Session 1b

The Salvation Army 2014 USA Salvation Army Conference for Social Work and Emergency Disaster Services 25 to 28 March 2014 GLOBAL TRACK SESSION 1B

“How does The Salvation Army work together as One Army?”

Major Angela Hachitapika Territorial Community Development and Health Services Secretary, Zambia Territory Introduction The Salvation Army from the days of William Booth has kept the holistic approach of “Soup, Soap and Salvation” with an emphasis on total care for people. This paper gives perspectives on how the Army has worked as one in practice through Evangelism and the Social Service in which I highlight the role of Faith-Based Facilitation in today’s Army.

I come from a country with more than 73 tribes and our national coat of arms carries the words: ‘One Zambia, One Nation’. Our coat of arms also has a man and woman holding a shield together symbolizing the need for men and women to work together and other things that we value as Zambians. Similarly The Salvation Army is united by its doctrine, an IHQ leadership structure and the sharing of resources. For example funds raised under self-denial are all put in one pot and allocations made not according to who collected the most but as to who is most in need. This is the practice we find in the book of Acts 2 in the early church. Territories are partnered at a global level to facilitate the sharing of resources and personnel.

1. One in Practice and Doctrine The Army is very diverse in ethnicity and culture; it exists in all the five continents of the world and the word of God is being preached in 175 languages yet our doctrine is one and our symbols are the same. I have travelled many times to foreign lands; there is nothing more relaxing than to see the Army uniform, crest or shield. The Army music is one all around the globe; different countries have their own way of singing one and the same songs as they march along in an array of uniform colors; white, grey, beige, navy blue and others but all with the same ‘served to serve’ SS and whatever rank they carry.

Recently I witnessed the commissioning and ordination of the new Lieutenants of the ‘Disciples of the Cross’ session. The sessional name is global and not unique to any one country just as are the officers covenant and undertakings. Male and female officers are ordained alike the world over (Galatians 3:28). The Articles of War declaring a way of life that is pure and holy; a life of 1

service for others is one and the same for any Salvationist east, south, north or west as we raise the red yellow and blue colors symbolizing the triune God. The Orders and Regulations for Officers of the Salvation Army; and various local officers including those governing our music sections; bandsmen, singing company and songster brigade are all one and the same. Officers of the Salvation Army can be appointed at home and overseas; this is seen as normal for the Army. Across the world the Army serves without regard to color, ethnicity, and gender, political or religious affiliation upholding the sacredness of human life.

2. One in Evangelism The Salvation Army doctrine number eight states: ‘We believe that we are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus and that he that believes hath the witness in himself’. The later part of this doctrine means that every soldier of the Army must be and is a witness for Jesus for a witness is one who tells what they have experienced. The number of countries where the Army exists now stands at 126. From one Englishman in England we now have a whole Army in the physical sense of over one million senior soldiers all hopefully saved to serve, all doing their bit in extending the Kingdom of God as an act of obedience to the Lord Jesus’ great commission (Matthew 28:19-20 ). As we go; we sing “Thou hast called me from the byway to proclaim thy wondrous love; Though hast placed me on the highway that to all men I may prove There is mission in my living, there is meaning in my word; Saviour, in my daily striving may this message yet be heard.”

(SASB 463) Every corps, society or outpost of the Army will have the three core values – evangelism, holiness and service to suffering humanity made visible by the league of Mercy or Community Caring Ministry. Young people and women have their place; it is not strange to find young people leading meetings on YP or youth decision Sunday. We invest in international gatherings such as Congresses and Youth Conventions as events which communicate to all Salvationists and the world that we are “One Army”.

The Officer magazine, International College for Officers (ICO) pastoral letters from the general to officers from time to time and the International Positional Statements for the Army on controversial issues all help for the Army to work as one. Salvationists round the world have the same symbolism, values and beliefs that drive the activities that are carried out in all parts of the world where the Army is present. It does not matter the location or size of the group the three core activities as described by General Gowans’ stool at the Millennial Congress in Atlanta remain – Evangelism, Holiness and Serving Suffering Humanity.

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3. One in Social Response The Army has always worked as one with a focus on the voiceless, the hard to reach, in short ‘suffering humanity’. Interventions have been diverse depending on the needs and prevailing situation in each country. Each generation describing this work in a language best suited for that time; among which are holistic care, integrated mission and now Faith-Based Facilitation.

