Church Revitalization in The Salvation Army

When you look at trends in the church today, the news isn’t always encouraging. Attendance has declined in recent years, and many churches have struggled to find their footing again following the pandemic.

But the big trends don't tell the whole story. In this episode, we are looking at a new, exciting movement towards church revitalization in The Salvation Army. Majors Bill and Debra Blackman share their hands-on experience with corps revitalization at Cariboo Hill Temple in Burnaby, B.C. And Major Everett Barrow of the territorial corps mission department talks about a new corps revitalization guide that is being rolled out, and how the Army can embrace what God is doing in Canada and Bermuda today.

Links:

Corps mission website
Cariboo Hill Temple website

Transcript

Kristin Ostensen

This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen. When you’re looking at trends in the church today, the news isn’t always encouraging. Data from Statistics Canada shows that attendance has been steadily declining for the past 30 years, and many churches have struggled to bounce back after Covid. But this episode is not about the doom and gloom. Quite the opposite. Today, we are looking at church revitalization within The Salvation Army. It’s a grassroots movement, beginning with workshops and discussions at last year’s INSPIRE Conference, which led to the formation of a working group. And out of that group has come a new corps renewal guide, which is being rolled out from the corps mission department at territorial headquarters. Two founding members of that working group, Majors Bill and Debra Blackman, are here now to share their hands-on experience with corps revitalization at Cariboo Hill Temple. And Major Everett Barrow joins us, too, to talk about the guide and how the Army can embrace the new thing God is doing in our territory today.

Everett Barrow

I'm Major Everett Barrow, territorial corps health director in the corps ministries department.

Debra Blackman

I'm Major Debra Blackman, and I'm a corps officer at Cariboo Hill Temple in Burnaby, B.C.

Bill Blackman

And I'm Major Bill Blackman, and I'm Debra's husband and the same appointment at Cariboo Hill Temple in B.C.

Kristin Ostensen

So, to start us off, I'm wondering, Bill and Debra, can you tell us a bit about how this church revitalization project came about and what's happening today in our Salvation Army that's driving the project?

Debra Blackman

I think The Salvation Army’s connection to the church has kind of been a little eclectic through the years. So, early on, of course, the mission of Jesus was foundational to everything that was birthed as part of The Salvation Army. And the mission of Jesus is the church. That is the work he's doing on earth. It's his body, it's his bride. And so, if you love Jesus, you love the church. But through history, we've kind of like, you know, had times where we were some the fastest growing churches in Canada. I believe in the 60s, we had quite a boom then. And then we've had times where it wasn't thriving so much, and with shifts in culture, with shifts within our denominational culture, we're just in a position right now where we've seen a lot of decline, and I think a lot of church leaders and congregations are pretty discouraged. And the reality is we've had a lot of thriving in some of our social work areas, which is fantastic, but when you have an officer who has responsibility for a church and a family services and a thrift store and all that stuff, you're stretched in a lot of directions, and it's really easy for your attention to go to the things that kind of come most naturally, have the quickest reward, and in recent years that's been more the family service, social service stuff. So, the church has suffered as a result of that, and the leaders are maybe a bit discouraged as a result of that. And because we know that the work of Jesus is primarily rooted in the church, if we want to see his blessing on our organization, we need to make sure that we're nurturing those spiritual engines, so that they can fuel everything else. And so, revitalization is key.

Kristin Ostensen

And Everett, why are you passionate about church revitalization?

Everett Barrow

Well, I believe in the local church. I believe it belongs to God. Jesus said, I will build my church. And I feel that sometimes we've held on to it too tightly, and we really haven't listened to the voice of the Spirit. So, I think this process, if anything comes out of this, is certainly being more intentional in listening to what God wants for his church. We have a responsibility as followers of Christ, as his church, as The Salvation Army, to really engage with community as disciples, to make disciples, and to continue that journey to make a difference. We want lasting impact. We want eternal consequence. We need as a church, to really embrace this. And my hope is that through this, people will get passionate about it, start thinking again, be more intentional, rather than just the next tool or the next thing that we can do. What does God want us to do? Where do we go from here?

