Crossing the line


Be prepared this might turn into a bit of a rant. I hope it won't be too long and that you will read it to the end.

I don't know about you but I grew up on stories of people who heard the gospel in an army open air meeting, knelt at the drum drunk and got up sober. I grew up in the Billy Graham era of mass rallies where people came forward or raised a hand to make a decision to commit to Christ.

There is nothing wrong with that but I kind of had it in my head that people who were not believers would have enough to go on to make a decision for Christ if the gospel was presented clearly enough just once or twice. Everyone was in my eyes just one step away from the kingdom.

These days of course I have learned all about the Engel scale, which recognises that there is often a process that happens to most people before they commit their lives to Christ and receive salvation. In the west at least we have become a more secular society and people have many more hurdles to jump to get to the place where they are even asking how they can be put right with God. Mark Mittelberg in his book Building a Contagious Church talks about secular men and women who "don't hear one good sermon, read one solid Christian book, have one spiritual conversation or go to one knock out seeker event and then decide on the spot to repent of their sins or turn their lives to God." I was helped also by reading The Successful Soul Winner by Finney and realised I had made the mistake that he points out in it.
"Revivals are often injured by treating awakened sinners as though convicted and saying , repent, submit when they are not yet convinced of their guilt and don't know what real submission means."

I believe that this teaching about the process leading to salvation has been and continues to be a very important thing in recognising what kind of approach is the best one in reaching a lot of the people we are trying to win for the Kingdom. Of course God works sovereignly but it is wise to learn from our dealings with people. I also think it was a breakthrough when we started to think about letting people positively experience Chrstian community before they sorted out their belief system and modified their behaviour. Expecting people to change before they are allowed our door is a barrier that still has to come down in many places.

But, there always has to be a but doesn't there? I have a worry about all this. I am beginning to hear in evangelical circles that we need to get away from the put your hand up or tick a box kind of decision making element in our evangelism.
I agree that sometimes that has been done very badly and with maniuplation.
But when I also hear things like, "Who are we to say when person becomes a Christian? Is is not too simplistic to say that there is an invisible line that people cross over and one day they are not a Christian and the next moment they are? I heard a well known evangelical say not long ago that Jesus only spoke about being born again once but called people to follow him many times and that we are too obsessed with the being born again thing. I have heard it said that we have made becoming a Christian too much of a religous ABC formula whilst God is not interested in our religion only our relationship with him.

There are elements of truth in all of that stuff but I have really loud alarm bells ringing in my head. I recognise that there is a process involved before we become a Christian butI firmly believe that there are decisions to make, a submission to give and an experience to claim. I still believe in conversion despite the fact that I can't remember a time in my life when Jesus wasn't a reality to me and my going to the mercy seat on a decision Sunday was probably the outward confession of something already done in my heart.
Are we not either dead in our sins or alive to Christ? Are we not either lost or found, blind or seeing? Are we not God's enemies or his friends, aliens and strangers or adopted sons or daughters?

We have had the crisis/process debate about holiness for years with the process proponents mostly holding sway. All I can say is I didn't grow into any blessing. I was challenged, repented, submitted, committed and received freedom and power that I had never experienced before and still continue to know.

Now it seems that we are having a similar debate about salvation which alarming.

Did the squeezing out of the Brengle style claiming of the blessing of holiness to make way for the Coutts style growth in holiness leave us open to thinking that we can grow into salvation too?

I don't know but we need "all on the altar" believers and I can't help thinking that this is another ploy of the enemy to have a church full of floating voters.

Authorship of "I am a soldier"

Thanks to Andrew Bale for finding "I am a soldier" on the web. The authors are Ralph and Wilma Porter.

I am a soldier

I found this on the internet sometime ago whilst doing some research.It continues to challenge me and in God's strength can be a reality.Unfortuntately I do not remember the web site or who wrote it. If anyone knows its source please do let me know.


I am a soldier in the army of my God. The Lord Jesus Christ is my commanding officer. The Holy Bible is my code of conduct. Faith, prayer and the word are my weapons of warfare. I have been taught by the Holy Spirit, trained by experience, tried by adversity and tested by fire. I am a volunteer in this army but I am enlisted for eternity.

