graysparrow said:
Are you a denomination, a church or a charity group+?
Can Catholics, Orthodox, Baptist, Reformed join the Salvation Army?
What's the role of women?
Children?
Ok. A salvationist is a member of the Salvation Army, which is part of God's church here on earth. Anyone can join, but it would be a case of leaving on demonimation and joining another, although as in most Christian churches, anyone is welcome to join us in fellowship and worship, and to help in a voluntary or paid employment capacity in our charitable work.
Primarily then we are a church of worshipping believers, engaging in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, bible study, worship as much as any other denomination of the Christian church.
What we are famous for is our mission, which isnt, oddly enough, to do nice charitable things for people. Our mission is to bring God's message of love and salvation to a lost world, but God has raised us up to work especially at the margins of society, and it was a principle that our founder, William Booth, built the Army on, that we must minister to the whole person. Practically, that means we seek to help meet people's physical needs for food, shelter. love, warmth and fellowship. We seek to show Jesus' love to people who may not have felt valued and loved for a very long time. Through this work, we earn the respect of those we help. They know who we are, and why we do it, and we share the good news with them. We seek to help people set themselves on their feet again, but we never fail to tell them that if they truely want a transformed life, it is to Jesus they must come.
The Salvation Army was I think the first world wide Christian church to appoint a woman to its top earthly job. It has always believed in the principle of equality, including all areas of leadership and ministry. As a church, we believe in the priesthood of all believers. The Holy Spirit has given us all gifts, and it is the responsibility of each believer to exercise their ministry. The best Salvation Army Officers (ministers) seek to encourage all members of the worshipping community to discover and use their ministry gifts, whether male or female. Yet it is by no means 'feminist' in the negative sense of the word. You will find submissive wives, but you will also find husbands and wives in mutual submission.
Our children learn in Sunday school and are encouraged from an early age to take part in Salvationist ministry as they are able. Last Sunday our teenagers, under my guidance, prepared and delivered the Sunday morning meeting- and it was great.
Gosh that went on a long time. We have threads with our doctrines and mission statements if you are interested.
http://www.christianforums.com/t1177585-what-are-the-key-beliefs-of-the-salvation-army.html
