[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']FROM JUNIOR TO SENIOR[/font][FONT='Times New Roman','serif'][/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']by[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Colonel Hubert Boardman[/font]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']by[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Colonel Hubert Boardman[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] [/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The serious decline in the number of young people being brought through from Junior to Senior Corps must surely be a matter of great concern to us all. Reflecting upon my period of service as Territorial Youth Secretary forty years ago, we were already aware that the strengths provided by the Corps Cadet movement were already waning. More and more young people were facing intensive school study programmes and became less inclined to add to their busy schedule the disciplines of a youth training programme largely based upon studies and written lessons although valiant attempts were made to correct the balance by making Corps Cadet activities more activity based.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The Sunday Morning Directory, which was essentially the teaching of Salvation Army beliefs and principles, was also disappearing, as more and more inroads were made into the traditional British Sabbath, with shops opening and Sunday sports (especially in the morning) becoming more and more the pattern for the recreational life of our young people.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Because it became increasingly less viable, for a multitude of reasons, to produce the Company Orders, by means of which the Sunday afternoon Company Meeting provided sound and systematic bible knowledge, the Army ceased to produce its own teaching material for its young people and over the years various programmes produced by other churches were used, some reasonably successfully, others not particularly suited to our own needs.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']It would appear that there is now complete liberty in setting the Corps teaching programme for young people, and there are Corps which have developed good programmes, usually depending upon the skills of local officers and soldiers involved in these programmes. On the other hand, is it that in many places there is little, if any, systematic teaching and preparation as used to be provided by Directory, Company and Corps Cadet programmes?[/font]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']In other words, even where a Corps is sufficiently blessed to have sufficient children associated with it, are those children really being properly prepared in matters of faith, and does our system provide an easy transition from what, for want of a better phrase, I would describe as moving from junior to senior membership? This is not a plea for trying to put the clock back. That is not possible, but we can and we ought seriously ask the question as to whether we are really properly preparing our children for adult Christian faith, and, hopefully, in consequent of that, effective service within our church, the Salvation Army.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']There is an added problem! Our traditional method of transferring young people from junior to senior Corps has been Recruits Classes (are these usually well prepared and presented?), with subsequent transfer from Junior Soldiership to Senior Soldiership, but what happens if a young person who might well have been well involved in the young peoples activities does not wish to sign Articles of War, wear uniform, transfer to senior musical sections? A Junior Soldier can only be kept on the Y.P. roll until a certain age, and what after that? What if the young person has a genuine Christian experience, wishes to remain in our fellowship, but not accept the disciplines which his forebears were happy to accept? He cannot automatically be placed on the Adherents Roll, nor the Recruits Roll. He might not wish for such a transfer, so we do not appear to have a serious method of ensuring that he retains his membership of our Corps, and if for any reason he moves to another area (maybe for university studies etc.) unless his former Corps Officer is enterprising enough to ensure that the nearest Corps Officer in the district to which he is moving is informed, so that immediate contact can be made, he can easily be lost. Our official transfer system only provides for the transfer of Soldiers, Recruits and Adherents. I wonder how many young people have been lost to us in this way?[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Could it be that we have become far too accustomed to the traditional approach to Salvation Army church membership, and if any reader thinks that by making this suggestion I am proposing a moving away from Salvation Army principles, then be assured that even after all the years I am still totally dedicated to this beloved Army, and was once described by a good friend as having red, yellow and blue blood in my veins.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']We are and should always be a loving, all-embracing church. Of far greater importance than our unique characteristics, even those principles we so dearly cherish, and our way of doing things (including our precious uniform, which has caused so much controversy in recent years) our essential calling is to bring people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, We should focus attention upon this central purpose insofar as our young people are concerned, and examine how best we can achieve that, treating all other Salvation Army characteristics as periphery issues. [/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']This line of thinking was prompted by an exciting account told to me by a comrade retired officer, whose daughter and her husband are serving in Germany. He and his wife had just returned from Germany, where they hade attended the confirmation service of his grandson. The family photograph showed the parents, themselves officers, with their three children, the boy being the youngest. All three have been confirmed and the two older sisters have already moved on from confirmation to enrolment as senior soldiers.