Hope overflows

Phil Wall | Do we see bones, or an Army?

‘Only in America’ - these words, often spoken with reference to some kind of weird phenomena or commercial excess, took on a whole new meaning last month. The inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th President was quite a remarkable spectacle. People from all over the world gathered to celebrate, participate and just be there to say they were there.

One African American woman said to the BBC ‘I can’t believe this is happening so I am going along just to make sure it really does!’ The amazing satellite images from space demonstrated the huge numbers of people as they changed the colours of the green parklands and grey roads into a heaving mass humanity, playing their own role in the drama of American history.

History has indeed been made and it has been a long and often painful journey. Many have paid a high price to challenge the injustice that valued a person by the colour of their skin, enormous sacrifice marked the road to the appointment of America’s first black President. There is so much within this story to inspire us. For all of the aspects of American culture that little European ‘Lefties’ like myself find difficult, it’s capacity for ‘self - reinvention’ seems endless. It is a truly remarkable and wonderful land.

What I, an avid English watcher of American politics, have found particularly inspiring has been the content of the message that has taken Obama to the White House - hope. He began some time ago with his book The Audacity of Hope. This is a call to action for the world’s dreamers to throw off the shackles of cynicism and choose to believe again. It is a call to a fresh and realistic idealism, which chooses optimism over pessimism, expectancy over determinism, passion over resignation and, as he quoted in his acceptance speech, chooses ‘Hope over Fear’. I was left with a gnawing question in my mind ‘Is this guy the real deal?’.

In truth that is the question I am still asking but will hope he might well be. If so, he is not only good news for America but also the rest of the world. My sneaking suspicion of his authenticity gained greater weight when I heard him answer a question regarding what kind of dog he was going to buy his kids ‘We want to get one from the dog-pound, some kind of mutt, just like me’. Such self deprecation is rare in the testosterone filled jungle of politics, and I am pretty sure it didn’t come from a speech writer’s pen. History will tell if Obama is the real thing.

When you listen to his messages you begin to really understand their power and how strongly they resonate with the soul of America. As I listened, he talked less about the nation of America but more about the ‘Idea’ that is America. It is the ‘Idea’ of America that threw off the oppressive hand of English imperialism (all that fuss over a cup of tea in Boston!). The idea of creating a nation founded on ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ was powered by the fuel of hope and it changed world history for ever. In light of the current economic and political context, Obama is hopeful that it might do so again.

Hope changes things. In fact it might be the only thing that ever truly changes things. It is the engine room of change without which dreams flounder and die. This is a belief that, despite current reality, the future can and will be different. Hope makes ideas ‘live’.

The Salvation Army was conceived in biblical hope. Our founders were captivated by the idea that the gospel really was for the ‘Whosoever’. So they threw off the shackles of religious imperialism and set the gospel free to do its work amongst the lost, the last and the least within urban jungles. History was made, hope brought their idea to life, and so much of their world was changed.

Western Salvationism is in trouble and in many places it is dying. Many of the corps that do remain are not sustainable and thus are kept alive by centralised funding. We consistently send passionate radicals from the training college to maintain literal religious hospices, blunting their vision and breaking their hearts with equal measure. Many, though not all, are filled with a conservative, middle class, religious community that obsesses itself over maintaining a balance between the religious consumer habits of the saints and meeting of the needs of ‘new folks’. Most of the world walks on by, thankfully ignorant of our small minded and idolatrous debates, sadly equally ignorant of the message and life transforming power of Jesus.

There is much to be depressed about. Aging, declining rolls, many corps having no meaningful connection with their local communities, numbers of our brightest and best leaving, choosing the open planes of front line mission rather than the ball and chain of religious structural dogma and what Commissioner Phil Needham called ‘ecclesiastical clutter’. Young people are voting with their feet, struggling to connect the radical rhetoric of holiness meeting hymns with the reality of the comfort orientated lives of many of their seniors (that would no doubt include people like me!) These are challenging days indeed.

Yet we are not without hope. Resurrection is in our soul. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives within us. Hope, if we let it, will stir us, disturb us, provoke us, inspire us, change us and ignite us, if only we let it do its work. Hope changes not only the window we look out of but also what we see when we look. We no longer see bones but an Army. Ezekiel’s prophetic vision of Hope saw beyond the dusty wastelands of a graveyard to something fresh, powerful and truly alive. He saw that the life of faith and the people of God was never about the structures or even the capacity of the people, but rather the breath of God. It’s about the breath and not about the bones.

Whenever any group of people lay hold of the hope-filled, Spirit inspired vision of all things made new, change comes. Can God transform dying corps?- absolutely. Can God refresh, refocus and re-purpose religious structures? - no doubt. Can God heal and restore my cynical, jaded, sin sick soul to life anew? - it’s what He does. All is possible in the narrative of Hope, provided we surrender our own agenda and bow the knee.

