A global vision | Salvation for the world

by Phil Wall

Evangeline Booth wrote The world for God and in doing so articulated a battle cry that has been at the heart of Salvationism from our earliest days. This was not just a vision statement for a religious organization but rather a worldview though which Salvationists were to engage their faith. Narrow parochialism is the antithesis of historical Salvationism and I am of the opinion that it is only a full embracing of such a world view by leadership that will ensure our future. I begin my reflections on “leading with a global vision” by asking what kind of world we find ourselves in.

The world is in paradox - both expanding and contracting at the same time. The sociologist Benjamin Barber writes in his book MacWorld versus Jihad of the clash at the heart of this paradox. On the one hand, globalization is uniting the world and creating a global cultural intimacy never seen before. It is drawing us together primarily through market capitalism and technical innovations. The fastest growing market for mobile phone technology is Africa, and it is no accident that the second best known English phrase around the world after Hallelujah is Coca Cola. The Church must have a bigger marketing budget!

At the same time we are shrinking and local and tribal interests are gaining increasing influence and power around the world. Devolution in Scotland, tribal conflict in Rwanda and Bosnia, voting trends in governments are examples of this, in part a reaction to the homogenizing influence of globalization.

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Hillmon Buckingham

Lives Lived | Commissioner Hillmon Buckingham  - transformational leadership

I

can tell you from experience that, except for a few masochistic personality types, the two least desirable appointments in TSA are Divisional Secretary and Chief Secretary. The hours are long, the abuse maximal and the rewards minimal, oftentimes at the beck and call of a position-inflated ego… or two if married. Again I speak from experience, although Doris was the exception.

In this writing, I pay tribute to another exception, Commissioner Hillmon Buckingham, who was recently Promoted to Glory.  To be appointed as his CS was like winning the lottery, when considering all of the other possible combinations out there. Let me tell you why.

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Really - love the sinner

conflicted acceptance

As I held Brad’s frail, yellowed hand, I realised that death was looming. He was restless and his blinded eyes flickered as he fought against the pain. The HIV virus had long since blown into full-on AIDS, and his entire system was now shutting down.

He was ecstatic to know that we were there with him; he knew that we loved him. We usually shared a cheeky joke together, and I had loved watching his eyes twinkle when he laughed. But this was not a time for laughter. I asked if I could pray with him.

“I would love that,” he wheezed, “but you can’t do that, because I’m gay, and I haven’t prayed since I was a kid.”

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Deeper shade of grey | Faith House 11

He did it for me

Derek sobbed from his very being, deep shudders of emotion. I felt them as I sat next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Estelle felt them as she held Derek’s hand. The whole room at Faith House felt them as they watched on and listened.

We’d heard a lot from Derek that night. Slightly the worse for wear he had pushed boundaries, let his agitation spill over into the group, patiently the men at the drop-in gave him space to do his drunk thing in their community. His day hadn’t been good, kicked out and banned from five other places he came to Faith House and he had something to say.

Through the tears and the sobs he caught the attention the whole room.

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Thinkaloud | on getting hands dirty

stop talking, start doing

Our society seems to have blossomed with self-appointed experts whose main task in life seems to be telling everyone else how to do the job, but never actually doing anything themselves. Such experts - often known as consultants - sell an image of omnicompetence and omniscience, along with boundless energy and more ideas than you could shake a stick at. Their favoured clients are inter-governmental agencies, corporations who follow the suggestion that trendiness is next to profitability, and religious organizations, churches in particular.

There is nothing wrong in giving advice, and rare is the person who has not, at one time or another, suggested to someone else the “better way” to accomplish a task. Such advice is accepted readily when it comes from a person who has practical experience, and who is willing to pitch in and help. Concern arises in people-oriented organizations such as The Salvation Army when there appear to be more advisors than workers. How much of the Army’s budget, particularly in these difficult times, is spent in hiring people to tell us how to do what is already tucked away in dusty manuals that we never read?

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From Russia with blogs | program? community?

