Tag Archive for 'duty'

Duty?

Published
by
Graeme
on June 14, 2008
in Faith and discipleship
. 0 Comments

Within The Salvation Army there is a word that has, for my generation at least, become an unacceptable part of the vocabulary. It’s as if this simple 4 letter word has become, in English slang, a ‘four-letter word’ and to even whisper it in polite company will earn you frowns of disappointment.

The word is ‘duty’!

Why this word has become such an anathema to many Salvationists is a combination of the age we now live in and its poor use within Army circles. For any of us who grew up in the Army of the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, duty was used almost solely in respect of our brass band and songsters. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve heard the phrase “The band [or songsters] is on duty!” Almost without fail it meant that you would be seriously looked down upon if you weren’t at the particular event that the ‘duty section’ was in! It didn’t matter whether you had arranged something else, even months in advance, because there would always be someone who would find fault at you not being there, after all it was your duty!

This is not to say that this use of the word is particularly bad. If you commit yourself to be involved in a band or choir, of course you should be prepared to make your programme fit around its programme. However, the problem is that little, if anything, was ever mentioned about our duty to follow Jesus and be obedient to him.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why the song ‘Pathway of Duty’ has become so unpopular. Perhaps the words serve as a reminder to us of being on ‘duty’ at concerts that held little or no interest to us, and which never really seemed to bring anyone into the Kingdom.

We live today in a world that concentrates on the rights of the individual and a reluctant, tacit acceptance that many people have given up on being responsible members of society. Duty is unpopular as it suggests a reigning in of freedom and forces us to conform to certain societal ideals.

Yet duty is important, and we do have a duty in our walk with Jesus. At the root of our faith is a duty to be obedient. Without obedience our faith cannot grow. Bill Hull, in his book Choose the Life, has written that:

Many people have studied the Bible and considered following Jesus, but until we actually step out in obedience to him, we can’t experience the transformation of our character.

Many of us in the church are obedient to the rules of reading our Bible and praying every day, yet when it comes to being obedient to the Holy Spirit in our lives we ignore him. We choose the path of religiosity in our faith rather than being followers of our Rabbi who is also the Son of God.

Our duty as Christians is to put aside everything of ourselves, surrender our self-control, and to become disciples whose every step is a step of obedience. By embracing this duty of obedience to him, we will in the words of that old, often despised song discover that “while we walk this path of duty we will find our needs supplied from the river of God’s mercy that is flowing close beside.”

What’s wrong?

Published
by
Graeme
on November 26, 2007
in Ramblings
. 8 Comments

The more I think about how we have done ‘Church’ or ‘Army’ in the past the more convinced I am that the Church and the Army have failed generations of people.1 The biggest problem is not only have we failed people by selling short the fullness of life on offer through the grace of God and faith in Jesus, its possible that we have also enslaved them into a way of living that is probably contradictory to what following Jesus is really about.

These words may seem harsh, but I’ll explain what I mean. Over the years in the Army a great deal of emphasis has been placed on the practical side of discipleship and the fact that it is our duty to serve. In my opinion this has caused two things to happen. Firstly, we have narrowed the avenues in which we are able to serve Jesus. Secondly, we have created a reluctant core of members who serve, not out of joy or even with joy, but because of some misguided sense of duty.

In some places we now face a situation of our own making. We see soldiers who are more interested in maintaining what has gone before than they are transforming the communities in which they live. I’m not sure whether this is simply a result of our humanity and our not liking change, or whether it is also because there is a belief that the Army subculture, in which I grew up, is to be protected at all costs because this is what the ‘real’ Army is.

Now I know that I am opening myself up to being accused of making generalisations, so I acknowledge that there are some wonderful expressions of the Army/Church that are working. However, as I have talked to people over the last few months and have been involved in meetings where extremely difficult situations have been part of the discussions, I have come to see how bitter some Salvationists have become and I simply cannot ignore that. I’m seeing and hearing of people so caught up in past hurts that they seem incapable of moving past them. I see people so indoctrinated into a particular way of ‘doing church’ or serving others that any joy they have found in the past has gone. I see this and I want to cry out to heaven and ask “Why Lord? Why have you allowed this to happen?”

The real tragedy is that this bitterness is often not of the person’s own making. It is more often the result of a institutional form of faith that draws people in with the promise of personal salvation but which then requires subservience to the institution rather than the Jesus who the institution should be serving. What is even worse is that it is this is not done through a concious effort that has resulted in this, but it is simply something that we have slipped into over the decades.

I suppose this post is really an expression of what is on my heart at the moment. Unfortunately, it seems in some situations the bitterness is simply too ingrained in people that only the Spirit can make a difference, yet those same people are often not open to the Spirit’s leading.

Where do we go from here? I honestly have no idea, but I do think we have to be honest with ourselves and search for a solution that only come from an openness to the Holy Spirit! I also suspect that something that will be needed is corporate repentance on the part of the Church for the sins of our past.

1 Please note that I’m not singling out the Army for criticism in this post but can only write about what I know and currently see.