My testimony: Cadet Shaun Featherston
My testimony: Cadet Shaun Featherston
21 November 2022
Cadet Shaun Featherston is excited to minister at Sunbury Corps, Victoria, as a Salvation Army officer alongside his wife, Captain Kimberley Featherston.
I first encountered the Salvation Army in 1993. This was a few years after my mum became a single parent, and the Salvos provided a bus service to pick up children for Sunday school and the kids club at the local Altona Corps in Melbourne’s south-west.
I stayed at Altona Corps for 27 years and saw firsthand what these people in uniform did – they worshipped, fed people, prayed for people and gave back to each and every person. I said to myself, “They have something that I want,” and I found Christ in my own life and never looked back.
Kim and Shaun with Victoria Divisional Commander Colonel Kelvin Merrett at Sunbury Corps.
People from a young age told me that I would make a great Salvation Army officer – but I had no idea at that time what an officer was. In my early walk, even before experiencing Christ, the scripture that always appeared was Ezekiel 37, and verse 10 says, “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.”
God spoke to me constantly through this, and as I tried to follow this instruction, he constantly opened and closed doors. I applied for officership once, and the door was closed, so I applied a second time, and it was opened.
I chose to be obedient the second time after I was sitting at my old job. I was watching all the work being logged, and I was responding to it all, and I just thought, “This work isn’t changing people’s lives, and it’s not having a long-lasting impact. I think now is the time.” So I applied for officership again and got accepted.
I faced a lot of obstacles on my journey to officership. I faced the loss of significant people in my life. I faced obstacles due to COVID-19 and living in Melbourne through our lockdowns. This shaped me because I had to rely on Jesus through it all. I handed my calling, obedience, and life back to him. I sensed a closer relationship with him that I had never experienced before, and it set me up for not just being a better Christ follower but also created opportunities like never before as I walked, listened and ministered with the people that God had placed on my path.
Kim and Shaun out and about in their Salvo t-shirts at the zoo.
My training for officership has equipped me with new skills and understanding. It has buffed out the rough edges of my life and opened my eyes to the Army world to see what different mission expressions are happening right across our country. These experiences ignited a passion in me for our First Nations people and how we can walk alongside, listen to, and learn from them, seeing God through it all.
Through this journey, God has spoken to me through many scriptures, particularly Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” and Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.” God has also encouraged me through Hebrews 11:1 and 2 Corinthians 6:4.
As my wife, Captain Kimberley Featherston, and I prepare for our first appointment together as officers at Sunbury Corps, we want to get into a rhythm of working together and doing ministry. We want to live out our faith in Sunbury and any future appointments to see God move in people’s lives in a very special way.
We desire for relationships to be built with the different streams within the Army, and we are passionate about us walking alongside the First Nations people in Sunbury. We celebrate what God has done and expect God to do even more in these latter days – that every tribe and nation will worship him.
Cadet Shaun Featherston will be ordained, commissioned and sent out as a Messenger of Reconciliation on Friday 25 November.
When: 7.30pm (AEDT) Brimbank, Melbourne, by Commissioner Janine Donaldson.
Where: Brimbank City Corps, 2A Roseleigh Boulevard, Sydenham, Victoria 3037.
Watch Online: https://www.facebook.com/BrimbankSalvos/
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