JAC Online

Mission:  Top Priority for the Church?
by Cadet Tim Watson, Melbourne, Australia
How does mission affect the way Salvation Army Corps function?

I see mission as the continuation of Jesus’ ministry by Jesus’ followers. Jesus announced the arrival of God’s Kingdom both by his words and his compassionate deeds. True Christian mission is also holistic, bringing together evangelism and acts of service. God’s mission should be the highest priority of God’s church. The word mission comes from the Latin missio, ‘to send’. Mission can certainly be seen throughout the Bible as God reveals his heart for mission. However, defining Christian mission takes time because the word mission doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. Michael Raiter explains that the two words meaning ‘to send’ in the New Testament are pempein and apostellein. Raiter asserts that these words “refer to the ministry of verbal proclamation of the gospel to the end that mature churches are planted and established.”^[1]

I disagree with this view that mission is limited to the ‘verbal proclamation of the gospel’. I believe our understanding of mission should be a holistic one that includes both word and deed. Samuel Escobar points out that the mission of Jesus and the first church were certainly holistic. The Grand Rapids Report of the Lausanne movement states, “As good news of love in Christ, the gospel demands both to be preached and to be lived.”^[2}

Catherine Booth reminds us that our mission to share the gospel is of utmost importance:

Are there not teeming thousands round about you who never heard His name, and who care nothing for Him, who live every day trampling His law under their feet? For Christ's sake, send somebody after them.^[3]   

Mission should be the “dominant and controlling passion of the Church”^[4] declares Commissioner Phil Needham. “The Church exists primarily for the sake of its mission in the world.”^[5] If this is true then corps need to intentionally focus on mission. All resources and every aspect of a Corps’ life should contribute to mission. Mission-driven Corps will invest considerable time and money in serving and saving the people of their community instead of just meeting the needs of people within the Corps.^[6] General William Booth defined a Salvation Army corps as “a Band of people united together to attack and Christianize an entire town or neighbourhood.”^[7] Since God still calls Salvationists (and all Christians) to mission, this should remain the priority of every corps. However the Army is now more insular and passive. Instead of being seen as the leader of a fighting force, General John Larsson notes that the corps officer is increasingly regarded as the shepherd of the sheep.

The one whose task it is to keep the sheep happy, to make them lie down in pastures green and lead them the quiet waters by. This picture of the church is unscriptural, un-Army and impossible if growth is the aim.^[8]

Corps that are intentional about mission train their soldiers and converts and mobilize them into mission. Small groups or mission teams are a useful way of doing this. One advantage of small groups is their adaptability. Small groups can take part in evangelism or service tasks that address the needs of a specific part of the community and use the gifts or interests of group members. Participants in such groups can also keep each other accountable and active in mission. I believe the most inspiring and effective training for mission is ‘hands on’ training where people observe and take part in mission.^[9]

Corps that make mission a top priority will be willing to change in order to better engage with their community and meet their needs. Commissioner Needham writes, “An inflexible and immobile Church is no Church at all; it is a religious relic.”^[10] Sadly The Salvation Army (at least in the western world) appears more like a cultural artefact than a world-changing force.^[11] In our fast changing society we need to rediscover the adaptability that characterised the early Army. As our co-founder Catherine Booth wrote, “Adapt your measures to your circumstances and to the necessities of the times in which you live.”^[12]

In the last four years a creative mission of The Salvation Army has developed in Reservoir. Reservoir is a northern suburb of Melbourne which is a lower socio-economic area identified as having high needs. Known as Shop 16, its activities include homework groups, social work in local schools, discipleship groups and weekly worship.^[13] Craig Campbell observes that;

Shop 16 has sought consistently to be responsive in the neighbourhoods, rather than imposing pre-formulated solutions based on imported perceptions of local concerns.^[14]

Shop 16 has developed programs to address needs identified by the local community instead of importing programs from a different environment. Shop 16 staff describe their mission as, “to create a belonging community that focuses on transforming lives through Jesus Christ.”^[15] These Salvationists certainly embrace incarnational mission as they share their life and faith while serving and journeying with the children and families of Reservoir. 

When corps practice incarnational mission they are following the example of Jesus by taking the good news to the people. The preaching and compassionate acts of Jesus extended far beyond the synagogues. Jesus ministered to people in the streets, at the lakeside, on hillsides, and at raucous parties.^[16] In my experience the aim of most corps is to attract people to programs at the corps building, especially Sunday meetings.^[17] Yet I believe this attractional attitude ought to be replaced with more incarnational approaches. Catherine Booth pointed out that intentionally engaging with the unchurched is essential to effective mission:

Christianity must come to them embodied in men and women, who are not ashamed to “eat with publicans and sinners”; they must see it looking through their eyes, and speaking in loving accents through their tongues, sympathising with their sorrows, bearing their burdens…^[18]

The early Salvation Army “passionately believed in, and practiced, incarnational mission.”^[19] Salvationists related to the poor and working class on their level. They went to the people, lived amongst them, spoke their language, sang their tunes and met their needs. Needham explains the Army has preserved its distinctive culture yet lost this incarnational approach.

