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1 John 1:5-10
Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
- We can say we have
F___________ with Him but
W_________ in D___________
(v.6)2. We can say we have no
S_______ and
D_____________ ourselves
(v8)3. We say we K________ HIM
but do not keep His
C_______________ (2:4)
4. We say we are in the
L_________, but H________
our B_________ or
S__________ in Christ (2:9)
At the other end of the spectrum is the ignoring and tolerance of sin issues in your corps. Be mindful that we are not the judge of our world, but we do hold a high standard for our fellow brothers and sister in Christ who wear this uniform. This almost seems to be in complete conflict with the first point, but it is not. Galatians 6:1 clearly reminds us as it did in Paul’s day – “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
Officer(s). Yes, they have had training, yes they are leaders, but they cannot lead properly without the core leaders to help them. A shared vision and delegated group will be better equipped to handle opportunities and threats that come to your corps and community. If you don’t currently have core leaders, begin by praying and asking God to reveal potential leaders to you. Prayer is never a last resort, but a constant conversation. Don’t limit your search to just the older members, the younger generations will eventually replace us at some point, so begin to invest in them. Begin to disciple them, and display for them what leadership is all about! Gather one or two influential people with common sense to help you in your corps. Remember, that we are an egalitarian movement – both men and women are equal, so do not limit your leadership search to just men or just women. Without a core group of leaders, the vision and movement will be limited.
and what we do as a corps, that we begin to have no need for the “outside world”. We stop looking out into our community and we become self-reliant and self-focused. In this danger, what happens when our congregation gets old and dies? Will there be youth to raise up and take our place? Will be just be a group of inbred soldiers? I don’t mean to sound crass, but the reality is, we need to stop being afraid of our communities. We need to stop treating the people outside our buildings as “those people” with a sense of superiority. We must squelch the desire to just remain in our buildings and selfishly focus on “us”. What about the great commission? What are we fighting for if we only fight for ourselves and our traditions and self-interests? If we are all-in and inwardly focused, we will slowly die away…and no one will care when we’re gone.
This is probably a rare thing, but perhaps not. Perhaps there are some corps that have so many services to the community that worship and all things “Spiritual” are an after thought, and then you come to Sunday and it just becomes a “thing we do”. We focus all of our energies on the outside, on meeting human needs but we seldom meet those needs “in HIS name” anymore. We might as well be just another social service agency or a humanitarian group, because we will have forgotten our first love and the “body” will be just bits and pieces pulled and stretched so thin that it doesn’t resemble Christ any longer.
vision and goal because “they have been set, and we don’t alter these goals”. Goals should never be so rigid that there is no looking back and re-evaluating what works and what does not work, whether it be in evangelism, discipleship, or corps fellowship growth strategies. Remember what worked 100 years ago, might not necessarily be the best method to use in an ever evolving culture. Not to say we adopt our culture, but we ought to consider what works and what does not work any longer and not be so rigid that we refuse to ever change how we plan and how we enact a strategy in our corps. Rigidity can kill your corps, and stifle any potential growth you might see.
If you corps does not understand Holiness, and or it is never preached on spoken of, perhaps this might be an indicator of a terminal issue. I am not saying that holiness is the end-all be-all of the corps, but what do you do with Salvation after receiving it? Where does one go after initial sanctification? Does the Holy Spirit still desire to transform us through and through? Does He not want us to be the very reflection of Christ? Yes. There needs to be continual conversation about our surrendered life and how that looks in the real world.
emulating elders we respect, this is becoming more than who we are now. Walking in the footsteps of saints and in so doing, we too become saints within this great army. If your corps does not have this vital element, closely connected to holiness, you could be facing extinction. Recognize this need, and do something!!
to be in the bygone days. We can rest comfortably on financial resources and riches we have been given from various places, and never take another risk again…and if we do this, we. will. die. I cannot stress it enough, in order for God to change our Army, we have to become uncomfortable again. We have to take risks and forget what the rules and regulations say. We have to close dead corps, move to places of need without bureaucratic red tape hamstringing us along the way. We have to get out of our pews and put feet to our professed faith. It’s either put up or shut-up. Seriously, we can talk a good game, but if we can’t back it up, then hung it up and quit already. We don’t need fans in the stands not doing the work. We don’t need complainers and criticizers telling it us it can’t be done – because the risk is too great. If we don’t do something, we might as well put our corps on life-support right now. There is a sad trend that is taking place in our corps around the USA, and our corps are not statistically growing anymore. We are not busting out of our corps buildings anymore. Yes, perhaps it’s across the board in all denominations, but could it be that we are so comfortable now that we have stopped ACTUALLY trying to reach our communities? Could this be an entire systemic issue of spiritual laziness? Forgive me if I offend you today, I can’t help but feel alarmed at how swiftly our corps are dying. And I can’t help but wonder what the next 50 years will hold for this movement? If we do nothing, we will not be here in 50 years…not like we have been, not like we should be…and then perhaps, Lord forbid, God raises up someone else to do what we should have been doing.
comers into our midst? Don’t be too quick to dismiss this assertion. Don’t rush to say, “well we are always friend”…those kinds of generalities do not always paint an accurate picture. It is true, even in the The Salvation Army, that change is not always easy to embrace. Change can be big stresses like moving corps buildings, but it can also be lesser stresses, yet still considered “change” such as inviting new members into you fold.
One of the dangers of wearing the uniform and serving the corps can be “power”. We might not do this consciously but perceived power while in uniform can bring us from humble to prideful in a heartbeat. It is very easy to complain that the dirty, disheveled person coming into our Holiness meeting is just looking for a box of food and anything we will give them. We then hold the power, we then, whether we see it or not can assume a place of superiority of that “wretch” in need. Even the disciples had moments of superiority – sometimes attempting to run of children who wanted to hang out with Jesus because they didn’t want to disturb their teacher. We can fall into this “I’m better than them” mentality if we are not careful. One of the chief dangers in becoming a close knit family in our corps is that if new people come, they are outsider and not truly welcome. Special concerted effort must be given to avoid this trap.
#10 “My Heart Is Fixed” (#507) 
#8 “O Jesus Thou Art Standing” (#614) 
#6 “I Stand All Bewildered with wonder” (#849) 
or maybe maybe this:
These iconic images of prayer are okay, but are they really what prayer looks like and should be for us today? Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting some of us might fold our hands like this when we pray, but by and large our prayer life probably looks more like this:
up from the comfortable sofa and putting on their shoes and attempting to run a marathon without any training. Sure, some might actually finish, but by and large most would fall flat on their faces in utter exhaustion.
heroin. How he had a 7 year old daughter that he could no longer see because drugs had become more important. He sat there long faced with sunken eyes, a shell of what he once had been. Brandon had not used in six days, and he was feeling the effects of withdrawal. In that small waiting room, parents were clinging to one final hope. A hope that would take a miracle in preventing their son from dying of an imminent drug overdose. Brandon’s parents had brought him to us because there was no where else to go.
“While women weep, as they do now,
Pastor's Ponderings 