JAC Online

That Christ Alone May Have First Place In All Things!
by General Paul Rader

5 May 1994 Keynote -- National Forum, Chicago, IL

 

 

Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:1-20

The Message  [Selected Verses] 

 

"I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ as part of God's master plan.  Together with my friend Timothy, I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colossae.  May everything good from God our Father be yours!

 

"Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings.  We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you!  We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians.  The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future hope in heaven, kept taut by hope.

 

The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it.  It doesn't diminish or weaken over time.  It's the same all over the world.  The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. . . .

 

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works . . . . As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.  We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul -- not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives . . . . thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful he has for us.

 

"God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons.  He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much . . . .We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen.  We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created . . . . everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him . . . .

 

"He was supreme in the beginning and -- leading the resurrection parade -- he is supreme in the end.  From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. . . . Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe--people and things, animals and atoms--get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross . . . . We preach Christ. . . .  Christ!  No more, no less."

 

 

"That Christ alone may have the first place in all things!"

 

VISION 2000 -- Where are we going?

 

1. Is this the final March to Armageddon? 

 

Much to suggest that it might be -- Armageddon in our streets – our strife torn cities, in brokenness and anger of our homes, in the spawning of generations of abused abusers, violated violators, addicted addictors with the moral sensibilities of Beavis and Buthead.  Wm. Bennett in his Index of Leading Cultural Indicators characterizes our culture as bereft of moral direction, a  value vacuous culture. 

 

A few months ago, Norman Lear, hardly a friend of traditional values, in a speech to the National Press Club, declared: "At no time in my life has our culture been so estranged from spiritual values . . . Our problems lie beyond the reach of politics."  Cal Thomas, the columnist who noted this, goes on to quote Chuck Colson: "Crime is a mirror not just of a community's families but also of its moral state.  A society cannot long survive if the demands of human dignity are not written on our hearts" [LA Times 14 Dec 93].  "Today," Thomas comments further, "tragically, our culture, steeped in the deviant and the base, seems to create sick souls, who kidnap and kill children in California and Missouri and mow down innocent commuters in New York."

 

Families are coming unglued.  America now boasts the worst divorce rate in the world.  Is anyone surprised?  How timely our emphasis on the family this year!

 

There is a deepening sense of helplessness on the part of parents to control the power of the media over our children in shaping their moral consciousness.

 

We have forgotten how to blush as a nation.  We have only begun to experience the capacity of our culture to debase itself to the point of self-destruction.  Consider this from last week's TIME:

 

"On the Downward Spiral, the bracing [sic] new album by Nine Inch Nails, the mood starts off grim and deteriorates fast.  The record opens with a volley of gunshot-like reports that mutate into the techno thrash of Mr. Self Destruct,  on which composer-singer Trent Reznor screams, 'I am the voice inside your head -- and I control you.'

 

"On Heresy, . . . Reznor sings, 'God is dead and no one cares/If there is a hell I will see you there.'  Subsequent cuts evoke paranoia, murder and finally suicide.  The lyrics on the title cut include the lines 'He couldn't believe how easy it was/ He put the gun into his face/ Bang!/ So much blood for such a tiny hole.

 

"'The act of trying to rid yourself of these demons, to prepare yourself for the worst, is a positive thing,'" Reznor opines.  Comments TIME columnist, Guy Garcia: "If only Kurt Cobain, who purveyed a similarly despairing view of the world, had looked at things that way."

 

Is it any wonder that serious observers are mourning a 'loss of soul' in America?

 

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, warns: "in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate . . . . When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainment, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility" [quoted in Chandler, Racing Toward 2000, p. 306].

 

Is it the final March to Armageddon or does our future as Christian believers called to be a Salvation Army yet nurture a present purpose for which God has uniquely positioned us in these difficult times?  Paul's heavenly hope did not deter his commitment to the long haul and his prayer for glory strength to stay the course and to be ready for "everything bright and beautiful he has for us!"  The fact is, there was never a more exhilarating time to be a Salvationist!

