Amelie’s answer to prayer – at 10,000m in the air
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
BY LAUREN MARTIN
When Amelie Ashley attended The Salvation Army More Conference last year for Salvos who were working or volunteering in youth ministry, she was struck by something keynote speaker Danielle Strickland said about The Salvation Army being ‘set apart’ as a movement of God.
“That part really stuck with me,” Amelie remembers. “I left [the More conference] feeling really inspired and motivated to try something new.”
Amelie has been a Salvo for her whole life and has recently taken on the role of Youth and Children’s Worker at her corps, South Barwon Salvos in Geelong, Victoria.
When God placed the concept of being ‘set apart’ in her heart, she began to pray about what he wanted her to do. She had the idea of starting a night service at her corps, but nothing else. She wasn’t sure whether that was her idea or God’s. When she spoke to her mentor, Auxiliary-Lieutenant Rosy Keane (Territorial Spiritual Life Director), her advice was to “keep praying about it”.
So, she did.
God’s vision revealed
A little while later, after spending a week in Perth with a friend, God opened the floodgates with answered prayer when Amelie was flying home, 10,000m above the desert heart of Australia.
“On one side, I looked to the plane’s outstretched wing, flying over a pink-hued sunset. On the other side of me was a woman who, for four hours straight, was reading the Bible on her phone. Every now and then, I would look over to see where she was up to. She was reading through John,” says Amelie.
“It was from that seat that I wrote this manifesto of sorts – the spirit was undoubtedly present in row 27. These words just poured out from me, and ‘Set Apart’ was born. By the end of the flight, I had a vision, a prayer and a synthesised proposal for these night meetings.”
In early November last year, despite Amelie openly admitting she had “no idea what I was doing,” she and a team she had assembled launched Set Apart, a night service with a difference, at South Barwon Corps.
“I really had no idea what I was doing. What I did know was that God was leading me to these ideas of holiness; he was continuing to fuel these ideas of a night service and was weaving these ideas into conversations, sermons, and readings throughout my weeks [in the lead-up to the launch of the service]. It was undeniable. God was placing this on my heart, and I needed to act on it. So, I did.”
Rosy, who attended the first Set Apart service, says the response was incredible.
“There were 50 or 60 people there … we had a structure of chicken wire up the front, and Amelie invited people at any point to come up and weave some strips of material into the wire. It challenged the stereotype of a church meeting where the leaders are up the front and those gathered are just sitting down.
“People began doing this in the background as people were speaking, teaching or worshipping, and it became part of the whole experience. You could watch people doing this, weaving; it was really special.”
For Amelie, just as she had trusted God in the process of listening to his call and obeying, she felt the Holy Spirit’s presence during that first Set Apart service, leading and guiding her.
“It was a beautiful night,” she said. “A night of openness and vulnerability and sharing and love and joy. It was a holy meeting. It was different, maybe a little bit weird. But it was special.
“Lots of corps have a Sunday morning service, and we do it really well, but how often are we getting opportunities to explore worship or learning about Scripture and discussing it together in groups, and exploring creativity in our faith, outside of a structured sermon-and-response?”
Rosy Keane (left) speaks at the first Set Apart night, which attracted about 50 worshippers.
Encouragement for others
Amelie says she’s encouraged that God is still using The Salvation Army as a missional movement, set apart from other churches to reach those in our communities who are hurting and broken.
And she’s urging other young Salvos to be brave and step out in obedience as well.
“Don’t be afraid to try something new, … I think, ‘Why am I running a night service? I’m just like a random 20-year-old girl, I don’t have any qualifications to be doing this!’ It is kind of cool.”
Rosy agrees. She is mentoring 10 young people across Australia and says the future of The Salvation Army is bright ... if we allow young people to follow the spirit into new ways of expressing The Salvation Army’s unique DNA.
“Young people want to lead differently; they want to be brave and give their lives up for Jesus. They don’t want to be hemmed in by tradition, but they don’t want to abandon it either,” said Rosy.
“They want to honour the spirit of The Salvation Army by expressing it via the Holy Spirit in the ways that they have now. I have seen them grow deeper in their faith. If they have someone supporting them – someone like me or you or any of us – hopefully alongside their parents or those who care for them, saying, ‘You can do this!’ who knows what God will do through our young people!”
The next Set Apart evening will be held on 22 February (5:30pm) at South Barwon Corps, Victoria.
