!

The second placement is where we will spend 7 Sundays between February and May! For this we are heading off to North London, in fact Camden, to go to Chalk Farm Corps. I don’t know much about the corps other than like many it is smaller than it used to be when I lived not so far away. It’s also very traditional in its worship but has some interesting activities during the week.

So that’s what we’re up to, along with the various subjects we’re studying in the classroom!

If you follow my blog regularly you’ll know that I read an excellent book by Maggi Dawn during Advent last year. Maggi has just posted about it’s availability this year and if you’re looking for something to read in the lead up to Christmas it is well worth getting.

This week has been about old friends! Firstly, is the fact that one of the people I’m in training with is someone I’ve known for the best part of 18 years, but lost touch with 13 years ago!

Secondly, the weekend saw something of a reunion for Riga 1 Corps, with a motley crew of 9 adults and 4 children being together at the welcome meeting for the Prayer Warriors. There was something of nostalgic feeling and it made me realise just how much I miss those days. We’re looking forward to our hoped for trip over there sometime during the summer 2009.

Finally, tonight we had a visitor who wasn’t part of the family. Dom is a friend who goes right back to my days at the Anglican Communion Office and we haven’t seen him since a trip back from Latvia about 5 or 6 years ago. It was really good to sit down and share with him what’s been happening since then. It really didn’t feel as if there had been such a long gap between encounters and we just switched back into the old relationship.

On a completely different thing, it seems incredible that we’re already at the end of Wednesday. We’ve had 3 days of classes now and I’ve come to realise that there is something scary about college life. Time simply seems to vanish! It makes me realise that these 20 months that we will spend together are actually something incredibly valuable and I need to guard it carefully. In next to no time we’ll be out of this place and into our ministry.

For the last year I’ve spent my Friday nights out doing the pubs with the War Cry, something I personally don’t really enjoy, so last Friday it was nice to get a chance to go and do something different. So it was that I found myself at a church in Peckham which I remembered from my days living in the area, listening to Tom Sine.

Sine describes himself as a futurist, which apparently means that he looks into what trends will do in the future, which sounds like quite a cool job! Anyway he was in Peckham to plug his new book, which I had found on the shelves of the Christian Bookshop in Godalming about 4 months ago!

The book is basically about the new trends in church, emerging, missional, mosaic (what is that I thought until I realised that this actually meant multi-cultural) and new monastic. Its about what these 4 new(ish) streams of renewal can actually offer to the wider church. One of the things that I discovered is that I’ve been involved in these sorts of churches for the last 13 years or so without ever really realising I was!

There was some good conversation, often sparked by the sizeable college contingent, and Sine himself raised some good points. Two quotes that stood out and which were on his Powerpoint:

“Rediscovering the kingdom – not only is it theology for Sunday, but a new reason to get out of bed on Monday.”

That these new streams offer an “opportunity to rediscover the good life of God is found not in seeking life but in losing life in the service of God and others.”

The only problem with the whole evening is that I felt Tom Sine could have spoken more and given a few more answers. Then again despite the fact that he is a really nice guy and it was great to get to speak to him directly, this was about promoting his book so he couldn’t give too much away! So I better get the book off the shelf I suppose!

Can it really be that it is only a week since we actually officially started this college? The almost frightening truth is that it is! Well actually today was day 9 if you are seriously counting, but that’s not quite as dramatic is it?

Anyway, in the last few days we’ve been well and truly inducted; have got study skills coming out of our ears; have attempted to learn our Sessional song which is ok but tends to get stuck in the mind a little; and have also been faced with a Practice Essay that was of such possible breadth as to blow the mind a little!

So far though the highlight was Sunday, which in college parlance was a Spiritual Day! The Training Principles were responsible for the day and they spoke on the need to be attentive to and orientated towards Jesus. Three things in particular spoke to me during the day: a song, a flag and another song!

First, a song! During the morning meeting we sang Graham Kendrick’s “Knowing you” which of course speaks about knowing Jesus. What came to mind as we sang was that the last time we had sung that particular song in the Assembly Hall was on our wedding day. I couldn’t help but consider how much has changed since that day just over 9 years ago. I certainly wouldn’t have expected to be stood there again as a cadet, in fact it wasn’t even on the radar back then. What I do know though is that I have never been let down by God in the intervening years even though I’ve let him down far too often.

Second, a flag! Yes, you’ve read me right and all those who know me really well can have a laugh at my expense! As part of the afternoon meeting, The Salvation Army flag of the Session is presented. Now despite being a 5th generation Salvationist, I can’t say that the flag has the same meaning for me as for some Salvationists. However, as the flag was marched down the hall and presented to the flag bearer, and then dedicated, a tear came to my eye. For the first time I suddenly realised that I was standing in the same hall in which my mum, dad and grandad has stood and witnessed a similar ceremony. For just a moment it seemed that the decades slipped away and I was stood shoulder to shoulder with them; that I was stood beside Zoe at the time just made it more wonderful. It is a moment that I will long remember!

Finally, the 2nd song! One of the officers on the college had written a song especially for the day with the title, “From this moment on…” and it spoke about the fact that from now on we were dedicating ourselves to the Lord anew for a new task. Again the significance wasn’t lost on me! Whilst my previous work for the Kingdom has been important I really believe that from now on the work I will be training to do and will eventually do as an officer is what God has been leading me towards for many years. I really do want to go for it from this moment on!

One of the wonderful things about living here in the College is the fact that we are living in community with so many others. Ok, to some extent it is a bit of weird community because it’s made up of people who have chosen to live here and study to be officers, but it is still a community, and as we get to know each other better I’m sure some of the tensions of community living will rear their heads.

For the moment though it has been wonderful to sit down and start getting to know some of the our fellow cadets. In particular we’ve got to know those who have families and live in the same house (and the next door one) as we do. It’s already easy to see how the friendships that you see people having over many years are formed and I’m really looking forward to spending these two years here.