 

We were never more needed!  We were never better positioned!  We were never better equipped!  We were never better housed!  We were never better resourced! 

 

2. Where are we going? 

 

Where are we tending?  I do not want to seem to be preempting the function of this forum.  We are here to listen.  By its very nature a forum must be fully open to explore new possibilities.  But here are some [and only some ] directions in which it seems to me we want to move, are moving, and, you may agree, must move! 

 

Forward!  Not all will agree!  But can we really believe that this is a time for retrenchment or retreat into bunkers of self-preservation.  Can anything less than a growing Army meet the challenge of our time?! – an Army robust and responsive to the challenge of these times. This calls for a renewed focus on our spiritual ministries, whether in corps, institution, or other programs, as the base for our social outreach in ministry. Nowhere is this better modeled than in our Adult Rehabilitation programs

 

Into new and burgeoning communities yet unreached -- including suburbia, where appropriate

 

Toward greater diversity -- in corps and communities -- more color, for America is losing its pale and pink complexion.  African American, Native American, Asian American, Hispanic American -- not to mention Russian!

 

Toward a more serious commitment to the equalization of status, role and opportunity for women

 

Toward a renewal of our ministry to the inner city -- reclaiming the streets -- sometimes with an 'in your face' brashness!!   Enlisting the African American community.

 

Toward an ever more timely, yet timeless, response to human need -- as our social services, both institutional and programmatic, as well as expressing the life of the Body and the soul of our soldiery, seek to respond with competence and compassion to changing human needs and resources.

 

Toward a significant change in our funding structures -- in which federated funding may play somewhat less of a role and program endowments and government funding -- and, please God, to save our own souls, a serious commitment to discipleship level stewardship on the part of Salvationists, will tend to play a much greater role.

 

Toward a recognition of the need for a much greater degree of ownership by lay Salvationists -- and all it implies.

 

Toward an openness to the discovery and utilization of new, innovative and less capital intensive  models for Army presence and ministry in communities that may target those generational or other groups unreached by our more conventional corps community centers

 

Towards a truly balanced and soundly integrated approach to mission that recognizes that: "There is no spiritual issue without a social dimension and no social issue without a spiritual dimension.  Hence, The Salvation Army steadfastly refuses to recognize any separation between the two, and neither dimension is excluded from any ministry" [Vision Statement].

 

Towards corps that are intentional centers of spiritual nurture, holiness and healing. 

 

Towards a growing commitment to what God is doing, world-wide.  We cannot afford to abdicate our role.  Our missionary contribution is mediocre in terms of numbers.  Most of our money is coming from the community -- with certain glowing exceptions.  We have only begun to understand our role.

 

3. What will we need to get there?

 

As we go, we must maintain:

 

Our Identity -- durable and dynamic organism.  It is not frail and hemophiliac.  It is not allergic to new ideas; it will not perish at the least contact with other organisms or bleed to death if pricked!

 

Our Integrity -- Chronicle of Philanthropy -- December UWA phone survey -- 1,000 respondents: Army 1st with 12%, United Ways 10% and RC 3%!  -- We were first in gifts in '92 as well!  Difference between reputation and character: "Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what God knows you are!"  Integrity must be the public face of genuine heart holiness!

 

Intensity -- missional focus -- this is the greatest defense of our integrity in mission.  Clearer understanding of our mission and the vision it has inspired and a firmer grasp of, and commitment to, the essential ethos of the Army:

 

Universality -- Inclusiveness -- Whosoever will!

 

Dignity of human persons

 

Possibility -- redemption, renewal, recovery, holy living

 

Certainty  -- saving, sanctifying grace, and calling to witness and service.

 

Immediacy -- grace mediated not through material elements or priestly ministrants but by the Spirit to the believing heart.  Joy, Freedom, Reality and Intention to worship -- Mercy Seat is the focus!