Health, Education, Emergency Services, shelter for vulnerable populations like old people, children, refugees and the homeless are among the ways of working for the Army. Response to social evils and assisting people to be free from these social evils such as alcoholism, prostitution and human trafficking are common practice to Army centers worldwide; these social evils are not unique to one country.

Health: Care for common conditions and care for dreaded conditions such as leprosy in Africa and India and now HIV/AIDS. The Home Based Care Concept, Community Counseling Process, Community Based Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children are some of the widely adopted best practice pieces by an Army hospital – Chikankata. The Army health institutions train health professionals that are highly rated as ‘good nurses, lab workers, etc’ because over and above they do get Christian values infused over their time with the Army. Prime activities to improve the quality of life; water and sanitation, nutrition are also undertaken.

Education and Skills training: The Army is providing pre-school primary, secondary and tertiary education for a lot in many countries. In Zambia and Zimbabwe for example the governments count on the Army as a partner in education including training of Health Professionals.

Community Development & Projects: Terms and ways of working have also evolved and now we have the Community Project Management Support system (CPMS) that gives access to all Salvation Army projects round the globe at a click of a finger, countries can learn how others 3

are responding to similar areas of need. The CPMS system1 gives a standard way of writing a proposal indicating the key areas of response required by any Amy project and equally a standard way of reporting and approving a proposal.

FAITH-BASED FACILITATION The world has changed, people have changed, and the Army must also change approaches. The Army used to design projects and programs to implement in different communities but now this is different. Communities are looking for ownership through participation in the identification and implementation of programs and projects. This brings me to the new way of working – Faith-Based Facilitation (FBF) with an overall aim of building deeper relationships at an individual and community level.

FBF is ‘a way of working’ described in the booklet “Building Deeper Relationships” produced by IHQ in 2010. The FBF way of working recognizes and respects every human being young or old through Bible reflections and the use of participatory methodologies. The tool enables the Army to build deeper relationships with communities because it empowers the local people not with money or materials from outside that come and go but with the reality that they can do something for themselves. FBF is a tool for self sustainability for the global Army whether we are talking of numbers, finances, programs and holiness or growing saints. FBF uses tools that are not new; listening and attending skills, brainstorming, the Bible, exploring, community walk, community mapping, home visits, prioritizing, identifying resources, self-assessment, creative thinking and problem solving.

Territories are in the process of translating the FBF materials in local languages and training facilitators. A facilitator may be defined as: "An individual who enables groups and organizations to work more effectively; to collaborate and achieve synergy. She or he is a “content-neutral” party who by not taking sides or expressing or advocating a point of view during the meeting, can advocate for fair, open, and inclusive procedures to accomplish the group’s work. A facilitator can also be learning or a dialogue guide to assist a group in thinking deeply about its assumptions, beliefs, and values and about its systemic processes and context"(Kaner: 2007: xv).

There is no one individual expert of FBF, no special group, but we can all learn and use the FBF cycle to come up with plans and actions for any issue at hand. Here is the process: 1 The Community Projects Management and Support (CPMS) system is a database available to every Salvation Army territory to track projects and funding. A similar database for Mission Support Projects is also used to track funding to strengthen Salvation Army evangelical and system strengthening projects.

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Faith-Based Facilitation is fast becoming a common way of working in Africa across most territories. At the Nairobi 2013 FBF retreat, we listened to each other about how FBF is being used in different territories; from the identification of projects in all territories to resource mobilization at corps level, church growth, conflict resolution, management of schools to mention but a few. Every territory in Africa was represented from the oldest to the newest on the continent.

So does FBF change the already prescribed procedures of the Salvation Army? If for example a young person who gets pregnant outside marriage, the procedure is to suspend for six months.

The answer is no, the FBF process in this case provides an opportunity for the pastoral care team to discuss and explore the teaching of young people about reproductive health and how they can support the young person to maintain her Christianity.

The merits of a FBF way of working are that it enables local human capacity development. FBF can be used by all kinds of people even those who are not so literate. It can be used for all situations, it helps communities know their priorities and therefore request help in a relevant area of need not take on a project just because there is a donor, and FBF enhances faith tradition as we carry out social programs.

Conclusion The Salvation Army has worked well when international standards have been maintained around our belief, values and practice. The ordination of women for example at a time when the status of women in the communities was low like in Africa has gone a long way in uplifting the profile of women and changing the attitude towards women both in and outside the church. This can also be said for the children, many new churches are now making church programs specifically for children. In Zambia the Army has played an important role in helping 5

other churches begin to respond to social evils and HIV/AIDS through training workshops for religious leaders. Currently we have a large project running in two districts in which we trained 100 faith based leaders in FBF to reach more than 3000 people with messages of preventing transmission of HIV. The Army has worked well as one when the already established structures of communication have been followed; everyone within the system being aware of the flow of information; the chain and level of responsibility.

