JAC Online

Dividing the Army - Two pronged Army
by Graeme Smith

There is a lot of debate these days, throughout the internet and in more traditional media, about the future of The Salvation Army.

I want to throw what might be a controversial idea into the hat! Is it time for the Army to have two distinct identities? Two wings of our work if you like!

The first would be specifically a church for those who want to be only in a church. The congregations would be led by officers with this sort of 'calling'. The people who go to this wing of The Salvation Army can be safe in the knowledge that no-one within it will ever rock the boat, and that they need never be challenged beyond the question of whether they want to go to heaven when they die. No-one will expect them to be involved in anything that is remotely outside their comfort-zone. Above all their holiness will be about separating themselves from the world and will be an intensely personal matter that doesn't concern anyone else.

The second would be more of a mission organisation, led by officers with a specific calling to reach out to the lost. This would probably include the planting part and 'new expressions'. This wing of The Salvation Army would be made up of committed soldiers, leaving their comfort-zones and striking out into the deprived areas of this dark world. It would involve risk and sacrifice but the reward is a knowledge that they are doing something that Jesus would do. They would be acting out the scriptural call to be Salt flavouring a tasteless world and they would act out the call to holiness with its sleeves rolled up!

I've even thought of two names! The first could reinvent itself as “The Real Salvation Army” and the other would just keep the old name!

 

 

 

 

   

 

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