I will either retire in this army at the end of time or die in it but I will not get out, sell out, be talked out or pushed out. I am faithful, reliable, capable and dependable. If God needs me I am there. If he needs me to teach a class, to teach my neighbour, to help someone in need or just to sit and learn he can use me because I am there. I am a soldier. I am not a baby. I do not need to be pampered, petted, primed up, pumped up, picked up or pepped up.

I am committe. I cannot have my feelings hurt badly enough to turn me around.I cannot be discouraged enough to turn aside. I cannot lost enough to cause me to quit. When Jesus called me into this army I had nothing materially. If I end up with nothing I will still come out ahead. I will win spiritually. My God has supplied my needs and will continue to supply all of my needs.

I am more than a conqueror. I will always triump. I can do all things through Christ. Devils cannot defeat me. People cannot disillusion me. Weather cannot weary me. Sickness cannot stop me. Battles cannot beat me. MOney cannot buy me. Governments cannot silence me and hell cannot handle me becasue I'm safe in my Saviour.

I am a soldier. Even death cannot destroy me. For when my commander calls me from this battlefield. He will promote me and then allow me to rule with him. I am a soldier in the army and I'm marching , claiming victory. I will not give up. I will not turn around. I am a soldier and I am heaven bound and here I stand!

Carol Young

Leadership

We've been to a North Yorks team meeting this morning. It is always good to share vision, hopes and dreams, pray and support one another through the joys and pain of leadership.

The subject of what kind of leaders we should be came up today in our discussions. It is a subject that seems to keep coming up at the moment.

A couple of quotes that came our way recently I thought were insightful and challenging.

"Success is not about what we achieve, it's about what we reproduce. Success without successors is not true success." (Ness Wilson Cell UK Magazine)

Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by a passion, generated by a vision , produced by a conviction , ignited by a purpose.

(Author unknown -passed on to us by Dylan Nieuwoudt)

From the prayer room


I had allocated some time to spend in prayer at our Resource Centre today and I must admit the first hour sped by but I just didn't feel I was hearing God say anything. It was tempting to give up but I've learned that it is important to push through those feelings.

Gradually I realised that a phrase from Roy Hessions book We would see Jesus that I had read earlier was the key to what God wanted to show me.
"Revival in it's essence is nothing more than finding Jesus again."

Some friends and I have been discussing of late how repentance is such a key component of revival. What has been bothering me is how we get to that place. We can preach sermons to make people feel guilty and try to push people into it or we can present repentance as a button to press in order for God to deliver revival results. Neither of these seem very satisfactory to me and we would probably have to repent ourselves of being manipulative.

It hit me today that we are starting in the wrong place and it is all so simple really. We need to see Jesus. It was seeing that led Isaiah to repentance and Peter to declare, "Depart from me for I am a sinful man."

As I prayed along these lines I was led to Revelation 19:11-16 which gives the picture of Jesus as a rider on a white horse. In the passage he is called Faithful and True and also the Word of God. The armies of heaven are following him.

You know I think that we are an army that truly loves Jesus because of what he has done on the cross for us but sometimes I think that the image of him by our side is more familiar to us than that of our leader whom we follow into battle.
He is our friend but not our General. He is our helper but not our stratgist.

Sometimes because the battlefields he asks us to fight in are often in remote and unimportant places in the world's eyes we let him go to battle in those places alone. We on the other hand get very excited if we slay a few demons that are probably nothing more than decoys to keep us from the real fight.
Why will we not follow the Saviour on the white horse whose name is the Word(or Widsom)of God?

I was quite shocked by this thought but I sometimes wonder if the problem is that we are tender towards Jesus, sentimental about Jesus, maybe even a little in love with Jesus but we don't respect him.

My prayer is Open our eyes Lord we want to see Jesus!