 

Availability [uniform!] and Access ['User-friendliness!' in terms of I Cor. 9 and our commitment to reach the un-churched and un-saved and to afford them easy access and ready understanding!]  We must not lose track of why we donned these uniforms, adopted our style of worship, organized ourselves in a quasi-military structure, and commissioned our bands, timbrels and songster brigades, in the first place!  In fact, the Army Mother -- and the Founder, would insist that the standard is not availability or even access, but aggression.  'Compel them to come in that my house may be filled!'

 

Community/Camaraderie -- the community is cause-oriented -- a missional community!  We are to be, as Elton Trueblood insisted, a "Company of the Committed."  We must not lose that.  It may not be 'user friendly' to the Boomer generation [although they love to volunteer and to care, if the commitment is manageable and not too intrusive or long-term].  We used to handle that by putting the nominals with the seekers in the crowd and the committed on the platform.  The point being, we have always had to hold the two together.  What was never intended is that we should be a closed community of the thoroughly initiated who are committed only to our own self-preservation, muttering to ourselves in a code language baffling to the average citizen and off-putting to the serious seeker.  Some are concerned about the influence of the Masonic order on the Army.  I am far more concerned that we not become a kind of 'secret society' ourselves in our corps life, -- more concerned about preserving our idiosyncrasies than being faithful to our essential calling -- privatistic, self-absorbed and effectively neutered!  The area in which that can most easily happen is our corps fellowships.  Meanwhile, our Monday through Saturday corps-based social services may be publicly acclaimed and well-funded, and force us into the broader community. But if they are divorced from the spiritual fellowship of the corps, they may be devoid of the spiritual motivation and direction -- and connection with the Body that can give them their most unique quality and life-changing potential.  And let us acknowledge that that is a two way street!

 

The Founders' passion was to make Jesus Lord of it all.  "That Christ alone may have the first place in all things" -- in our purposes, our priorities, our planning and our programs.  That erases all false dichotomies.  [We are going to be pressured more than ever to compromise our Christian identity and ideals and the Lordship of Christ over our programs!]  That brings us back to our text -- and to the purposes and perspectives and parameters that must guide us in this forum.  If we are to achieve the purposes of this Forum -- and ultimately realize God's intention for us in mission as we move toward the Twenty First Century:

 

4. We need to commit ourselves at the outset to:

 

Exalt the Lordship of Christ over us -- as central, sovereign, supreme -- 'towering above us' in his supremacy, but coming among us -- 'he moved into the neighborhood!' -- going to the Cross in His humility to fix the brokenness of our world, identifying fully with us in order to fit everything together in vibrant harmonies!  That is why our interactions here must be in the context of worship, gratitude and submission.

 

Sensitize ourselves to think God's thoughts after Him -- our "spirits attuned to his will"

 

Be open to the surprises of grace -- serendipities and synergisms.  Harry Read in Words of Life declares: "We must lift our expectations to match His!"  There is an open way before us -- we have had done with "dead-end alleys and dark dungeons."

 

Recognize we do have our work cut out for us -- work -- creative work, thoughtful work, strategic work, sacrificial work.  The more we learn of how God works and has worked in the Lord Jesus, the better we understand how to get on with our tasks, empowered by His presence within and held steady by His purpose for us -- the lines of purpose in our lives 'tightly tied to our . . . hope in heaven, kept taut by hope."

 

Claim the strength promised us to go the distance -- "the glory-strength God gives . . . .  thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful he has for us."

 

Renew our confidence in the power of the Gospel given us -- as strong as ever.  Still the power of God unto salvation.  It hasn't lost its relevance or its radiance, its pertinence or its power!  And it is working -- all around the world -- bearing fruit, gaining strength, as the Church grows and the Army advances.

 

Conclusion:

 

One last word to this Forum. It comes from my father, Lt. Colonel Lyell Rader, O.F.  Shortly before he was promoted to Glory he wrote to us: 'Keep your priorities straight. Power your projects with passionate prayer. Forget who gets the credit as long as King Jesus gets the glory!” Do this and we will be ready for the twenty first century and beyond!

 

 

  

 

 

   

 

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