On the first Sunday in July we at The Salvation Army in many settings around the world, traditionally celebrate Founders’ Day and Covenant Renewal.
A day in which we remember our history, commit to the future, and encourage people to consider their covenant as a member, be that an adherent, a soldier, or an officer of The Salvation Army 😃
Now if you have the Lectio 365 App, a Christian daily devotional resource that helps you and I encounter God and shape our lives by praying the Bible every day. You would have noticed on the 2nd of July a devotional written by Phil Togwell ‘Catherine & William Booth: Heroes of Justice and Hospitality’.
Which got me thinking about what other devotionals are out there about The Salvation Army Founders.
A quick google search tells me that there are about 1,910,000 results, admittedly when you start scrolling through you find multiple mentions for books and devotionals that have been written that feature William & Catherine etc.
But one caught my eye, a devotional entitled “William and Catherine Booth and Audious Evangelism”, this has been written as part of another church’s three year devotional series, to encourage and motivate its members to be effective in their life, faith and ministry.
As I read through it I thought it quite pertinent for those of us within The Salvation Army, it reads;
The Salvation Army was born in May, 1878. News of the name change fired the imagination of the East London Christian Mission workers and soon military words and phrases were popping up everywhere.
The Bible was now a “sword.” Larger mission houses became “citadels” and smaller ones “forts.” Groups of workers called themselves “troops” who together made up “corps.” Everyone wanted a rank. Part-time workers over 15 years of age became soldiers and full-time workers became officers.
When they preached, the captains opened with “Fire a volley” and the audience yelled back a mighty “Hallelujah.” When it was time to pray, everyone did “knee drill.” Bible reading became “taking rations.” The Christian Mission Magazine was renamed The War Cry and a second magazine was published for children called Little Soldiers.
A uniform was adopted and worn proudly. William Booth came up with a pattern for the Salvation Army flag. It had a red background for the blood of Jesus, a blue border for the holiness of God and a yellow sun for the fire of the Holy Spirit. The new mission motto, “Blood and Fire,” was emblazoned across it.
Soldiers and captains competed for the best way to draw a crowd. A converted drunk did a show that involved Houdini-like escapes to illustrate his “Trap Doors of Hell” sermon. Another soldier who had been in the Navy wore half his old uniform down one side and half his Salvation Army uniform down the other side to illustrate his old life and his new life as a soldier for Christ.
William’s son, Bramwell, sometimes climbed into a coffin and was carried along the streets to St. Paul’s Cathedral by six men. Once they reached the steps, the young evangelist would jump out and begin preaching on life after death. Another man decided to lie perfectly still in the snow near a local marketplace. When a crowd gathered he would preach on how God can thaw the coldest heart.
The newspapers called this new Salvation Army and its methods “unbecoming and extreme” but the people loved it and it continued to grow. Opposition was increasing and the Salvation Army was soon to know its first martyr, but for now the Army was growing so quickly that William did not want to quench what the Holy Spirit was doing in their midst.
William Booth desired to win the lost for Christ! He walked the streets of London to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the poor, the homeless, the hungry and the destitute. He abandoned the conventional concept of a church and a pulpit, instead taking his message to the people. His fervor led to disagreements with other church leaders, who preferred traditional methods.
He is quoted as saying “If I thought I could win one more soul to the Lord by walking on my head and playing the tambourine with my toes, I’d learn how!”
What lengths will you go to to win a soul for His Kingdom? Are our ‘methods “unbecoming and extreme”’? Or have we succumbed to the more traditional methods?
How are you fueling the fire of the Holy Spirit within your own life to motivate you to act?
‘William did not want to quench what the Holy Spirit was doing in their midst.’ Are we by putting processes and systems, policies and procedures in place, to create some semblance of control and order, quenching what it is that the Holy Spirit wants to do in and through us? Or are our processes and systems, policies and procedures their to ensure that we achieve the overall holistic mission?
In writing to the Army at the beginning of the 20th Century William Booth said; “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be; religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.“
Oh that we would become emboldened and audacious enough in our evangelism to “go straight for souls, and go for the worst!”
Remembering that as our founder once said;
“to get a man soundly saved – it is not enough to put on him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or even to give him a university education. These things are all outside a man, and if the inside remains unchanged you have wasted your labor.
You must in some way or other graft upon the man’s nature a new nature, which has in it the element of the Divine.”
The both/and of our salvation mission! Blessings ’til next time 🙂
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