New flag flying for Jesus in the Blue Mountains
New flag flying for Jesus in the Blue Mountains
7 April 2017
The community launch of the new Blue Mountains Corps was attended by Salvationists and community members including Blue Mountains Team Leader Major Keith Hampton, Colonels Cheralynne and Kelvin Pethybridge, local businesman and Red Shield Appeal chairman Tom Colless and Area Officer Major Topher Holland.
A new name, a new flag and a new approach to ministry has team leader Major Keith Hampton excited about The Salvation Army’s future in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
The region’s two corps – Springwood and Upper Blue Mountains – will now become the Blue Mountains Corps, under the direction of Major Hampton. The Upper Blue Mountains Corps building at Katoomba was sold last year and the Springwood Corps building is now the official centre of worship, known as the Faulconbridge Worship Centre. Major Hampton said this transition was about mobilising Salvationists to seek God's work and purposes across the Blue Mountains.
Colonel Kelvin Pethybridge, Chief Secretary-in-Charge of the Australia Eastern Territory, launched this new phase of The Salvation Army’s work in the region, which is part of the Nepean Hub, at a community event on Saturday 1 April, outside the historic Carrington Hotel in Katoomba. Colonel Pethybridge presented Major Hampton with a new Blue Mountains flag as part of this event.
The launch was followed on Sunday morning by a combined hub celebration at the Faulconbridge centre.
“This is a transition from seeing ourselves as two separate corps into one entity that brings together the whole of the work of The Salvation Army in the Blue Mountains,” said Major Hampton.
“I was appointed to Springwood Corps in June 2015 and in that time I have come to see the tremendous community spirit in the Blue Mountains. Many commute to Sydney for work but when they come home they make it happen in the mountains.”
Major Hampton said one of the strongest links The Salvation Army had to the Blue Mountains community was in the area of emergency services.
“This area is made up of a dozen different villages,” he said. “It’s very much like a country area where everyone supports each other. The Salvos have a significant group of community people who serve through their SAES (Salvation Army Emergency Services) team.”
Major Hampton said he was most excited by the work that was happening mid-week right across the area that was connecting Salvationists with their community – from the Hope Halfway House, and a thriving social work and Family Store in the Upper Blue Mountains area, the mid-week fellowship group in the old Wentworth Falls quarters, to the Faulconbridge monthly men’s ministry, which includes many men from the local community.
He indicated that the next few years would be an important transitional time when younger generations would be trained to step up into leadership roles.
“Our hope is to keep raising up leaders to work together across the whole Blue Mountains. In future years I hope we will see The Salvation Army served by multi-sites across the mountains.
He said he was also inspired by the message of “Hope Rising” being promoted Divisional Commander Lieutenant-Colonel Miriam Gluyas.
“Hope Rising is a journey of renewal,” said Lieut-Colonel Gluyas, “It is a journey of stripping back to The Salvation Army at it’s best. It’s a message of advance, not of retreat – that we are multiplying for health, rather than amalgamating to survive. We reimagine and seek God’s best for a whole area, working together as a team. That is the journey that the Blue Mountains is taking. Imagine what God might do!”
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