Silence

Those people who know me well know that I usually have something to say about most things. But there are times when I am before God that I just have to shut up.
There are times when I am too tired, too ashamed and too awestruck for words

I sit in the silence of weariness
Watching for your touch to comfort me
Listening to your Spirit praying for me

I kneel in the silence of shame
Watching you crush the excuses in me
Listening to your Spirit challenging me

I stand in the silence of wonder
Watching for you Spirit to work in me
Listening to you Spirit speaking to me


God Bless

Carol

No milk, you learn something new every day, a good question, good timing and the mystery of suffering

The afternoon did not get off to a good start on Wednesday as I arrived in the Prison Chapel, knowing that I was holding the fort, finding that the milk had gone off and I still could not get on to the computer.

I admit to thinking that it was going to be one of those days you would put down to experience and be best forgotten but God had different ideas. I managed to see all the new prisoners fairly swiftly, visited the segregation unit where the participants in a recent fight proudly showed me their injuries and I called into health care to chat to the nurses.

This left me free to do some visitng. First on my list was Martin where I received a lesson in how to keep milk in a carton fresh without a fridge. All I'm saying is that it involved taking threads from a towel, stuffing loo roll in a plug hole and cold water! We went back to the chapel for a chat and a prayer. Martin is full of questions about God, who he believes is real but at the moment he can't get his head around Jesus being more than a man. But the problem with Martin is he always asks the real question on his mind just as you are locking him back up. "There's just one more thing miss, What does God want us to do with our lives?" Now there's a good question, which I had all of two minutes to answer but what a fantastic opportunity.

My next port of call was to a lad who regularly self harms but who has been trying really hard not to. Today God's timing was perfect, as I walked into his cell seconds before he was about to give into tempation. We went for a black coffee and a really good talk. I wanted to hug him but it's not allowed.

And finally patiently waiting for me to call was a lad who the day before had recieved the news that his 24 year old brother had died in hospital. We talked and prayed together but I'm not sure the reality of what has happened has really sunk in. And when it does the sense of what has happened may take even longer to work out.
All I know is when a Prison Officer said to me the other day he didn't know why I bothered coming into such a godless place he was wrong. It is far from godless. In fact sometimes I see his power and presence at work more there than in many a meeting held in his name.

Too hard?

I hope it is not too much of a cop out to use what you preached about in the morning to put on your blog in the afternoon but my excuse is that my own sermon spoke to me.

Deuteronomy 30:11.
"Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach."

At our kids club, when I have shown them a craft that I want them to make a child will sometimes say, "It's too hard, I can't do it."
I known it's not too hard because I have made the craft dozens of times before with other 6 year olds. I know that they are capable of making the craft but they will say it's too hard for a number of reasons. Some make up their minds they can't do it before they know what I'am actually asking, some say it's too hard because it will involve effort. Some will say it's too hard because they never think they can do anything and some will say its too hard because they've seen the biscuits in the box and they want to by pass this activity to get to them!

The problem is not that the task is too hard but there is maybe a lack of knowledge, lack of faith, an unwillingness to try or simply other things distract.

How often have I heard the words, "It's too hard." Sometimes I have heard it from people on the edge of Christian committment. "It's all too hard to understand." "I'm not good enough." "I'm too busy." "I'm alright as I am."

Sometimes I have heard it from Christians in terms of holy living. It's too hard, they say they are too ignortant of theology, too ordinary to be a saint. They believe they are too scarred and damaged to fulfill Jesus'commands or that their circumstances are too difficult and their is time too limited.

Sometimes I have heard it in the Church and the Army in terms of mission. It's too hard. The world is different than it was in the New Testament, in the early days of our movement. Life is more secularised, more complicated, more apathetic, laws are stricter, people are more easily offended, our numbers are too small and our lives more pressured.

There is no denying it that Christian living is hard but it's not too hard. It is possible, not because we have any ability of our own but becasue we have a God, with whom all things are possible and he has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3)

1 John 5:3 "This is love for God; to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome for everyone born of God overcomes the world."

All things are possible to him
That can in Jesus' name believe:
Lord, I no more thy truth blaspheme,
Thy truth I lovingly receive;
I can, I do believe in thee
All things are possible to me.

Why Rehoboth and Old Wells?

Northallerton Salvation Army, where we are stationed was re-established in 2000 after a closure of a previous work many years before.