One of the most powerful aspects of Obama’s speech was his recognition of America’s role and responsibility in the wider world. With the privilege of power comes high responsibility. He made it clear that in his vision of the American Idea, it was never ‘just about us’. It is always about something greater than our selves

I recently heard an Anglican Bishop declare that ‘God doesn’t need the Church of England but he does need the Church in England’. I reflected that in truth God doesn’t need The Salvation Army but God does need A Salvation Army. This is way too big to be just about us. In the context that Obama described, if ever our world needed A Salvation Army, it needs it now. So despite the challenges we face. No matter the difficulties that seem to confront us on every side, when we choose Hope over Fear, Spirit over Religion, Idealism over Cynicism, Mission over Tradition, Sacrifice over Comfort, Reliance over Independence, such an Army we become.

So let us pray for the inspiring and gracious ‘Mutt President’, the prayer that the Apostle Paul prayed for the mixed up and messed up ‘mutts’ of the Roman Church. As we pray it for him, we should probably pray it also for the ‘mutts’ we see every time we look in a mirror.

‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ Romans 15:13.

Writer: Phil is CEO of Signify where he provides leadership and coaching services to senior corporate executives in the UK and US. Phil previously worked as a London police officer and as a communicator/leadership trainer with The Salvation Army in the UK.

Tags: hope

7 Comments to Hope overflows

1. This was exactly what I needed to read right now. Well done Phil, I agree with my whole spirit.
Eric Himes on February 11th, 2009

2. ’such an army we become’… comes unstuck with the practicalities. That is what defeats me at every turn. On the one hand I’m warmly encouraged by passionately army friends to wear uniform on every possible occasion. On the other hand as a soldier I’m cannot actually DO anything while wearing it, presumably other than sell the papers or stand there like a statue - as the kind of in-your-face evangelism that the uniform was associated with many years ago is a disaster in many locations (not all) in the UK. So I face this daily dilemma. I pray walk, I offer workshops and prayer gatherings, I hold daily prayers here and so on. But I don’t do it in uniform in case I tread on the organisation’s toes. The catch 22 is that the longer I go on in lay work not publically identifying with TSA the more people get the impression that I’m not fired by the charism of the army, and don’t care about being a Salvationist - nothing could be further from the truth. The way the army is set up works for the ‘clergy’ or the ‘nearly but not really clergy’ in the Salvation Army but it’s a disaster for soldiers.

   I have to explain to a clergy colleague today that I can’t do something we thought together might be valuable ministry locally because I’m a lay person, and if I tried to do this through the Salvation Army it would be more complicated than launching the space shuttle. It needs doing in uniform or dog collar if it is going to happen. So either it won’t happen or someone else will have to have the idea and one of the local ministers will then do it. And then, no doubt, I will sit here in my office with Kres Jesu Krist (Cornwall Church Health) listening to them moan to me on the phone about how the clergy have to do everything.

   Where is the way to create ‘A Salvation Army’, because I’ve had enough.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on February 12th, 2009

3. “We consistently send passionate radicals from the training college to maintain literal religious hospices, blunting their vision and breaking their hearts with equal measure.”

   I identify with that so much Phil. I openly confess that attending ‘regular’ Army meetings at ‘regular’ corps brings me to literal tears without fail. I believe in our mission 110% and have given 5 years in officership trying my best to ‘lift the heads’ of our folks. Last year I had to ask to move appointment before I cracked up! For me, the lesson has been to transform the heartbreak and use it as fuel to motivate passion…passion, afterall, has its roots in the concept of ’suffering!’

   What keeps me going personally is the dream of A Salvation Army…a Kingdom Army, a Revolutionary Army once again. The naysayers are always saying nay but in my heart of hearts I’m screaming ‘YES!’

   We need someone out there (an Obama-man) to speak hope and life into the Army and we need God’s strength and encouragement to aid every soldier and officer who’s heart is fired to stand together and move forward.

   God continue to raise up A Salvation Army.
Andrew Clark on February 12th, 2009

4. Excellent and inspirational thoughts, as ever, Phil.

   J
Johnny Laird on February 16th, 2009

5. Truly inspiring. Thank you sir. Needed that.
Andrew D on February 18th, 2009

6. Thanks Phil for your forthright and challenging views and the comments that followed. I agree and struggle with the desire to see A Salvation Army as God built it up and the organisation that we have become. I would argue that we are now exactly the organisation that Booth chose to leave in the first place to set up The SA.
   Sadly, I see no quick answer for the corps who chose deliberately or by the sin of omission, to plough their own furrow rather than be guided by the spirit to the world that God has chosen. Surely the direction needs to come from the senior ranks, but to my mind they seem content to sit by and watch the demise or just don’t know what to do. Same result.
   On the bright side there are now many oficers in the lower ranks (and some of us soldiers aswell!!) that follow Gods lead regardless if it complies with organisational policy or has had enough time to be stamped in triplicate. Its fantastic when the sipirit takes the lead and you step on for the ride. It would be fantastic if some of our leaders tried it sometimes.
Stuart Hunter on March 16th, 2009

7. Stuart, I am saddened that you have not had the experience of some great, forward-thinking, Spirit-led officers in your context. It’s unfair, however, to lump them all into one. In my own little part of the world I am constantly amazed at how God-attuned my officers and Salvation Army leaders are.

   It may be an exception to the rule, but they are out their for sure.
Phil on March 16th, 2009

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