As we began to substitute the celebration and preservation of our Salvationist culture for our engagement with people in the streets, we became less a mission and more a club… Even our social services became more building oriented: ‘You come to us, meet our conditions and we’ll help you. We don’t do the streets anymore.^[20]

The integration of evangelism and social action is vital to the Salvationist concept of mission. In Boundless Salvation John Cleary points out that for the early Salvation Army, salvation from poverty (Temporal Salvation) and spiritual transformation were both “critical to the full expression of the gospel.”^[21] Cleary argues that the Army needs to recover this integrated, comprehensive understanding of mission. William Booth said The Salvation Army is like a bird:

With one wing it preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. With the other wing it meets human needs in his name without discrimination. He said unless both wings are in operation, The Salvation Army bird will not fly^.[22] 

“Social work and corps work seem to be moving apart at a frightening rate,” notes Craig Campbell, “with social program growing rapidly” while corps are declining in size.^[23] Over the past decade The Australia Southern Territory has increased its social services by 300%! Yet the Territory’s number of Senior Soldier and corps attendance fell by 14% & 7% respectively between 1996 and 2001.^[24]

Tom Sine makes some suggestions that I feel are very relevant for The Salvation Army. Tom Sine warns the church has become apathetic towards people in need “outside its doors.”^[25] Sine suggests the church re-examine its “reliance on large-scale institutional or professional solutions to human needs.^”[26]

For years many of us have been able to get away with paying others - Pastors, social workers, urban youth workers - to do our caring for us.^[27]

Sine calls for the church to move its focus from institutional social services towards incarnational ministry through “a revolution of lay activism in the compassionate mission of Christ in the world”.^[28] Sine challenges lay Christians to “become integral members of communities of need – as an incarnational witness.”^[29]

Have we Salvationists ‘outsourced’ our mission of caring for people to large numbers of – mostly non-Christian – employees? General Shaw Clifton argued that in future, all Salvation Army employees working directly with the public should be saved. “If you are not saved, how can you properly function as a partner in mission from within an evangelical Christian denomination?”^[30] Servants Together asserts that Christian mission requires more than charitable giving.

We must put our hearts and souls into it, feeding the hunger of individuals for fellowship and compassion as well as meeting their physical needs.^[31]

In summary, Christian mission is sharing the good news of Jesus through words and deeds. Just as God sent Jesus, all followers of Jesus are sent to live out God’s mission in our world. Corps must to make mission their top priority if they are to be faithful to God and the reason God raised up The Salvation Army. Mission centred corps adapt their methods to suit their situation. Mission controlled corps should move from attractional to more incarnational approaches. Mission focussed corps take an integrated approach to mission. Corps could learn from the approach of Shop 16, which is a great example of innovative, incarnational and integrated Salvationist Mission.

Bibliography

Booth, C., Aggressive Christianity, The Salvation Army IHQ, London, 1891

Booth, Catherine, Practical Religion, The Salvation Army IHQ, London, 1890

Booth, William, Salvation Soldiery, The Salvation Army Triumph Press, Oakville, Canada, 1980 (First published 1889).

Booth, William, “What Shall We Do?” in Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 5, February-March 2000 (1st published in The War Cry, 6/1/1900).

Campbell, Craig, Emerging Images of Salvationist Mission: “For the Glory of God and the Benefit of Your Generation.” Melbourne College of Divinity Thesis, 2004

Camsey, Terry, Slightly Off Centre! Growth Principles to Thaw Frozen Paradigms, Crest Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 2000

Cleary, John, Boundless Salvation: An Historical Perspective on the Theology of Salvationist Mission, (6th Draft) Unpublished Document, 2001

Clifton, Shaw, Who are these Salvationists? Crest Books, Alexandria, 1999

Escobar, Samuel, A Time for Mission, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, 2003

Gibson, R.J. (Gen. Ed.), Ripe for Harvest: Christian Mission in the New Testament and in our World, Openbook Publishers, Adelaide, 1998

Gnanakan, Ken, Kingdom Concerns, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, 1993

Larsson, John, How Your Corps Can Grow: The Salvation Army and Church Growth, The Salvation Army International Headquarters, London, 1988

Larsson, John, “The State of the International Salvation Army’ speech at IHQ, 20/5/05, http://www1.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf/vw-dynamic-arrays/A89BD861C7B941AD802570120047ED0F?openDocument

Morgan, Gregory, “Great Aunt Sally?” in The Officer, March/April 2005

National Church Life Survey, NCLS Occasional Paper 3: 2001 Church Attendance Estimates, 2004, www.ncls.org.au

Needham, Philip, Community in Mission: A Salvationist Ecclesiology, Salvation Army Supplies, Atlanta, 1987

Needham, Philip, “Membership” in Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 35, (February-March 2005) www.armybarmy.org

Raiter, Michael, ‘‘Sent for this Purpose’: ‘Mission’ & ‘Missiology’ & their Search for Meaning’ in Ripe for Harvest, ed. R.J. Gibson, Openbook, Adelaide, 1998

Sine, Tom, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, Word Books, Waco, 1981

Stott, John, The Contemporary Christian, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, 1992

The Salvation Army, Annual Report for the year ending 2003/2004, The Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory, Mont Albert, 2005

The Salvation Army, Servants Together, The Salvation Army IHQ, London, 2002

The Salvation Army, Year Book, The Salvation Army IHQ, London, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004