Vox populi | pathway of duty

No slouching allowed

By the pathway of duty flows the river of God’s grace. Back in the day we used to sing that song, and people used to get to work in the Corps. They were involved because they had a sense of duty. Somehow this has become a bad thing because now we want people who are sold out for Jesus rather than people who are motivated by duty.

With Christmas just around the corner, as a Corps Officer, I would have killed to have a bunch of people who were driven by duty. More work gets done because now that we want to just hang out with Jesus no one wants to do anything. Can you come and stand on kettles for 4 hours? Nope, hangin’ with Jesus. We’re packing hampers on Saturday morning. Can we count on you? Hangin’, sorry, me and Jesus. Sunshine bags? Hangin’. Serenading, visitation, kid’s club? Hangin’ hangin’ hangin’. Everyone is so big into spending time with Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, no one wants to do anything. Whatever happened to God, Queen and the Country? Hangin’ out gives you too much time to think about things and point fingers at the songster who only comes to church out of duty. Look at him. 52 straight weeks of duty. Where’s his relationship with Jesus?

Duty has become a four letter word, and the absence of it has driven some C.O.’s to the brink of using four letter words. It’s Christmas. We’re The Salvation Army. We work, and sacrifice our time, and sometimes even our families suffer a bit from it. Get your duty into gear, and if you’d like to hangout with Jesus? Come and hang out for 4 hours on a kettle. Jesus is waiting.

vox populi | how clean is clean enough?

dirty sexy money

In our last Corps appointment I was quite proud of the fact that we refused to apply to the Bingo Hall for local funding from lottery/bingo proceeds. We don’t take Bingo dollars. How could we? We were a strong advocate against gambling expansion in our town so it would be impossible to take the same dollars we were fighting to keep out of our town.

If we were to celebrate that fact with a cake we could have run the cake plates through our industrial dishwasher, a donation from the local Kiwanis club, the funds drawn on their Bingo account. oops. Well, we won’t go out and ASK for Bingo dollars directly from the Bingo Hall. If someone offers us money we don’t ask where it comes from. If they want to give it from their Bingo account then who am I to question this. And, the money can feed a lot of hungry people. › Continue reading