To Boldly Go...
To Boldly Go...
17 December 2018
Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd announce bold new initiatives for The Salvation Army during the official Recognition of the Australia Territory event in Melbourne. Photo: Cazeil Creative.
Radical change is coming to The Salvation Army in Australia through exclusive youth worship style, soldiership qualification, new corps and the way Red Shield Appeal doorknock money is distributed.
The Army’s world leader, General Brian Peddle, and Australia Territory leaders, Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd, signalled the initiatives at the official launch of the new single territory for Australia at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on Friday night, 30 November. 
The launch was part of a week-long Still Others conference, which included the Commissioning and Ordination of 15 new officers, a series of workshops and a spectacular Christmas Gift concert, featuring Silvie Paladino, James Morrison, Alana Conway, Isaiah and 3d Arts Company.
Commissioner Floyd Tidd has since expanded on the changes, for Others. There will be “an intentional commitment” to establish a Gen Z-focused faith community in each state capital city in the next two years. (Gen Z is defined as people born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.)
“Many of our young people resonate well with the claims and call of Jesus, and with the mission of The Salvation Army. Where they so often struggle is in finding places of Christian worship and community within The Salvation Army, that match that with an approach that fits their generation. Creating a fresh expression of The Salvation Army focused on Gen Z will provide opportunity to address that disconnect.”
Who would run Gen Z Salvo faith communities was not a question for him to answer, Commissioner Tidd said. They were matters for the Gen Z generation themselves and those who partner with them, including territorial, divisional and local corps youth leaders. The role of his generation, he said, would be to pray, encourage and support.
Significant shift
On soldiership qualification, General Peddle told an hour-long Coffee with the General question-and-answer session at Still Others, that International Headquarters was currently rewriting regulations requiring soldiership to be a “calling of God” rather than a “rite of passage”. General Peddle said soldiership should not be something a person did automatically when they turned 14. They should only become a soldier if they believed they were called by God to be a soldier. New international regulations for soldiership would reflect this change, “if the General gets his way”, General Peddle said. And he was hopeful he would. 
On the issue of additional corps and faith expressions, Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd told the Still Others conference there would be a review of the approaches to and the effectiveness of creating vibrant corps and communities of Christian faith in the 27 Areas across the Army’s six divisions in Australia, looking at each Area opening a new corps or faith community within the next three years. Divisional, area and local Salvation Army leaders would determine how that happened. There would be “freedom” to create an expression of The Salvation Army in a given area that would share the love of Jesus by caring for people, creating faith pathways, building healthy communities and working together for justice.
In the area of the distribution of Red Shield Appeal doorknock collections, each corps or centre will have the opportunity to retain the net funds they collect as long as it is used for community and social service ministries. Details will be confirmed in the coming months. Commissioner Tidd said there was an expectation that up to $5 million could be released for this purpose, dependent upon local efforts in collecting.
A further $2 million will be made available in the first six months of 2019 to enhance innovation on the front line of mission through an Innovation Fund. “A group of proven innovators will be brought together to determine how we best facilitate the development of an innovating culture,” Commissioner Tidd said.
“It isn’t just about money being released. The money is a helpful support, but the catalyst for innovation lies within individual soldiers, employees, volunteers and officers. We need to find ways to release that catalytic energy as people respond sacrificially in response to obedience to God’s leading will provide.”
messengers’ mandate
Fifteen new lieutenants were presented at an Ordination and Commissioning on Sunday morning (2 December), making them the first officers of the new Australia Territory. They were cadets of the Messengers of Compassion and Messengers of the Gospel sessions of training through Eva Burrows College. The new officers are Peter and Andrea Martin, Ashley and Rita Biermann, Star Conliffe and Charlie Jung, Leanne Hardaker, Natalie and Scott Frame, Stephanie Savage, Danielle Starr, Keryn and Aaron Coombes, and Mitchell and Sally Stevens. 
Addressing the new officers – and the congregation – Commissioner Rosalie Peddle referred to the significance of being a messenger. “God has a greater purpose for his message,” she said. His intention for his message was to transform lives.
Being a messenger for God, she said, required a declaration of the Gospel of Christ with clarity, conviction, confidence, compassion and celebration. It also required commitment to a holy life. Taking the message of Christ into the world should be done with confidence because God was a “more than enough God” and, because of that, his messengers could be “more than conquerors”.
In a separate ceremony following the commissioning and ordination, the new officers were sent out to their appointments by General Peddle with a challenge. The challenge was also issued to Salvationists.
“We [he and Commissioner Rosalie Peddle] leave [Australia] inspired and confident that God has The Salvation Army in Australia in his hands,” General Peddle said. “We are an Army on a march – not in reserve – and we are already conquerors. [But] we need to be ready to pay whatever it costs to deliver people from whatever oppresses them.”
During Coffee with the General, at which he answered questions submitted online in front of
an audience of about 250, General Peddle made reference several times to his concerns for and about officers and soldiers serving in “unfriendly countries”, notably in south Asia, where they had to “look over their shoulder” while carrying out their service.
His heart was broken for officers serving in countries where the playing field, in terms of the international Army, was not level. “The majority of financial resources are in territories where we may not be growing,” he said. “[But] where the Army is bursting with life, resources may not be available ...”
To a question about updating Army doctrines in a modern world, he said: “Our doctrines are rock solid.”
Asked what could be done to keep young people in the Army, he recommended creative thinking, referring to a Cowra Corps program called Kids in the Kitchen and the Just Brass concept of teaching children music. “I would be a more independent man if I had encountered [Kids in the Kitchen] years ago,” he said.
Asked what the Army needed to do to regain the trust of the LGBTQI community, he said: “First of all, we need to acknowledge our part in creating pain and mistrust. We made judgments, statements and took positions for which we must say that we are sorry. Nobody should be outside The Salvation Army’s care. Nobody is outside God’s care.” He encouraged Salvationists to show more grace in discussions on the subject. 
Photo: Jacob Dye
Now that the Australia Territory has been officially launched, Commissioner Floyd Tidd told Others that leadership would continue to evaluate what the Army is doing.
“This will lead us to understand and commit to the next steps necessary in transforming to be a movement that General Peddle describes as ‘battle ready, being engaged, taking responsibility’ that we might be best prepared and available to God as he transforms Australia one life at a time through the love of Jesus.”
Bill Simpson is a contributing writer for Others.
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