Spiritual Life Forums seeking God’s direction for The Salvation Army
- 20 hours ago
- 2 min read
BY LAUREN MARTIN
A series of Spiritual Life Forums being set up across the country will help inform leadership about God’s direction and The Salvation Army’s spiritual focus for the Australia Territory.
The divisional forums were first conceptualised in June 2025 in response to feedback given during divisional ‘listening visits’ conducted by the national Spiritual Life Committee (SLC).
“The Spiritual Life Team realised the need to hear what God’s voice is saying to the frontline to inform the wider discernment of the Spiritual Life Committee,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Reid, Assistant to the Territorial Commander.
In setting up a Spiritual Life Forum (SLF), each division was asked to prayerfully consider its membership and to make sure it included different generations of soldiers, adherents, Christian employees and young people who are actively affiliated with corps.
Assistant Divisional Commander for Victoria Division, Major Kate Baudinette, said their Divisional Spiritual Life Forum (DSLF) meets monthly and consists of 10 members who are “spiritually attentive, engaged in their local context, and able to reflect on what they are sensing God is doing.”
“The DSLF plays a really significant role in helping us ‘take the spiritual temperature’ of the division. It provides space to listen deeply — to God, and to one another — rather than simply focusing on activity or outcomes,” she said.
And there are a number of themes emerging from the members’ prayer and discernment:
• The need to grow a deeper culture of prayer, particularly for the raising up of leaders
• The hearing of encouraging, and also challenging, experiences of discipleship
• The call to invest in underdeveloped areas of ministry (particularly with men)
• A sense that God is at work and an invitation for The Salvation Army to respond
“One of the things I’ve appreciated most about the DSLF is the posture it creates. It’s not primarily a decision-making group, it’s a discernment space,” she said.
“We’re intentionally asking questions like, ‘Where do we see God at work?’, ‘How are people responding?’, and ‘What is the Spirit inviting us into?’
“That posture has been really life-giving. It reminds us that spiritual leadership begins with listening — and that our role is to join in with what God is already doing.”
Feedback from each Divisional Spiritual Life Forum is provided to the Spiritual Life Committee, whose members are charged with guiding the movement to live out its faith, focusing on prayer, listening to people and making Jesus central to all they do.
