Meet the Officer – Captain Chris Ford

1. What is your current appointment, and what do you find most satisfying about it?

I am the Corps Officer/Team Member at Stafford Corps in Brisbane. I’m also the local and integrated mission specialist for Queensland, supporting all our local teams. I have a third unofficial role of being the IT and network Audio Visual Champion for Queensland. So, I support the frontline in their technical needs because that speaks to what I used to do prior to being a Salvation Army officer.

What I enjoy the most about what I get to do is getting to just interact with people, getting to know our frontline and to be able to work with them, and particularly in my local and integrated role, being able to then support them so as to bring the Kingdom of God nearer to where they are.

2. Away from your appointment – if that’s possible! – what do you do to relax or unwind?

Anything that accepts a V8 engine is normally a pretty good start! So, I am a motorsport nut. Prior to children, I raced open-class sprint car. Throughout my AV career, I did quite a bit of work in the supercars and with supercar teams. So, now I follow V8 Supercars and NASCAR and every year I go to Bathurst – I’m one of those tragics who go to the race every year. There’s a group of us who will go and it’s a great time. Anything with a motor is pretty good for me.

3. What’s a favourite Christian song and why do you like it?

I’ve just got a new one that I have recently found by Sidewalk Prophets called ‘Father, Let It Be’. It’s all around chasing the will of God and finding what the will of God is in your life:  Oh Father, let it be, Father let it be. It has really been talking to me over the last few weeks, probably a little bit to do with just finishing a preaching series on seeking God’s will and saying, God, just tell me. I’m just really getting to enjoying that song at the moment.

4. If you could have a good talk with a biblical character apart from Jesus, who would it be and what would you talk about?

I’ve got to tell a funny story. In my previous appointment up in Gladstone, I was the leader of the Christian leaders, and we had a whole heap of us, about 30 church pastors, in a room, and I proposed an icebreaker question very similar to this one. The question was: If Jesus were beside you now, what would you ask him? And it was amazing. What really blew me away in the conversation was how many did not know what to say. We are talking a bunch of trained, qualified clergy, and they just did not know what they would say. That’s what got me interested more than anything.

So, coming back to the question, I really would like to talk with Apostle Paul. I love the transformation story of Paul from and seeing where he goes in his life, and from a life where he was essentially a persecuted Christian, through to a life where he’s sharing the good news and the gospel message of Jesus – and everything in between. I love that. I would really love to just be able to sit down and talk to him, particularly some of those hard things he’s been through, like times in prison, for example, and being stoned for his beliefs and these types of things, and just say to him, how did you do it? How did you get through when it was so tough? I know we would obviously jump to Jesus in that comment, but it’s a really hard life to live, and he portrayed that so well.

5. If you were talking to a group of Salvationists and they asked if you recommended officership or not, what would you say?

I tend to be a bit of an outside-the-box thinker, and so I would probably say why not? – and flip the question around. There are so many reasons why people could say no to being an officer. But do you know what? There are so many reasons why you should. So, I think the question for me would be more around, well, why wouldn’t you want to become an officer? Just being able to be simply immersed in God’s Word, being immersed with God’s people, but also having the absolute joy of being able to take somebody on that transformation journey. So, I would simply ask the Salvationist what fulfils their life? Are you happy staying in the mundane and doing it? I ask this because I was the general manager of an AV company and quite happy where I was – but when God calls, God calls.

More information on Salvation Army officership can be found here.