Vadim Hurin wonders about our “works”

The Salvation Army is constantly busy, we always have lots of things to do. We feed people and clothe and help them. But we also lose them. In reality, few people who frequent our centers actually become a part of The Salvation Army. People receive help from us but often their lives stay the same. Of course, we cannot help to change anybody’s life unless they themselves want to change. God has given every person the option of changing, but he will not go against a person’s will. Nevertheless, why is it that the number of people in our corps (churches) are many times less than those whom we help?

I suppose it is much easier to just go about your tasks and be busy than to actually devote yourself to one person. It’s relatively easy to feed 100-200 people and not even ask what any of their names are. It’s easy not to take the time to get to know at least one person and let them into your life a bit. All of our programs seem to be aimed at the masses. We are proud of the numbers of people that we help. All this is great, but what are we really trying to do?

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Fresh imagination: rethinking cities

by Robert Joustra

“You take nice, good-natured, welcoming people and throw them into a town hall meeting somewhere, and they’ll tear each other’s eyes out.” The director of a downtown Salvation Army outlet was just warming up, telling me about some of the challenges of his day-to-day work. He had stories about Ivy League professors, lawyers and even priests and pastors campaigning against the operations of the Salvation Army. The Army’s crime? They’d started operations in a nice part of town. There goes the neighbourhood!

The Salvation Army director taught me that professionals whose self-described vocations were to help those in need, to teach, to mentor and to promote law and justice fall victim to the NIMBY (”not in my backyard”) Syndrome, just like everyone else. We rarely like taking our own medicine, and these folks were no different. No level of governance is as open or intimate as municipal consultations. Do we design this park like this, or like that? Do we allow this re-zoning or that re-zoning, and how exactly do we deal with all those different colours of garage doors on Elm Street? Municipal consultations are the church hockey league of politics. You’ll never believe what your neighbours are capable of saying and doing in those settings.

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Give your burdens to the Lord

by Margaret Okubo

When sadness breaks our hearts, and the pain that ensues grows persistent and unrelenting, many of us tend to bow our heads in deep sorrow and hide in the darkest recesses of depression. This is the way many of us try to cope in times of trials. But do such actions really help or hinder us? Often such actions offer only temporary relief from the physical aspect of our suffering, but it does not result in a permanent resolution. Additionally, some of us cry out to God for help; however, when that help is long in coming we either surrender to despair or simply give up.

This morning, I sat with the members of my prayer group and listened to their prayers for help. While watching their tears flow, I started thinking if there is another way to solve our problems and allow us to fill our minds and hearts with inner peace. Every morning this prayer group comes together and pray. The same petitions are offered in prayers each day; however, the same lines of pain remain etched on their faces. It appears as if their situations never change.

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Ordinary radicals | film review

Thoughts on Ordinary Radicals from an ordinary guy who was extraordinarily annoyed by the film.

I watched a film the other night and I’m struggling with how to write about it. I really wanted to like it, but I walked out feeling frustrated and confused and somewhat alienated. It was called The Ordinary Radicals and it examines what the director calls a movement of, “revolutionary Christianity.  One with a quiet disposition that seeks to do small things with great love.” Sounds intriguing, right?

I had read and enjoyed The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, co-founder with Jamie Moffett of the “Simple Way” community in Philadelphia, and who is one of the main characters in the film. I loved the “simple” approach they take to living out their faith and their commitment to making a difference.

Claiborne makes his own clothes and works hard on reducing his environmental footprint, at one point in the book he describes standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of homeless people about to be evicted from an abandoned church they have turned into their home. In short, he lives his life in a radical way on the front lines, in community with like-minded people.

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Columbine: 10 years later

Andrea Demchuk says the reaction to Columbine is not good

It is certain that the Columbine massacre figured large in the decisions of many North American parents to turn to home schooling in the last decade… that event and millennial angst. After all, if protecting their children is part of the parental job description, then keeping them safe - at home - from the physical and ideological dangers  of the school system, is a good thing.

However, I have always found this reasoning disquieting. Moreover, this disquiet, I will confess, stems from the fact that home schooling parents of all kinds of faith and no faith have offered this same rationale to me. Home schooling parents are a disparate bunch and any of their other individually-held rationales would quite certainly cancel each other out, making it impossible for the system to accommodate them as a group.

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