The call to return to the town was confirmed through the story, in Genesis 26 of Isaac going back to re-open the wells that his father had dug but which, through time had been filled in. He did this so that his people could have access to a fresh water supply.

As there had once been a Salvation Army presence in the town that had been a source of spiritual life to the town but which now had been closed for many years we felt this story was a call to re-open the wells of salvation in Northallerton.

Our vision is to provide an accessible source of Christian faith, hope and love to people of all ages.

We endeavour to
Witness to our Christian faith
Encourage everyone to become disciples of Jesus
Love God and grow in our relationship with him
Live in authentic community with one another
Serve our neighbours with sacrificial live

We also felt that Genesis 26:22 was a particular promise for us. "He named the well Rehoboth, saying, "Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land."

I cannot say that establishing the work here has been easy. In fact like Isaac we have had to move from place to place and have had to overcome contention at times in order to eventually open Rehoboth.

Our joy is now that we are seeing our vision become a reality and we are beginning to flourish in the land.

Thank the Lord for his faithfulness!

Help! Who am I?


In the past two weeks I have had the privilege of spending time with my closest friends. I have met some of them at the UK Territory Planters retreat, others at the SA Cell Conference, spent time in prayer with Primitive Salvationists and been to Divisional Officers Retreat meeting friends from traditional programme corps social services, Prison ministries and Red Shield Services.

So am I an emergent, a primitive, a pentecostal, a traditionalist or something else?
Well I'm blowed if I know so here are some of the things that I do, some of the things I think and some of the things I like and dislike.



I believe that God has called us to be an army and that an army needs soldiers.

I am part of a team of Salvationists who are planting new expressions of the Salvation Army in places where there has been no SA work before or the original work died out.

I think that going for souls and going for the worst is still our mission

I am a leader of a SA plant that is multiplying through Cell church methods, I am part of the SA Cell Coalition.

I visit, minister and evangelise to prisoners every week

I find worship based around performers and an audience difficult to cope with.

I love contemporary styles of worship but some of my favourite songs are in the SASB

I have been slain in the Spirit and I speak in tongues.

I hate the Salvation Army club mentality that I sometimes meet.

I am convinced that holiness is possible and essential.

I dread being stuck with ineffective programmes that don't work

I think that we need to understand the post modern culture in which we live.

I think we need to be very careful about our use of jargon but we cannot stop using military terms until the war is over.

I recognise that sometimes there is a need to make a strategic withdrawel in some areas and to open a more effective work elsewhere.

I wear Salvation Army uniform of some kind the majoirty of the time.

I agree with those who say change is urgently needed and that maintainance leadership has to go.

I am comfortable with the use of prophecy and special revelations.

I believe that as a SA we need to engage in corporate repentance and pray for revival.

There's probably more stuff but it's late and I can't think of any more at this time of night.

I don't really care what lable I wear except that I am a little worried that people are grouping off a bit, being a bit dismissive of one another and making assumptions about each other. What I have found is that when there has been a networking together there have been some differences of opinion but overall we have found the same love for Christ, a desire for the Army to fulfill it's God-given purpose, and the same passion for the lost.

Anyway on that note Carol Young, whatever she is, is going to bed.

Good night and God bless.

Repentance -Good news?

Say the word repent and for many people the immediate image that comes to mind is the guy parading up and down the High Street wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the end is near!

There can also be an assumption that the main reason a preacher or an enthusiastic Christian praying for revival keeps urging everyone to repent is because they want everyone to feel guilty, stop having fun and get really serious!

These days if we had the money, the time and the inclination we could go on a Christian conference every week. There are hundreds to choose from and you can find out how to be successful in almost anything and still call yourself a Christian. Repentance doesn't get a very big billing, if it is there at all.

This is a great pity because Jesus actuallyt talked about good news and repentance in the same breath.
"The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Whilst at Divisional Councils I had some time to re-read a book by M Basilea Schlink, the founder of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Germany called Repentance, the Joy Filled Life" In it she has this wonderful sentence.

"Repentance is an interstate highway to the Father's heart and his love and forgiveness."

