All Terrain questions 10 and

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Perhaps it’s because so often joy takes us by surprise. As Danielle Strickland suggests in episode 21 of The All Terrain Podcast, ‘We’re so prone to functionality that we can view the interruptions or disruptions in our days as irritations rather than invitations for joy.’

Psychologist Dr Kate Middleton says in episode 17 that we should even seek to make joy a habit. She asks, ‘Do you value and make enough space for the things that will bring you joy – the things that will reliably lift your mood and sustain you even when everything else is really difficult? They could be things like making time for close friendships, losing yourself in worship or simply enjoying a good cup of coffee. For me, biking always brings me joy. It will always lift my mood.’

EXPERIENCING JOY IN RELATIONSHIPS

In episode 12 of the podcast, Dr Krish Kandiah claims that ‘relationships are the means through which we experience joy’. This certainly rings true if we consider John’s Gospel, which was written to the Christians in Ephesus and which Dr Alexander John Shaia says addresses the question of how we receive joy.

‘At the end of the 1st century, Ephesus was a major seaport and the fourth largest city in the Greco-Roman world,’ Shaia explains. ‘Both port and capital city, it boasted a culturally diverse and thriving population.’ Amid that diversity, the church had developed a powerful unity. The Christians had a glimpse of shalom, the Hebrew word that the Old Testament uses to describe the peace, wholeness, unity, harmony, fulfilment, prosperity, fruitfulness and joy that were present in the garden of Eden.

General Brian Peddle, who features in episode 11 of the podcast, has witnessed something of that unity in diversity while visiting The Salvation Army around the world. When host Matt White asks him if there is still joy in The Salvation Army, his face lights up: ‘Oh, dear Lord, you haven’t danced in the Punjab! You haven’t turned up where an earthquake has killed thousands and seen 18,000 Salvationists – as well as all our Muslim friends in the community who we work with – at a service of thanksgiving and heard them sing their song of joy!

‘I’ve been to a safe house where people are being rescued from modern slavery, where I listened to 18-year-old Mary sing a song that told a terrible story. But her tagline was “the best is yet to come”. And I could see in that young Burundian’s face that there was joy.

‘Is there joy in The Salvation Army? I would say unequivocally yes! And if somebody wanted to argue with me, I’d take them on.’

STAYING OPEN TO JOY

Joy can be short-lived. The film scene described earlier continues with everyone watching Theo, Kee and the baby in hushed silence as they emerge New episodes of The All Terrain Podcast are released on the last Friday of the month on Apple Podcasts, Podbean and Spotify. Episode 24 is available now and features Mike Pilavachi MBE, the co-founder and leader of Soul Survivor.

Sketch notes and group questions that support each episode can be downloaded from the podcast’s webpage at salvationarmy.org.uk/

youth-and-children.

from the building and walk to safety. But a new explosion abruptly snaps everyone back to reality – and the fighting resumes, just as before. It is clear, however, that Theo has been changed by the encounter and becomes determined to see through his mission of getting the child to safety.

Receiving God’s gift of joy is genuinely life-changing. But if joy often takes us by surprise and is largely experienced through our relationships with others, perhaps the biggest challenge for us in receiving joy is to maintain an openness to others.

In his book, The End of Youth Ministry?, Andrew Root says: ‘Joy … is the communal experience of life coming out of death, which produces union with God and neighbour. It can be an individual experience, but it always takes us into something beyond us.’

Receiving joy requires that we let others in.

MATT WORSHIPS AT SUTTON AND WRITES THE ALL TERRAIN PODCAST SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS

How do we make local mission flourish?

Lieutenant Wan Gi Lee considers the challenge of church growth

IN recent days I have been observing a debate about church growth and the way forward with great interest. The topic is not new to us at all, but what is striking and different is its bold vision with numerical targets. Last summer the Church of England announced a plan for 10,000 new churches over the next decade. We are in a pandemic that has caused a decrease in attendance at Sunday worship. How, then, could this ambitious vision have been proposed?

We in The Salvation Army are also looking for a way forward in God as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is being made concrete under the slogan ‘local mission flourishing’. Many divisional forums and discussions are taking place, along with prayers for discernment. In navigating this important missional objective, I believe there are things we can reflect on from the Church of England’s project.

CHANGING PERSPECTIVE

First, mission flourishing is about a change of perspective, especially on leadership at a local level. There are many corps that have no officers. In those corps, however, there are people with potential and gifts to lead the congregation. We need to recognise them and motivate them to use their gifts for the Kingdom. This change of perspective lies at the heart of the Church of England’s plan for 10,000 new churches, as it suggests a growth model that empowers lay leadership.

EMPOWERING PEOPLE

Empowering God’s people in each corps setting is an inevitable task for local mission. For this, I suggest something called ‘personal missional initiative talk’ as a practical way to engage with gifted people. We have been doing this at St Albans Corps over the past year and we are starting to gather its fruits. We have carried out one-to-one talks with people over a coffee, gently pulling out their strengths and gifts in order to bring their own missional initiatives forward for the corps and the community.

One example is our recently launched Marijuana Addiction Support Group. We started the initiative after talking with a corps member who had struggled greatly with this addiction. As he became free from it by the grace of the Lord, we recognised his wound and compassion as God’s given potential. Following several months of ongoing talks and prayers for discernment, he responded to this initiative and organised the community mission in our corps. It is

now widely open to all in the community, especially those who are struggling with addiction. The mission is well received and growing.

This is an example of how God uses his people from all walks of life. God used someone’s wound in the past to help them respond to suffering people with greater empathy and compassion.

Gifts and potentials don’t need to be glamorous. The challenge for us is whether we can recognise such wounds as divine gifts so that they can be used for the Kingdom. ‘Nothing is wasted in God’s economy,’ says Tony Horsfall in Attentive to God.

Our personal missional initiative talks are also bearing fruit in homelessness mission, prayer ministry, preaching and ecumenical dialogues, as people in the congregation have responded with what they can offer to God and the community.

Without rediscovering people’s potential, local mission cannot be fruitful. Officers come and go but empowered people in the corps will still be there. I believe motivating and supporting local leaders through using this kind of

personal missional initiative talk is crucial to making local mission flourish.

WIDER PARTNERSHIPS

Another important task is to develop wider partnerships with other groups. During the pandemic the need to care for homeless friends and people in poverty has been growing continually in our community. To respond to this need we prayed for a local partnership and God opened a new door, allowing us to form a good relationship with a homelessness help group.