Bill Blackman

I think, too, Kristin that, one of the things, like, we planted our first church. We started off in Milton, Ontario, and planted with a corps team. And it was a really exciting experience and lots of fun. And then we had a time with a church that was already a church plant, and so we came in as the second pastors. And so that was a very different experience. And then we came to this church that we're at now. And one of the things that I found is that when a church is in decline, it's radically different than when a church is new and kind of everything's exciting. Even though you might have a church in decline—like, the church we're at has so many resources, so many musicians, so much, a beautiful building—all kinds of great things. But because it's in decline, the people are depressed and they lose hope. And so, there's kind of a sense of like, “Oh, we don't have anything,” when, actually, often you have more than a church plant, except for this idea that, “Oh, something's coming, something's exciting, something's vibrant, something's hopeful.” And so if we can instill in our people a sense that, hey, we have everything to be successful, what we need is, like Everett said, a passion for being right with God and hearing the Spirit and hope that God could actually use us to build his kingdom. And I think you have this potential to do things and to see churches once again become exciting and revitalized, and all those types of things.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, for sure. Now you've all mentioned this church revitalization working group, which, of course, started after INSPIRE. And Bill and Debra, can you tell me about your experience, especially as you were kind of founding members of the group?

Debra Blackman

I think my experience was that it was wonderful to be an environment with people who were so intensely passionate about the church. Sometimes you feel a little bit lonely. And some of the people were, you know, different ends of the country. And so it was great to just see that God had planted these seeds of desire all over the place, for revival, essentially—to see him known, to see us, as a Salvation Army, be people who walk in the supernatural power and grace of God. And that was super encouraging. And there were a lot of resources in the group, too. So, I always went away thinking, I always went away energized, and it kind of gives you hope to be able to take the next steps.

Bill Blackman

I think the question that we were trying to answer was: what would have helped you, or what would currently help you in being able to see your church revitalize, see it excited about the mission again? Because so often when you're in the midst of it, you're just trying to, like, get through the next week. And to be able to think that kind of forward, thinking about, OK, what are some of the steps we could start to do for this, in order to see it move forward? And I think that one of the beautiful things that we started to see happen as we had this conversation was a sense of like, every corps, probably every corps needs, to some degree—even the ones that are growing—some look at what it means to be vital and to be healthy, and we can't do that often. We can't do that when we're in the midst of the day to day, just trying to get through the things, especially if your church is in crisis or decline, or you don't know if you're going to be able to pay your bills—all those types of things. And so one thing we said was it feels like by having somebody come alongside, a coach who could listen to your story, could listen to your church's story, could get to know you and your leaders, and then be able to help you to kind of re-ground, refocus and then start to re-vision, that that would be helpful. They wouldn't do it; they would really be kind of taking your unique situation and helping you coach it through, because every church is different, and every revitalization process is going to be different, and what's successful at one church is probably not going to be successful at your church. And so, it's like being able to realize that we're not trying to create a style, but really a system, almost like a scaffolding that could be put around people to help them move forward in a way that would benefit both them, their members, and then the community at large, to be in connection with God, which is really what we're about.

Kristin Ostensen

Absolutely. And of course, out of this working group came this new core renewal guide, this framework that you've just talked about, and this outlines the revitalization process. So, I'm wondering if you can give us an overview of this guide and how it can help officers that are looking to undergo church revitalization.

Everett Barrow

There's actually, I like the idea of three movements within this. We are, The Salvation Army is a movement. We're not a monument—we're a movement. So, the first one deals with church health, I should say—focus upon the spiritual health and leadership of the congregation at large, and then builds from there, listening to the voice of God, being grounded in prayer and in the Word. And I think once we find ourselves connecting to the heart of God at such a level, the things that break the heart of God will break our hearts, and then we will see the greater community. And that moves us into movement number two, where we intentional—it's missional intention, I guess I might use that word. Or community connections, understanding the people that surround us—these are God's people, too, and how are you going to connect in a more intentional way? It's not about doing more stuff, but it's looking at it from a missional perspective. It might mean doing less stuff and doing more ministry that's having greater impact in the community. But I think if we sense the lead of the Spirit on this, he would reveal the gaps and will give us different signs along the way. And from there, we move to movement number three, which is really our identity. Who are we now as a church? This is what, this is where we were. We've been on this journey for three to five years. This is where we are now. How are we different? How do we approach life differently? How do we share the gospel differently? How do we impact the community differently? There should be some measurements beyond what we experience ourselves in transformation, in the neighbourhoods that we serve and in the people that we serve. And I think it can be a beautiful journey. I do think it's got to be fluid. You know, there might be some congregations that need to spend a large amount of time in spiritual renewal, refocusing, recentering, and then they're ready to move. Others are already on this journey, and they say, We just need to know now how to take this to the street and then identify who we really are and how the Lord is rediscovering our mission in many ways.