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']In Switzerland and Germany it had been the usual practice for many years that young people in the Salvation Army would attend confirmation classes at local churches, and then be confirmed at the church where they attended classes. Some years ago, the Salvation Army in the two countries started holding confirmation classes at local corps, usually led by the Commanding Officers. The Lutheran Protestant Church based course is used, with the addition of some Salvation Army history and the Salvation Army position about the Sacraments. The course is open to those of 12 years and above, and they are supported by a network of family , godparents and corps mentors, three of which stand with the young people during their confirmation ceremony, and each offering prayer.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']This act of confirmation of faith then becomes the entry point to membership of the Salvation Army, and those who have been confirmed are then given opportunity for training and moving on to Soldiership, with its particular disciplines, if they eventually feel this to be the Lords will for them. Such a method of entry into membership would ensure that from that moment onwards their names would be established on Salvation Army rolls, in addition to which the transfer difficulties referred to earlier would be overcome.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']There is, however, the added possibility of resolving a further problem which has complicated the question of how a person comes to belong to the Salvation Army (I use the word belong now as an alternative to membership which might create for some people a difficulty). We now have confusion by virtue of the fact that we have different forms of membership, soldiers, recruits, adherents and people regularly attending meeting (whose names we earlier used to enter into a friends roll). Recalling my earlier years as a Corps Officer, we had clearly written rolls for Soldiers, Recruits, Friends and ex-Soldiers, (before the Adherents system was introduced) and at the time of the Divisional Inspection, the Divisional Commander checked that not only were these in order but that every name thus inscribed also appeared in the Corps Officers Visiting Book, and that everyone had been regularly visited as part of the requirement that the C.O. should do at least 40 hours of pastoral visitation every week! In retirement my wife and I maintained a similar system in the three Corps we led over a period of 7 years, even though not specifically required to do so, and it was the means by which attendances and rolls increased. Do not many of our losses run parallel with the demise of a similar system of accountability for the flock?[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The confusion to which I refer is because whereas holding office in a Corps as a Local Officer in an earlier age required the person to be a fully uniformed soldier, (consequently adhering to all of Salvation Army disciplines) that is no longer a requirement. Adherents, and sometimes others not even so committed may hold position under warrant, which is another way of allowing people not fully subscribing to the soldiers disciplines to give service. I am not opposed to that principle. It has, however, caused perplexity. How do we now evaluate someone worthy of being a member of the Salvation Army, even holding position? The supreme test should surely be one faith, in other words what a person believes, experiences and practices. The confirmation preparation and confirmation service is that process of declaration of faith, a much stronger principle than simply signing Articles of War and public enrolment as a soldier, or being publicly acknowledged as becoming an adherent, Thereby his or her membership can be validated.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']It becomes apparent to me, therefore, that a process of preparation of confirmation of faith, followed by a public act of confirmation, leading automatically to inscription on our Corps Membership Roll need not be exclusively applicable to young people transferring from junior to senior corps, but to all people who wish to be part of the Salvation Army family.[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']With the greater freedom granted to Corps to develop and grow as best suits local conditions, we have many different styles of activity, and what applies in one Corps does not apply in another. Some very successful traditional Corps require participants in musical sections to be fully-uniformed soldiers. This certainly does not apply in many others which allow virtually anyone to participate in musical sections by virtually anyone who is regularly attending the Salvation Army church, whether soldiers or not, whether in uniform or not. This might not be acceptable to traditionalists but we cannot deny that we have Corps which are very successful in drawing in and keeping young people who, as we have said earlier, do not wish to conform in exactly the same way as their forebears. I believe that the majority of those would happily accept a service of confirmation of Christian faith as a means to entry into our ranks, becoming thereby enrolled on our rolls instead of excluded by our existing system. Active service within a Corps would not b e dependent upon Rules and Regulations but rather upon Christian life and experience as confirmed in the way suggested. From the references I have made to what is already happening in some continental territories, we have a precedent, and it might well be of great value to study the possibility of something similar in this territory in order to try to resolve some of the anomalies and difficulties to which I have referred in this article.[/font]