The Army has worked well as one Army when the core values have remained one and the same but the preference allowed to be modified according to the likes of each individual territory or area for example the colour of uniform does not matter but the number of SS does not change to three or some other number – blue for soldiers and red for officers ranks are all maintained as per international standard.

Allow me to close with the third verse of song 690 in the SASB by Baring – Gould “Like a mighty Army, moves the Church of God; Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.

We are not divided, all one body we One in hope, in doctrine,one in charity”!

A response by Major Pam Knuckey Assistant Territorial Director for Community Services United Kingdom Territory with the Republic of Ireland Introduction As I begin my response, I am writing from the UK as debate over the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence is intensifying, with the Governor of the Bank of England highlighting the difficulty in maintaining Scottish sovereignty and a successful currency union simultaneously. I am reminded of the very varied contexts in which The Salvation Army operates, and of the tensions that arise when trying to address fairly the needs and aspirations of different groups of people.

1. One in Practice and Doctrine

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Major Angela has identified many unifying attributes. I believe we have to be very careful to distinguish between common values and common practices. Army music is integral to my family heritage. Yet I struggle with the concept that Army music being one around the globe is good, because I perceive this may be an example of Western culture being imposed inappropriately.

I would like to explore further how we equip Salvationists to outwork The Articles of War in a global context. In particular, I am interested in the commitment: ‘I will maintain Christian ideals in all my relationships with others; my family and neighbours, my colleagues and fellow Salvationists, those to whom and for whom I am responsible, and the wider community.’

Whilst we take care to ensure that Self-Denial funded projects are well-designed and empowering, we continue to see visits by groups of UK Salvationists to the Majority World on short-term missions that are well-intentioned, but often fail to recognise and build on local capacity. Lupton2 writes about the importance of ensuring that in making unselfish investment we are never mindless or irresponsible, and that we always calculate the cost, consider the outcomes and work in genuine partnership.

2. One in Evangelism, Holiness and Service

Whilst I love the image of Salvationism as a stool supported by the three legs of saving souls, growing saints and serving suffering humanity, I am increasingly concerned that we speak of the three ‘legs’ separately, rather than viewing these as three intertwined strands of Salvationism. I believe we need to be intentional in engaging in all three simultaneously, celebrating how saints grow and souls are saved as suffering humanity is served.

In the UK, we are placing increasing emphasis on theological reflection in order to inform our practice, especially in our social services. I believe that adopting the FBF approach in the UK could be highly mobilising for our community work in areas of high multiple deprivation, where we continue to encounter the entrenchment of Booth’s ‘submerged tenth’.

Conclusion In order to work as one Army in a God-honouring way, we must continue to focus on our common values, adopting methodologies that are appropriate to the local context. In our increasingly networked world, maintaining a hierarchical chain of information flow will become

2 Robert Lupton (2012). Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It).

HarperOne, New York, pp.25-26.

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more challenging, and we need to learn to capitalise on the potential of new technologies, to ensure we keep learning from each other, recognising both our local and global responsibilities.

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The Salvation Army 2014 USA Salvation Army Conference for Social Work and Emergency Disaster Services 25 to 28 March 2014, Orlando, Florida GLOBAL TRACK SESSION 1B

“How does The Salvation Army work together as One Army?”

Commissioner Eva Marseille Zonal Secretary for Women’s Ministry (SPEA) and International Mission Resources Coordinator International Headquarters 1. Introduction: One Mission We share one mission – “Reaching people in today’s world, by all means, with the transforming message of Jesus, bringing freedom, hope and life.”3 When Colonel Lyell Rader in 2005, as part of an integrated working group, wrote some Biblical themes related to Integrated Mission, he started his notes with a reference to this picture, Michael Angelo’s famous painting ‘The Creation of Adam’. Michael Angelo painted his own imagination of the ‘creation moment’, the moment of the life-giving touch by God, whereby the dust became man, in the image of God.

When you look at Salvation Army pictures from the first days of our organisation, you will see William Booth and other preachers with their hands raised, with pointed fingers, with their whole body language trying to reach out to lost souls.