Bill Blackman

I think part of what we saw as we were starting to talk was, people enter into this process—but what would happen before? So maybe an area commander or corps officer would go, OK, we need to do something to help this church to grow. And so, they would kind of come and then approach the AC or approach, and then THQ, and THQ would say, OK, well, because you have an officer or somebody who wants to start in this process and is eager to do it, then we would invite them into this and kind of find them somebody to coach them, and that the starting kind of focus is: are you spiritually healthy? Are you at a place where you're listening consistently to God, where you're hearing him, where you know him? Because sometimes you get so caught up in both the busyness of ministry and the discouragement of ministry and the hurt that comes with ministry, that you find that you actually pull away from God, even though you might do some of the practice, you pull away from God in order just to kind of numb yourself and survive. And so really that kind of first focus is, hey, are you at a place where you're really spiritually connected? Vital stuff like that. And so that's, to say that that's part of the process, that that is your job, essentially, and to kind of start there, and to have somebody who's asking you those questions and kind of drawing you into those conversations in order to make sure that you move to that place. And then from there, kind of in that, we thought you're bringing your leadership team, or people who could become your leadership team around and asking the same questions: Are we kind of in that right place?

Everett Barrow 

Just to pick up on that. So, in September, we have all the area commanders from the territory, along with the DCs, for a couple of days here in Toronto. So we're rolling this out, working with divisions, to identify where are these places that we feel that we would like to come alongside. And I've already been involved, and the team here, in reaching out to different support systems across the territory, trying to build a team of coaches, field practitioners, even tracking down spiritual directors, because ministry today, corps today, looks completely different 20 years ago, 10 years ago, post-Covid. A lot of great stuff happening, fresh expressions, new energy, but we find that there are a lot of people who are still stuck—congregations, corps, we're not really sure where we are, what we should look like, where do we go? I think this is a great opportunity for us to look deeper at some of these issues. 

Debra Blackman

Yeah, I think one of the things that is different about this process, this document, than others that I might have experienced in the past is the mentor component and the acknowledgement and the length of time that is going to be spent on the preparation. So, you know, nobody knows better than The Salvation Army that we are in a war. That's why we have that name. And so, when it comes to the church, that's one of the things that the enemy is going to really come against. We, in our first few years at this church, we experienced spiritual warfare on such an intense level that affected just everybody. And that can be pretty shocking to somebody who's going in there with all the best intent to change things around. You get hit a few times with difficult circumstances, and you can get discouraged quickly. And there's going to be active warfare happening on that front when it comes to church revitalization. So the coach is there to walk with you through every moment of that, to help you change gears when you need to, to take whatever the circumstance is. It might be just the person that you need to vent to or cry to that day because it's a really tough day. But the personal interaction and the different kind of sources—like you already mentioned, Everett—for discipleship, is what's really going to bring you through those difficult seasons. There's a big focus, too, on having a foundation of prayer and intercession to make sure that you've got a lot of coverage for that sort of spiritual battle that's taking place as you start to push against the enemy's work in your community and try to bring the light of Jesus there. So that's so specifically unique to Christianity. And often we have programs that are kind of like, “check the box,” but we don't talk about the stuff that's going on under the surface, and that's really what's going to knock us out or make us succeed, right?

