Salvos invest in church unity
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
BY LAUREN MARTIN
The Salvation Army is employing six Local City Mission Catalysts to work to connect local churches and mobilise them to serve their local communities.
The roles, which have already been advertised, are being partially funded by The Salvation Army, and partially funded by the churches of the city in which they will work.
City to City Australia, an organisation that assists churches to unify for mission, is supporting the roles through training and resourcing.
Ryde Corps Salvationist Grieg Whittaker is the Director of Movement at City to City Australia and has been instrumental in the design of the new Salvation Army Local City Mission Catalyst positions.
“Essentially the catalyst role is to connect the church to the city and the city to the church,” he said. “They are the conduit of connection.”
The roles are being strategically located in six areas of Australia where churches have already been on a journey towards unity and oneness. The locations are Victor Harbour in South Australia; the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney in New South Wales; Gold Coast and Cairns in Queensland; Frankston in Victoria and Ryde in Sydney. The position in Ryde has been operational for a number of years as a pilot program, and the success of church unity at mobilising Christians for mission has been the driver for the expansion. Each catalyst position will work with existing corps and mission expressions in the area that they are located in.
Assistant Chief-Secretary - Mission Major Kim Haworth said The Salvation Army has a heart for oneness across the body of Christ and is in a unique position to draw Christians together for mission.
“There is such favour on The Salvation Army in Australia, and that means we can open doors that sometimes other churches cannot. This puts us in a prime position to leverage that favour for the benefit of transforming local cities with the love of Jesus, where this role is placed around the country,” she said.
“Our mission is to transform lives and communities both spiritually and socially and the best way we can do that is by uniting with the broader body of Christ. When we join with the wider church, we have greater opportunity to bring heaven to earth and advance the kingdom of God through our combined work.”
The six locations chosen are part of a two-year trial, where the learnings from the catalyst position will be used to scale the project, if successful. The catalyst workers will work with churches to develop opportunities for mission, connecting Christians with places and people.
According to Greig, the goal is that every Christian in the areas would know their “Three P’s”:
- A Place to be missionally connected.
- A Person or persons to walk alongside and share the love of Jesus.
- A Partner to come and join them who is not from the church and doesn’t know Jesus but wants to come on mission.
“Churches have been good with vertical discipleship, that’s ‘me and God,” said Greig.
“The mission catalyst will help pastors to mobilise their people to have their vocation discipleship pathway enabled for them.”
For Greig, the generous posture of The Salvation Army towards resourcing all churches in a city for mission is at the heart of God’s mission for the world: “All of a sudden, we’re saying we’re not just about our brand, we’re about the Kingdom of God. Everything God has given us, we are going to give to the body of Christ, including our brand!
“This is the way God always designed the Body of Christ to be.”
