Officer training models

Paper title: Emerging models of training for officership in The Salvation Army
Author/researcher: Gregory Morgan
Country of origin: Australia
Publication/completion date: December, 2006
Length: 107 pages
Keywords: Officers, training, The Salvation Army, mission, ministry, equipping
Abstract: The Salvation Army needs action-oriented officers… for it to accomplish its mission. But here comes the crunch: they need to be informed men and women of action… it is high time to discard forever the false presupposition that has dogged us as an Army that higher education and action are opposites. It is wrong to think that you choose between the two, and that you cannot have both… As a Salvation Army we need leaders who are both scholars and dynamos: informed men and women of action. (Larsson 2005: 5)

This statement from the then world leader of The Salvation Army, John Larsson, succinctly encapsulates one of the challenges The Salvation Army has faced historically and continues to face today. Scholars and dynamos are required and possible. But they are difficult to deliver in a movement that is activist to such a degree that education and deeper thinking can be viewed with suspicion. However, we must cast aside our misgivings as we consider what it is that is required in the training of officer leaders for today and into the challenging landscape of twenty-first century society.

The call for “scholars and dynamos” resonates with my sense of the challenge that calls us forward in our training methods for mission and ministry. It is this that leads me to my research project which seeks to research and propose emerging models of training for officer leadership within The Salvation Army. These models must adequately and rigorously equip people in a manner that will challenge and strengthen them in their own intellectual development, practical development and personal spiritual formation.

The use of the term training in this research project is intentional. Within The Salvation Army training is the historically and internationally accepted “technical” term for the total formation process leading to officership, and so this project will utilise the term in that broad sense. In chapter one the qualitative method known as grounded theory is considered, and in particular constructivist grounded theory. Arising from this I will detail the methodology for my research into “Emerging models of training for officership in The Salvation Army”.

Chapter two seeks to clarify a theological understanding of officership in order to clarify the role we are training for. In particular we will focus on the debate over status versus function. In chapter three early approaches to officer training will be briefly summarised before the current two year residential model, as instituted in 1961, is explored. Some alternative approaches currently being utilised internationally and in Australia will be considered.

The various stages and results of the human based research are to be outlined in chapter four. Key issues for each participant group will then be considered and overall themes identified.  An exploration of the societal shifts of postmodernity and post-Christendom and their implications for the church commence chapter five. From here our attention will shift to a literature review, highlighting five thematic areas key to preparation for mission and ministry today.

The final chapter will draw together the various aspects of data present in the research project. Four active guiding principles that should undergird any training model will be outlined before considering three emerging models of training for officership.

The research project as a whole maintains a commitment to officer training that will adequately and rigorously equip people for mission and ministry in the challenging landscape of twenty-first century society.

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Tags: equipping, ministry, mission, Officers, The Salvation Army, training