Bill Blackman

I think, too, one of the things that we would ask upfront from both the corps officer and the leadership team is, are you committed to this? Because Debra's right. It is hard work, and it is spiritual work, and it is difficult, and if you're not interested in being at that church for three to five years minimum, then there's no way that you can go through a revitalization process. It's just not possible. So that is a shift in the way we think, and even in the way we think, you know, as a denomination, is to say: Oh, just to get to a starting place, you need a couple of years of intentional, really, kind of working it out, building trust, loving, all that type of stuff. We've been at this church for seven years, and now, a year and a half, two of those were in the midst of Covid. So that really shook things up and made things difficult, for sure. And I would say that we're now at a place where we feel like, OK, we're finally at a place where we're healthy, where we can start to go, OK, how are we going to the next level, which would probably be the community connections and the strategy about growth. But when I think that we needed those three or four years of just trying to find healing, trying to find our own confidence, coming through our own stuff, as well as the church, and trying to, you know, develop a team around us all those things. And so, yeah, asking that question is really vital.

Kristin Ostensen

And as you mentioned, you've now been at Cariboo Hill Temple for seven years. And in that time, of course, you have gone through at least the first half or so of this church revitalization process. So, I'm wondering if you can take us back a little bit to where the corps was when you started, and maybe take us on your church revitalization journey and give us a peek at this—like, when the rubber hits the road, what does this look like?

Debra Blackman

Our journey with this church is maybe a little bit unique. Forty years ago, when the building was built, I was there as a very young little girl. I planted a tree in memory, and I got some photos for our anniversary coming up. So, this is the place where my roots are. And Bill came in his early 20s as a youth pastor and spent seven years here as a youth pastor. So, we already had a love for the church. And probably during the period that Bill was youth pastor, that was a thriving time for this congregation. And so, we've seen it at its height, and then because, of course, we love it, we tracked with it through the years, and have heard, you know, some of the sad stories that have taken place over time that created some real damage and hurt. And so through a very supernatural process, God nudged us to mention to our leaders that we would be available to be at this church if that opportunity came available. And I remember our DC at the time, kind of starting to have an initial conversation with us about that. And he said, Why do you think you can do this? And the first thing we said was, Because we love them. And then we started to try to make up other reasons. And he was like, that's good enough. If you love them, that's probably all you need. And that is proven true, I think, because it's been a heart experience of saying, almost a—there's so much self sacrifice involved in nurturing, mothering, fathering, parenting. It's a role like that—a pastoral role is a little bit like that. A church, especially through difficult periods, that if you don't have the love of God in you for them, then you won't see them the way he sees them, and you'll probably give up. And so, I think that's a unique part of our journey, because we came with a love for them, so.

Bill Blackman

Yeah, and even in that, like this church had three successions of pastors, and then there was an interim pastor at one point for six months, that only were there three years. So that kind of rapid turnover really affected the ability for the church to trust people. And so, like—three years … it was hard. It was hard. If we didn't have that initial real calling and love and a sense of a need to tough it out, we probably would have, like those other people, would have said, Yeah, this is not easy. We want to move on. And I think being able to decide to push past that third year into the fourth, fifth year, then it started, not to become easier, but we started, the people started to trust us, because we made it past that initial “this is where everybody gives up on us” phase. And our people go, OK, they're here. They love us. They want to be a part of this. So even though we love them, they had to trust us to actually know that that was authentic, and not just us doing the job that we're paid to do.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, that trust is such a good point, because change is not always easy, right? And especially in times when existing programs or ministries are re-evaluated and you're looking to make room for new initiatives. So, I'm wondering, if you can talk a little bit about some of the changes that you've made after you sort of came through those first few years—what was the direction that you had, that God had given you to start moving the church into the revitalization stage?

Debra Blackman

I think the first season was a pruning season. There were some really clear words from God about things that needed to shift, leadership that needed to shift. That was some of the hardest season, because whenever you make a big change that impacts people's lives, someone's going to be mad at you, and no one will ever know the full picture. So, the leader kind of bears that a bit. So, pruning to get to a place where there was healthy openness for the body to heal. Then I think the next season was probably poking a little bit at the sore spots, like through teaching and biblical teaching—just admitting out loud, as a congregation, some of the things we walked through, some of the conversations that are happening behind the scenes and under the surface. