On Fire magazine
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Cover story: Saved to Serve
The opportunities for service within the Army are as many and varied as its people.
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Feature: Something rotten in the state of ministry
Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown reckons lay ministry should be laid to rest.
Cover story: Saved to Serve
What is an army without its people?
Volunteers
When the working day is done, most people head home to spend time with the family and put their feet up for some well-earned rest. After serving our time in the workforce, retirement awaits—time to indulge in the leisures and pursuits work made impossible.
So, why do so many of us choose to volunteer? A recent ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Services) report on the not-for-profit sector states that 4.6 million Australians volunteer—a wage equivalent of $15 billion per annum.
Based on these figures, the efforts of volunteers across the territory would equate to wages of about $32.6 million.
Serving others—rather than working for personal gain—is one way we put our faith into action. From full-time officers to volunteers offering a few spare hours at a corps, there are numerous opportunities for service within The Salvation Army. What is an army without its people?
Community Care Gap Year: Taking time out for others
Community Care ministries offer a gap year program aimed at young people who have completed years 11 or 12, but who aren’t sure about what work, study or ministry options they are suitable for. The program is also open to adults testing their aptitude for work in this area of ministry.
It’s currently a no-study option, requiring only that participants commit to eight hours per week of practical ministry and training, including mentoring and supervision.
Each participant is linked with a corps (possibly their home corps) where they undertake community care ministry. It could be outreach, kids’ ministry, homework club, meals programs, hospital or nursing home visitation, cross cultural ministry, disability ministries or any number of other activities. A gap year mentor discusses the participant’s discoveries in relation to ministry, personal development and their journey with God.
More information: Major Jennifer Cloke (03) 8872 6411, jennifer.cloke@aus.salvationarmy.org
Order 614: ministry on the fringes
‘They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations’ (Isaiah 61:4).
Order 614 is described as ‘a group of passionate Christians who, for one year, agree to live and work together to connect and journey with the forgotten people in the city of Melbourne’.
That year will be a challenging time, getting involved with people on the edges of society, people who are broken and hurting—the homeless, mentally ill, prostitutes, transsexuals, abandoned children and refugees.
Participants will be stretched, overwhelmed and exhausted while Jesus works through them to change lives.
At the end of the year, participants receive a Certificate IV in Christian Ministry (urban mission), at the completion of practical experience and classroom time.
More information: (03) 9653 3213, http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/order614
Corps volunteers: lending a hand
Being asked to volunteer at a corps is typically a Salvo’s first opportunity for organised service within the Army.
Few corps would survive without the effort freely offered by corps and community members.
The tasks can be small, such as like taking up the offering, tidying up after the service or cooking a sausage sizzle. It may be joining the thrift shop roster, welcoming people at the door or operating multimedia. Volunteers are asked to serve in the area of their gifting, including leading worship or undertaking administrative tasks.
The role of corps officers is to lead and empower, not to do everything themselves—that is simply impossible. To get involved, talk to your corps officer.
Volunteer registry: signing up to help
There are about 10,000 volunteers assisting the Army’s work across the territory, and many more are signing up to pitch in, meaning there is huge potential for new partnerships to form.
Volunteers sign up on the registry, providing information about their qualifications, experience and areas of interest. Not only does this allow people to be linked in where they will find the work particularly rewarding, but also means volunteers with specialised skills can be placed where their expertise can be most beneficial.
One area where the system is being particularly effective is ‘corporate volunteering’. Groups of a few employees to a few hundred undertake community work, often with the Army. Currently, a number of groups are assisting with Victorian bushfire recovery work, landscaping, clearing land, fencing and clearing up.
More information: www.salvationarmy.org.au/volunteer
Overseas service: a whole world of possibilities
For those who feel a calling to international service, there are several options for helping out abroad.
Officers can apply for an overseas appointment and short and long-term mission trips are very helpful, particularly in developing nations. There are also opportunities for skilled workers (such as accountants, medical staff, teachers and tradespeople) and specialised ministry positions (for people with linguistic skills or church planting experience, for example). Commitments range from a few months to several years.
More information: Talk to your corps officer about current opportunities.
Salvos Stores: taking care of business
From sorting donations to operating the register, volunteers are essential to the day-to-day operation of every Salvo Stores.
