I have just returned from Melbourne where I attended The Salvation Army Australian Southern Territory’s “event of the decade” Connections07. I must say it was very encouraging and challenging at the same time.
I feel I should share some thoughts and questions I have coming away from the conference (please don’t hear me having a go at anyone, or TSA, I am just someone who likes to ponder things).
1. The first thing that really stood out for me is that we are a very unique church. Consequently there are not many models we can adopt from other churches. So why do we try?
And also do we do ourselves an injustice when we try to build churches aimed at white middle class Australians? (I am not saying every Church in our organization does this and I don’t have anything against this particular demographic – I am one). Does all the church growth stuff that is bandied around fit with our movement?
2. The Salvation Army as a movement unapologetically calls it’s members to live radically in a world that needs God. So an obvious question is why do so few seem to do it?
3. One of the presenters I heard said “we have the resources we need within our organization to achieve our mission”. Comments on this?
4. I love what Commissioner Knaggs said about the people who are employees and volunteers (non-Salvationists) are part of TSA. We are all in it together. We all make up the Organization. My question on this is can this kind of thinking really become a reality because at the moment we seem far from it.
I don’t want this to be too long so I will stop there! I would love to hear some comments cause I think in conversation we hear from God.
God Bless
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4 comments:
In Response to point Number 2...
I think that so few people live up to the call of the SA because it is HARD WORK.
People don't want to get their hands dirty...they don't want to step out of their comfort zone.
I think that there are some realy interesting thoughts in this blog.
I think that often people are overwhelmed by the size of the task ahead of as an army. However, i think that people need to be encouraged to start small, to influence individual lives for Christ and to live differently from the world. I think that people are put off by the idea of trying to help all the homeless, when it may just be a matter of volunteering for a soup run or something like that.
I definitely agree with the point about resources. I truly believe that people have no excuse not to achieve if they just try something. Perhaps too often we complain about a lack of resources, when i think that if we truly believe and are passionate about something that those resources can be found.
I often wonder how much of this (serving people) I do for the glory of God and how much I do for myself.
Yeah great first up blog Darrell! I agree we do have the resources and we have a unique calling so lets just be Salvos the best we can & not go searching for a new model.
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