If I can reach the Father's heart then it is a road I want to travel on. I am not very good at directions and my husband and I, for reasons of marital harmony have reached an agreement that if we are going on a journey he goes on the internet and downloads multi-map rather than rely upon my navigational skills.

Spiritually I find the same problem. I don't find my way to repentance very easily. I need someone to take me there and keep me on that road until I reach the destination of the Father's heart.
Thankfully the Holy Spirit, "the One who comes alongside" promises to lead us in all truth. I ever need to be open to his leading and admit I need his help.

M Basilea Schlink goes on to say:
"Those who repent are truly alive for after weeping over their sins, they break our in a rejoicing and singing that is unknown to other hearts. The joy of forgiveness. No other joy can compare in depth and height!
The joy of redemption that far surpasses other happiness."

God bless


Carol

Cracking quotes from Bill Beckham in Redefining Revival

"Religions shut the door to witness. Governments close the door to the church. Cultures lock the door to evangelism. Satan slams the door to the Gospel. But these are the words of him who is holy and true who has the key of David. What he opens no-one can shut and what he shuts no-one can open." (Rev 3:7)

"A church that will impact the twenty first century world must have a small group unit that is simple, self-contained and easily reproduced. The unit must generate fierce loyalty to its lifestyle and must be sustainable during both persecution and prosperity. This basic unit must be able to pass on values, mobilize all members for ministry and produce necessary leaders. It must have the nurturing atmosphere of a family and the committment and accountability of a squad of soldiers. It must be able to live out holiness and reach out to the world in harvest."

True mission

There has been a bit of a debate on the Urban Army blog about the nature of mission and how we communicate the gospel.

My little contribution can be read in the comments but in essence I believe that true mission involves explaining the gospel clearly, modelling kingdom values in community and being used by the Holy Spirit to demonstrate the Kingdom through works of power.

How does this work out in the everyday?
We run a Kids club in an infant school. It is an up front faith based club, which parents can choose to send their kids to. They go home with a Kid's Alive magazine every week. We offered this to the school declaring that we would talk a lot about Jesus.

In the same school I help to run a parents and carers group in partnership with the Family Liaison Officer who is employed by local schools. This is not a faith based group. It offers time out, friendship and discussions on parenting issues. If I am asked my views I give them from a Christian perspective or my own testimony. It's a 1 Peter 3:15 things,"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." The funny thing is that the more I pray for my friends there the more opportunities there seem to be to share faith stuff. Am I looking at them as potential citizens of the Kingdom of God? Of course I am. And I am praying for the Holy Spirit to guide me in helping them discover the way in.

Through word of mouth I sometimes get people referred to me for help when counselling hasn't worked and I work on the chaplaincy team at the local prison where I meet young offenders with a myhriad of problems.
Here I am very up front. From the outset I will say I have nothing to offer them except Jesus Christ and the bibical way of doing things. And whether it's been a young prisoner at the YOI or a young mother in distress I have found that sometimes it has been a case of doing what the disciples did on mission. They preached the kingdom of God, drove out demons and healed the sick.

In all these different approaches to mission there must be that agape kind of love. When we are channels of that kind of love I believe people receive something more than humanitarian care and something happens in the spiritual realm. We start to connect with what the Holy Spirit is already doing in a community or in an individual.

Yesterday my husband Alan was driving through our estate to go to our office in town he noticed someone running. Something told him to stop, wait for them to catch up with the car and ask them if they wanted a lift. He had no idea who the guy was and these days it is not always wise to give strangers a lift. As it happened the guy was late for his train and he gratefully accepted the offer, although he was totally surprised by it. I don't know who was more surprised however when Alan introduced himself as local SA officer and the guy replied that his grandad had been an officer and his dad used to be a Salvationist. Methinks God might be up to someting!

God bless

Carol

At the end of the day

I feel a bit like the Ronnie Barker character on Open All Hours. At the very end of the programme he starts to close up the shop and reflects upon what kind of day it has been.

Well for me it's been a mixture of the mundane,chewing over stuff and front line battle. Before I got up I read a bit about the disagreement between Railton and Booth, just so I know what I'm talking about in a debate with Andrew Bale!