3 One Army, One Mission, One Message Vision Statement - 2011

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The soul-saving mission of The Salvation Army is reaching out, wanting to touch people with the transforming and life-giving message of Jesus.

But The Salvation Army also reaches out to touch people’s lives in other ways: the caring touch, drying a tear, touching the ‘untouchable’, not only from a distance, or from a platform, but coming alongside, bending down, kneeling to serve.

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As a church organisation, we soon got our very specific ‘raison d’etre’: serving suffering humanity, with a definite bias to the poor and marginalised.

2. It’s all about relationships So there are different pictures of what our mission is all about – reaching out and touching people’s lives. It’s all about relationships, life consists of relationships. If we look at our social engagement, we realise that poverty is not only lack of money, means or opportunities. Poverty is the result of broken relationships:4 • with oneself – lack of self-esteem •

with others – being marginalised

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with God – in despair, without hope

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with God’s creation – lack of stewardship, not caring for the environment

Therefore our mission is about relationships: •

The gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation is the power to restore relationships,

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Evangelism is carried out through building relationships,

4 Myers, B “Walking With The Poor”, 2011

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And community engagement, transforming society, is building deeper relationships – which is the title of the faith-based facilitation manual.

In the middle of the reflective processes we go through in our pastoral relationships, or in our community relationships, there are these ‘Kairos’ moments, the divine touch, the moments of eternity where the work of God’s Holy Spirit becomes ‘tangible’, touching hearts and lives.

(The woman who touched the hem of his garment) 3. The unity of One Army One Army – with many different expressions of ministry – but how do we remain united?

Our true unity is not through being ‘in step and in line’ , as the military metaphor would suggest, but rather through being in relationship first with God; second with suffering, broken, lonely, dispossessed and lost people and, thirdly with each other.

3.1 In relationship with God

The first and second One Army Mission priorities are “We will deepen our spiritual life, and unite in prayer”. We are by nature activists, but tending to our spiritual life is more important than running more programmes, more activities. The World Wide Prayer Meeting on Thursday morning is not just to have an extra prayer meeting, but it is a time to be intentional about praying for each other, praying through the mission priorities for our Salvation Army around the world. Prayer for me is not a magic alternative to hard work, but acknowledging that we need God’s Spirit, guidance and provision. Any lasting results of our efforts are due to God’s grace.

Prayer is creating a frame work for God’s activities in our lives.

Deepening our spiritual life also influences our relation to Christ and the cross: the true mark of Jesus in our lives is our willingness to serve, suffer and sacrifice. This leads us to the second point: 12

3.2 In relationship with ‘suffering humanity’ Whenever we talk about poverty, we should not forget that in many parts of the world our Salvationists are the poor, living under the poverty line and being a marginalised minority.

In other parts of the world The Salvation Army has become a middle class church and, though well-known for our social engagement, many Salvationists have no direct contact with the marginalised. Some may even be worried about the dangers of ‘preaching a social gospel’, considering it to be ’less spiritual’. Take a look at the car-park outside some large Salvation Army corps hall on a Sunday morning, and then ask yourself the question: “Who is actually communicating a ‘social gospel’?”

Social involvement is rooted in the character of God, and in a sinful world where life is biased towards the wealthy and the powerful, God’s action will always be perceived as counter-bias.

The gap between rich and poor is widening, and while recognising the deeper needs of spiritual poverty in all layers of the population, we must retain our contact with ‘the marginalised’. And we must be good stewards of our riches, in order not to be separated by wealth from our poorer Salvationist brothers and sisters.

A new trend in the western, post-modern world is the marginalisation of Christendom itself.

The church has moved out of the corridors of power. The local pastor no longer has an authoritative voice, and in the world of the ‘un-churched’ we have no platform. Instead of bemoaning the lost privileges of the past, we should look for the new openings this trend offers.

Is this our chance to recover our true calling in the world, and take our place with the poor and marginalised? We need less ‘platform’ and more ‘walking alongside’. There are opportunities as governments understand the importance of ‘people movements’, of Faith-Based Organisations’ role in cultural and civic life. Yet, we must be motived by love of neighbour, not by self-interest, not even by the corporate self-interest of The Salvation Army or the evangelical movement.

We should simply seek opportunities to serve the world, go the way of the cross, and stand with the weak and powerless. We need to learn again what it is to be ‘outside the camp, where our Saviour died” (Hebrews13:13).

