Ten words to remember for ‘More’

Each month on Salvos Online, Rosy, the Territorial Secretary for Spiritual Life Development, shares her thoughts and reflections on the spiritual issues that shape our lives as Christians, exploring how our faith intersects with our everyday experiences and how we can deepen our relationship with God. Today, she focuses on two events that reflected The Salvation Army’s strategy for strengthening its mission in Jesus’ name.

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Last month, I had the pleasure of attending two events in drastically different locations, yet the vine of Jesus Christ bore fruit on both occasions.

I was in Darwin and Adelaide for the South Australia/Northern Territory Division’s introduction to The Salvation Army Australia’s National Strategy, which is being rolled out.

Then it was off to the Gold Coast, where I attended the exciting MORE Conference, designed to encourage and equip our leaders working in youth and young adult ministry.

Firstly, the strategy. As we met with groups in Darwin and Adelaide, we had the distinct joy of affirming that this strategy is simply a consolidation of what so many of us are already doing.

Commissioner Miriam Gluyas puts it this way ... 10 words to remember: Spiritual and Social Transformation. Holistic Integrated Mission. Local Mission Delivery.

If you’re anything like me, it can take a few passes through a dense sentence to understand it. I have been known to swallow a nectarine stone because I was too lazy to take it to the bin, and I almost choked on it! (For the record, don’t try it). So, I want to make sure that, when I am digesting information, it isn’t a similar experience!

Our Salvation Army has always held the cross of Jesus as the ‘and’ between Spiritual and Social Transformation. ‘Soup, Soap and Salvation’ spoke to Catherine and William Booth’s belief that a person could not always hear the Good News clearly if they were hungry and frightened, with nowhere to sleep that night.

In providing succour, an old-school word for rest and relief, the hope was that the Good News would permeate their whole person as the person of Christ became hope revealed through Spirit-soaked Salvationists. The promise was that we would be ready to share the Good News of God when they asked why we were helping.

It was because of the love of Jesus, who loves each of the people we serve more than anyone else does.

Now for Holistic Integrated Mission.

Holistic is a word that sometimes gets a bad rap for being a bit ‘woo-woo’. But holistic is much like the te reo Māori word hauora, which means whole-of-life wellness.

Who wouldn’t want that?

We believe in whole people, whole lives, whole communities and whole nations being transformed by Christ’s power!

Integrated mission is not merely about working together. It is about thinking, planning, operating and serving in an interwoven way, like a plaited mat that many Pasifika cultures make together. Each piece of flax is carefully selected, prepared and threaded over and under, as elders disciple younger people in the craft.

Holistic Integrated Mission is a worldview in which we bring a spiritual view of wholeness into our operations through true unity. As a movement, every expression works in harmony, deliberately choosing oneness and seeking one another out for expertise, partnership and planning, so we can work more fully together to serve the needs of our communities.

And Local Mission Delivery is the practice of on-the-ground, frontline ministry: bringing mission to life in every place with a Red Shield on the door.

From our Salvos Stores to our playgroups, from our Salvos Funerals service to our alcohol and other drug centres, our staff, volunteers, retired officers and donors are all part of a larger network that loves and lives in its local community.

I had a picture in Adelaide when I took Divisional Commander Scott Frame’s shoe off and declared that, just as the lace on our shoe is one, it weaves across two distinct sides. It goes through every lace hole to secure the shoe.

Every expression of our movement needs to be laced together: our soldiery and social services, our worshipping communities, enterprise and support, all alongside one another, for social and spiritual transformation to happen.

For Holistic Integrated Mission to happen, we need the laces pulled together. No expressions or holes can be missed. That way, we won’t trip over loose laces. And when we commit to unity and remaining together, it means we will be fleet of foot: faster and more effective in running to meet the needs of our people through our Local Mission Delivery.

I saw this so clearly as we worshipped together at MORE Conference with the children, youth and young adult leaders of our Territory. You should have seen it! For the record, it’s every year, and you can go in 2027!

What joy to see the interlacing and the heart of our movement at its best; to hear teaching on sustainable leadership, times of ministry, connection and upskilling, prophetic prayer and worship, and times of planning together with our teams, as we look for ways in The Salvation Army to keep moving together as one.

All three days together were about drawing the threads (or the flax) together and ‘go back out’: filled with the Holy Spirit, who brings dead things to life. Together we usher in hope for the whole world.

The strategy is a seed.

It is about being sent.

As Christians, we are a people sent to the nations and the ends of the earth with the Good News of Jesus Christ. As those who serve with The Salvation Army, no matter our capacity, those 10 words signal a laser-sharp focus on being an army of salvation, sent to bring the Good News to those whom society often sidelines, and to minister to Australians who need our practical help the most.

Our young people will be the ones leading the way. In the next article, I’ll explain how I see that happening through our youth and young adult spiritual life forums, discipling, and reverse mentoring.

Spiritual and social transformation. Holistic integrated mission. Local mission delivery.

And all for the one word that defined the life of General William Booth: ‘Others’.