Working in a Salvos Stores also means meeting members of the public who might be open for a chat and forming relationships with other staff and volunteers. Volunteers may also need to keep an eye out for those who could benefit from referral to other Salvation Army services.
Skills and work experience gained at a Salvo Stores can also be valuable additions your resume.
More information: drop into your local Salvos Stores or visit www.salvationarmy.org.au/salvosstores
Social Internship Programme: putting study into practice
Recognising your desire to help, the Army’s social programme wants to help you help others, and in doing so, help the Army. Get it? It’s the social programme internship program (SIP).
On offer to any Salvos (soldiers, adherents and ‘committed Christians actively participating in the life of the corps’) undertaking a social work/human services degree/post-graduate/diploma course, the SIP gives students a taste of the practical side of their studies.
Interns actively participate in at least three Salvation Army programs, gaining skills and experiences which, combined with their education, greatly improve their aptitude for work in the social services field.
More information: Contact your divisional social programme secretary.
Joining the work full time
Officership: Join the ranks
Signing up for officership is a big commitment. Officers aren’t employees, but rather in a covenanted relationship with God serving within the Army.
A large number of officers serve in corps, but there are also extensive opportunities within social programs, overseas, specialising in youth, children’s or women’s ministries, working at divisional or territorial headquarters, chaplaincy, the flying padre and many other appointments.
Envoys have chosen to serve God in The Salvation Army, not as officers, but by performing functional roles traditionally undertaken by officers.
Officership is 24/7/365, doing whatever it takes. It is also about being available according to the passion, gifting and calling God has placed upon an individual.
Talking about calling, Major Marney Turner mentions Isaiah, a person who never received an explicit ‘call’ to ministry, but answered when God asked ‘whom shall I send?’.
The decision to accept a candidate for officer training is made by the Territorial Candidates Board after a comprehensive application process.
If not you; who? If not now; when?
More information: talk to your corps officer or contact territorial candidates secretaries Majors Len and Marney Turner: (03) 8878 4518, www.salvationarmy.org.au/explorethecalling
Employees: doing God’s work at work
High-flying corporate types and specially trained staff are in great demand in any organisation, and The Salvation Army is no different. The help of skilled employees who choose to work for the Army greatly boosts our capacity to reach society with corps and social services.
For many employees, the opportunity to work in the non-profit sector represents a welcome shift from commercial, money-making organisations to a focus on society itself. People, not profits, are the Salvation Army’s bottom line.
Rob Stevens, SAMIS co-ordinator—‘It’s great being able to marry mission as a Salvo with my career.’
Patricia Tan, corporate accountant—‘There is a community-minded approach to everything we do, and a lot of organisations don’t have that. It’s a good company to work with. You do things for God!
Brenda Hill, income accountant—‘I like the work we do, and I like to feel like I can contribute to that, even if it is just office work.’
Compiled by Linda Hogan and Ryan O'Connell
Top of page
Something Rotten in the State of Ministry
Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown asks if there is such thing as a lay Salvationist.
‘The most significant change in the order of the church during its first centuries was not the creation of leaders, but rather the creation of the laity,’ writes William Willimon. I agree. And it was not a change that has benefitted the people of God—the expressions ‘ordained’ and ‘lay’ ministry should never be heard in our movement.
There are some who will disagree.
People I know and respect as Salvation Army officers see themselves as ordained clergy, somehow different to ‘lay’ soldiers. However, the notion that an officer’s commissioning produces some change in their being is not one I share.
This is not a merely an issue of academic opinion; being unified on this issue is vital to our effective mission, maybe even our future. There is ‘something rotten in the state of ministry’ in The Salvation Army. The distinction of ‘ordained’ and ‘lay’ is the symptom, and we need to cure it. Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of the 20th Century called the term ‘laity’ ‘one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from Christian conversation.” I’m with Karl.
Why is that so? New Zealander Major Harold Hill has written the book on leadership in The Salvation Army. It is called, unsurprisingly, Leadership in the Salvation Army. The sting, however, is in the subtitle: ‘A case study in clericalisation’.
For, as pastor and theology professor Paul Steven points out, ‘Clericalism is the domination of the “ordinary” people by those ordained, trained and invested with privilege and power’.
Hill’s book is essentially the story of how a movement of signed-up, full-on missioners became a church and its officers—originally the ministers to the ministers—became clergy.