God is at work in society beyond The Salvation Army and beyond the church. The Kingdom comes secretly through grace, through God’s spirit, blowing where he wills, and through God’s Word and the new community. In today’s world we will attract marginalised sinners by celebrating grace and living by grace, as Jesus did (Luke 15:1-20). This is an opportunity for the 13

church – though it may take place outside the church building. God made us stewards of his creation, to contribute to community life. Through marginalisation and exclusion the poor have become non-contributors, forced to be passive, losing dignity, confidence and hope. The most important thing the church can do for the poor is being church, in other words being an inclusive godly fellowship. When we witness God’s activity in the world, we can explain and put words from the Lord to the work of grace that is taking place. We may even be birth attendants to a new community growing out of such acts of grace.

Bryant Myers writes, “By ‘changed people’ I mean people who have discovered their true identity as children of God and who have recovered their true vocation as faithful and productive stewards of the gifts from God for the well-being of all.” 5 Participation in decisions and actions that affect people’s own lives is a key factor in programmes that have worked well.

Participatory reflection processes are at the basis of our Faith-Based Facilitation approach.

An example Let me share an example of close relationship with the Lord and close relationship with broken lives and a broken society, with an example of work I witnessed in Puli, Taiwan.

There was a terrible earthquake here on 21 September 1999. 200,000 people lost their homes.

The Salvation Army provided emergency relief with the distribution of rice and built 145 temporary houses and classrooms in the Puli area, including 6 community activity halls.

A year later, a Salvationist couple who were officer candidates, sold their business and were appointed to this small Taiwanese town as envoys. It is a place where idol worship flourishes and the area boasts the largest Buddhist Temple in South East Asia. Fifteen years later there are 200 soldiers, a home for 92 boys, community work linking the corps with schools, universities, nursing homes. Many boys with criminal pasts have become Salvationists with a number of quality officers coming out of that corps.

3.3 In relationship with each other 5 Myers, B “Walking With The Poor”, 2011

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I have not forgotten my topic: “How do we work together as one Army?” I have talked about, in order of priority, our relationship with God and with the ‘poor, broken, dispossessed and lost’ – and now I come to our relationship with each other.

One of the unfortunate things in the Army’s history of the 20th century has been the separation of evangelistic and social work. I will not attempt to deal with neither the reasons for that, nor the consequences, but just rejoice that we seem to have understood the need to work together, the need for integrated mission. The danger of ‘them and us’ is not only regarding social and corps, but in many other sectors including •

Youth and older generations

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Health and schools

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Grassroots and administration

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Women and men

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North and South

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Officers and soldiers/employees

‘Integrated mission’ raises the practical question how different already existent expressions of Salvation Army ministry can find ways of working together. But the deeper issue is how we all understand our mission as integral or holistic and how we can build up new ministry expressions in a holistic way.

They say “actions speak louder than words” and “a picture is worth a thousand words”. May I suggest that a picture with a caption, action accompanied by the appropriate words, may in fact be the best way we can communicate the gospel. Likewise several pictures linked together will open new dimensions and new perspectives. This is synergy, 2+2 = 5.

It is amazing to see what is happening when different expressions of ministry are brought in touch with each other. As leaders are together in one room, getting to know each other, learning to develop and appreciate their mutual relationship, inspiration flows, new ideas surge and people become energized and enthusiastic. We are excited at IHQ to hear of new models of collaboration developing around the Army world. For example: •

The Pathway of Hope in USA Central Territory and now being extended across the USA. You can hear more about this initiative at this conference.

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In Australia East a lot of work has gone into the development of a Hub-model that I believe we, as time goes on, will see widely replicated. The Hub project marks a key step for the Territory in bringing their mission priorities into action. A hub in a particular area is the focal point of collaboration, assuring that regular meetings of the leaders of all the expressions of Army working a given locality are held. Thereby all should be informed about each other’s work, be able to share resources, and be mutually supporting leadership. The programme has four key values:

1. Holistic missional engagement, holistic mission being undertaken in every expression of The Salvation Army, with every expression focused on leading people on a journey of freedom through action, through community, and ultimately and most importantly freedom through Jesus.

2. Unity, as every expression, every service, every place where the Army Shield is seen, are unified to see holistic mission released. Partnering also takes place with other stakeholders who join in to holistically serve the communities of the missional areas.

3. Bravery, being brave in innovation and creativity, brave in our accountability and relationships, brave in our trust of the Holy Spirit.

4. Strategy, offering a challenge for The Salvation Army to be strategic in their undertakings, their sacrificial sharing of resources and in their prayers.