I mused over my muesli (sorry that sounds silly) about the whole issue of defining when a person becomes a Christian. There is quite rightly a recognition that people go through a process towards acceptance of salvation but I am concerned that we are losing the idea that there is a decision to be made, a definite experience to claim. We've already seemed to have lost that idea in terms of holiness. Are we going the same way with salvation? I've got to crystalise my thoughts on the subject.

Then I sorted out piles of washing and did some housework. Not inspiring but necessary. However by the pathway of duty flows the river of God's grace! There is an article in the Salvationist this week about that song which I didn't entirely agree with. I need to read it again.

I spent some time in prayer and in John 7, which is my Bible Reading at the moment. I read this comment on the passage in an old Soldiers Armoury

"It is the business of the Christian to present Christ to the world and to make it plain that he has a rightful claim upon men's lives. No amount of "do gooding" should be allowed to be a substitute for this."

Amen to that!

Later it was a Lent Lunch held in the URC to raise money for Christian Aid. Great soup but I also had a conversation about an unpopular guy in our town who is notorious for his manipulative behaviour to get money and who has a multitude of problems. There is a sense of helplessness in the churches about what we should do to help him.
Whatever is decided Alan is convicted that he must take hold of Booth's creed of "going for souls and going for the worst" and actively engage in trying to win him for Christ.


This afternoon I did a stint in the prison, where it seemed everything conspired against us being able to perform our ministry. The enemy is prowling about like a lion ready to pounce. Nevertheless we managed to get some evangelical literature into the hands of a lad who is really seeking, did our statutory duties and ran a group for lads who for one reason or another are stressed out. God is good and we shall win!

Tonight was cell group (and I had better be careful what I say as the cell group members have confessed that they have been reading my blog!) It was a good night and we indentified the people whom we want to reach for the Kingdom and bring into our
Corps. Then we prayed for them and committed ourselves to pray for them and the cell group daily.

Not a bad way to end the day at all.

Good night

Carol

Paranoia or passion for the Kingdom

After having been at the excellent SA Cell Conference at Nottingham Arnold Corps last week I was inspired to pick up Bill Beckham's book, "Redefining Revival" again.

Listening on the one hand to the pessimism of some about the state of the world and the church and the bury your head in the sand, let's pretend everything will be alright on the night crowd on the other it is easy to lose a true perspective.

This is what Bill Beckham says:

A portion of the church believes a final apocalyptic solution is the only hope for the church of the 21st century. This worldview is driven by apocalyptic paranoia that manifests itself in pessimism.

The population numbers alarm them. The evil they see in the world overwhelms them. Technological advances worry them. Future scientific discoveries threaten them. The possibility of persecution frightens them. The weakness of the church discourages them. They seek solutions outside of the church in politics, the mass media and apocalyptic predictions. They feel that God will remove the church from an impossible, dangerous and potentially embarrassing situation for the church.

I also believe in the final solution to history will be apocalyptic when Christ returns in triumph. However, Christians have often made mistaks in interpeting history because of an unhealthy fixation on dates, a narrow view of the world and pessimism about the church. An obsession with evil rather than a passion about Christ's mission in the world always distorts the historical perspective of the church. Therefore a theology of escape from the world replaces Christ's theology of Kingdom mission in the world."

Demonstrating sacrificial love in real life

In 1990 we were appointed to Shipley Corps in West Yorkshire. I was quite ill at the time and ended up having to go into hospital for a month, leaving my husband having to cope with a new appointment, visit me in hospital in another town and having to find child care for our two children, the youngest of whom was only two. Two corps folk, Margaret and Myra came to the rescue and brought us into their world.

They lived then in a ground floor council flat on a Bradford Housing Estate. Originally they had been neighbours. Margaret had been in a very depressed state and Myra invited her to the Army at Shipley. Margaret met Jesus there and her life was transformed. Eventually they decided to share accommodation in order to save money and to be company for one another. Margaret having had four children had the larger flat and Myra moved in with her.