Near the end of Leadership in the Salvation Army, Hill helpfully and rightly posits three possible views on clergy and laity:
1. There are priests/clerics/people in the church, with a status distinct from that of the laity, but we do not have them in The Salvation Army.
2. There are priests/clerics/people in orders in the church and we do have them as officers in The Salvation Army.
3. There are no priests/clerics/orders in the church, and The Salvation Army does not aspire to any.
I imagine that some of my fellow Salvationists hold to the second position. I hold to the third.
Fragile structures
We need to remember, throughout history, the church has built extraordinary structures on a very small amount of biblical material.
There are two New Testament examples of people being prayed for and having hands laid on them in some sort of ordination for a particular job: Acts 6:6 and Acts 13:3.
In both instances, it’s a pretty simple occurrence, and one would think that it would be impossible to build elaborate ideas of ordained ministry and apostolic succession on them, yet the church has.
As to the word ‘ordained’, it appears rarely in Scripture and is a translation for a number of Greek words, none of which carry the meaning of initiation into a new caste or ontological change (‘Now that I am an officer, I am different’).
The very term ‘lay’ (a non-ministering, ministered-to person) just has no basis in Scripture. ‘Laos’, the word from which laity is derived, simply means ‘the people’. I reject any notion that there are ‘lay Salvationists’ and ‘clergy Salvationists’. There are simply God’s people. And if no such division exists, we should stop using the terms.
I am not trying belittle officership. I am not saying officers are not the equal of ministers in the other churches. Remember, I hold to Hill’s third position; all the people of God are equal in status. All are called to mission and ministry. The whole concept and practice of clergy and laity as it exists in many churches today, owes far more to church tradition than to the New Testament record.
I can, with biblical warrant, defend The Salvation Army’s traditional view of the ministry of all believers. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
The Protestant Reformation had supposedly done away with the power of the priests, had recovered the practice of the ‘priesthood of all believers’. But before long, even though shorn of popish practices, the new pastor was often indistinguishable from the old priest.
I fear our longing to view ourselves as ordained ministers of the Church of The Salvation Army has more to do with security, status, power and prestige than mission and practice as we find it in the New Testament.
Burning issue
Unless we can recover our founding practice of the ministry of all believers, if our officers go on desiring to be (and acting like) ordained clergy, the rapid decline in our congregational life will only pick up speed.
Without an underpinning concept of all Salvationists as ministers, our missional structures become mere bureaucracy; uniform becomes dress-up clothes for worship and, the killer, all ministry is done by officers.
Many soldiers already see their corps officers as the Captain-Priest. Pastoral care only counts if it is done by officers; officers must officiate at all ceremonies; if (God forbid) a drunk wanders into the hall you need to summon the officer; soldiers are reluctant to pray in worship and they leave it to the professional; evangelism is the Captain’s job.
We were a movement that was once egalitarian in mission and service, hierarchical in organisation. We are becoming elitist in mission and service and bureaucratic in organisation. That is not a change for the better.
Commissioner Phil Needham wrote on the theology of officership some time ago and concluded that officership was best understood as a function, that any difference between a soldier and an officer was one of role and responsibility, not status.
Ordination for all
I am not against ordination; we just need to understand that, in the words of Princeton theology professor Darrell Guder et al, ‘the priesthood of all believers is continually undermined by the practices of ordination’. Perhaps to reclaim the concept, we should ordain everybody who is involved in ministry.
Ordain your singers, your officers, youth workers, guitarists, junior soldier sergeants, receptionists. Define their role, get them up in front of the congregation, commission them and pray for them.
Don’t misunderstand me; I love being an officer. Signing my covenant was a sacred moment for me. The officer’s covenant is a sacrificial and meaningful one. But I have never thought it conferred any special spiritual status on me. We must reject such a view and we must reclaim the practice of the ministry of all believers. Our Kingdom cause is too urgent to do otherwise.
I say ‘we’, but of course all of this is merely my story. I have discovered I cannot presume to speak with any certainty on what ‘we believe’. The tragedy, at least in seeking resolution on vital issues such as these, is that I’m pretty sure no-one else does either.
Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown is corps officer at Chatswood, NSW.
This article originally appeared in the Eastern Territory’s Pipeline magazine.
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