Finally, I share an example of a new holistic mission expression in Denmark. Nakskov is a small town where, there once was a small, vibrant Salvation Army. However, industry closed down, property prices went down and people moved away, except for victims of substance abuse or other marginalised who could now find cheap accommodation. After years of struggling, The Salvation Army had to close the dying corps. That would have been the end of story, had it not been for the local authorities who approached the Army, begging them to stay: “You cannot leave, we need you!”

Negotiations with the authorities led to a plan - a community day centre, providing cheap meals, combined with a night shelter for the homeless, run by the Army and 90 per cent subsidised by the local authorities. At the same time a second hand shop and a recycling centre were set up by The Salvation Army to provide job training for unemployed and creating a surplus income that would help the Army cover the missing part of the financing. The 10 per cent own contribution was intentional for the Army to have a chapel, a spiritual identity and ministry in the centre. A team was appointed, two young families moved to Naksov in response to a clear call from God. One couple was employed for the centre, and of the other couple the one spouse was engaged in the recycling centre and the other spouse had a job at the local hospital. There were no ‘corps’ but as a team, and with their young children, they formed a worshipping community with plenty of corps-like activities – prayer and Bible study, cell groups, 16

alpha-course, youth clubs, dance group, outings, weekends, camps … nothing permanent, constant changes and experiments, but people got saved.

Over time, things have developed. Children and family work made it desirable to have facilities outside the centre, outside the drug environment, and they now have a corps on top of the second hand shop, although ‘the power room’ in the centre is also being used.

This model works because of the number of different relationships, as people get linked to each other and to the Army in various ways. What is the secret behind success? It is the quality of the relationships and a deep spiritual life that makes Jesus the centre of our fellowship. Yes, clients who were addicts have been saved, but also people who link up with the services as volunteers or employees are finding their new identity and destination in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Conclusion You may find this ‘messy’ and even chaotic, but for me integrated, holistic ministry means lots of relationship and deeper relationships.

A response by Mr Paul Bamfo Ghana Territory I agree with Commissioner Eva Marseille that we share one mission which fully represents the pillars of the Salvation Army – saving souls, growing saints and serving suffering humanity.

As Commissioner Marseille explains William Booth and the early preachers sought to achieve this mission which is integrated aimed at satisfying and transforming man in totality: “The soulsaving mission of The Salvation Army is reaching out, wanting to touch people with the transforming and life-giving message of Jesus.”

But The Salvation Army also reaches out to touch people’s lives in other ways: the caring touch, drying a tear, touching the ‘untouchable’, not only from a distance, or from a platform, but coming alongside, bending down, kneeling to serve. This reinforces the belief that the best way to serve people and understand their situation is coming alongside them. This could be achieved by building deeper relationships.

The writer seeks to draw our attention about the importance of relationship building in achieving our mission: •

The gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation is the power to restore relationships, 17

•

Evangelism is carried out through building relationships

•

And community engagement, transforming society, is building deeper relationships”

We could only achieve this by leaving our comfort zone and coming along side communities and people living with the problem and stimulating response within. Taping into the local resources and experience and being part of the community or the people.

But in doing this, our actions and activities must be directed by the power of the Holy Spirit being manifested in our lives and experiencing God’s moment “Kairos moment” Our relationships as Christians should be seen in our relationship with God, our relationship with ‘suffering humanity’ and in relationship with each other.

Commissioner Marseille states, The gap between rich and poor is widening, and while recognising the deeper needs of spiritual poverty in all layers of the population, we must retain our contact with ‘the marginalised’.

I agree strongly with the four program values stated by the writer as: Holistic Mission Engagement, Unity, Bravery and Strategy.

I believe that to achieve this, communication amongst us is very important. Information and resources sharing improving on our relationship with God, Our community and ourselves – as organisation , individuals, departments and units.

I will end by quoting General John Larsson who clearly tell us the need for us to work together as One Army.

“The hallmark of the Salvation Army is Integrated Mission, Salvationist are called to Minister to the whole person – health, Physical, mental social and spiritual to every person and it is that comprehensive understanding of salvation that The Salvation Army is dedicated.”

There is no doubt that when everything we do as Army is put together, The Salvation Army is very embodiment of integrated Mission. But it is when we view each Salvation Army corps or centre or programme on its own that we need to pause and think. Ideally every unit, every programme, however specialized should reflect to some degree the breadth vision of integrated mission represent: salvation as physical, mental, social and spiritual health for every person”.

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