By the time we met them the spare bedroom had become the Sunday Room, in which they squeezed about 20 children every week for Sunday School. Knowing that many of the families on the estate were not very well off, they collected clothing and held regular jumble sales on the wall outside the Post Office. This service did not stop there as during the week the Sunday room was a clothing store to which people came when they were in need. All the clothes had to be moved to various places in the flat when the Sunday School was on.

Then discovering just how lonely some of the women were on the estate they started a Home League in the living room. 15 women and the dog met every Friday for their meeting and timbrel practice. When the DC came he had to sit on the floor!

This was but the tip of the ice berg really. There are no records of the numbers of people who knocked on their door for help. From the mother, who arrived beside herself with panic because social services had arrested her husband for child abuse and taken her children into care, to the lad whose dad had beaten him up and he couldn't go home, to the man who wanted them to come quickly and pray over his dog who had that minute got knocked over by a car!

I haven't begun to tell you about the sales of Parkin pigs and monce pies to raise money for the kids to go on outings and for the Christmas parties. I haven't told you how they were a magnet for the corps youth, who could turn up any time for a bacon sandwich and a drink of cherryade. After we left they both began work in the local post office, which put them in touch with even more people in the community.

The first time I travelled up to the estate on the bus I got off at the wrong stop. I was in uniform and must have looked a bit lost but I needn't have worried. I didn't even have to ask for directions before someone said, "Going to Margaret and Myra's are you? It's just up there." To the people of Thorpe Edge Margaret and Myra were the Salvation Army.

These days the flats have been pulled down and they have moved to a new flat in Shipley. Ill health and advancing years mean that they no longer able to care
on quite the scale they did, except that they still have a timbrel group in the front room, have attracted the children living upstairs to Sunday School, child mind the children of the bandmaster, remain a meeting place for the the corps youth group and have the student daughter of officers serving overseas living with them at the moment.

All this is done as if this is the most normal thing in the world. There is no social work theory behind all this or even any great thought- through theology.

There is just overflowing love. They are my kind of Salvationists.

God bless

Carol

I was also challenged by the following which I found on a sermon site.
Nine things God won't ask on the day we meet him face to face

1. God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask you how many people you drove who didn't have transportation.

2. God won't ask the square footage of your house, He'll ask you how many people you welcomed into your home.

3. God won't ask about the clothes you had in your wardrobe, He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4. God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

5. God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

6. God won't ask in what neighbourhood you lived, He'll ask how you treated your neighbours.

7. God won't ask about the colour of your skin, He'll ask about the content of your character.

8. God won't ask how many friends you had, He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

9. God won't ask why it took you so long to seek salvation, he'll lovingly take you to his mansion in heaven and not to the gates of hell.

We demonstrate the sacrificial love of Christ

This is the 6th Value of the SA Cell based church and with it come the following non-negotiables.

- discipleship is also servant-hood
- love is expressed in action
- we must act justly and fight injustice
- we minister to the whole person

I know that all the above is true but it is much easier to discuss than to do.
I also think that as Salvationists we experience some dangers taht some other Christians don't. Whilst a lot of people in the world have long ceased expecting the church to meet need, they still expect the Salvation Army to do so and assume that we do. Very often that assumption is correct. However there is a danger that the recognition of our sevant-hood can lead to pride; we have to be careful that we do not become judegmental of others and that we don't veer towards a social gospel.

However I have another concern as well. More and more we are payng people to care in the name of the Salvation Army. We swell with pride when the army is on TV and is being praised for its good work but how much does the average, individual Salvationist get involved in the social action?

If someone needs a bed for the night we usually ring the hostel, if a family needs food we go down to the hall to the food store, if an addict is rattling we desperately seek a programme to get them on to. None of that is inherently wrong and often it is the most appropriate action is specialist help from our social services but I have a niggling feeling that we too easily pass people on.

If we are really being honest most individual Salvationists, including me are not any more involved in meeting the needs of the marginalised than any other church goer.

'Where there's need, there's the Salvation Army' but where are the Salvationists?

Sorry that was all a bit of a rant and I really don't want be a moan pot. So tomorrow I think I will do a blog about Salvationists I know who do live by this value.

God bless

Carol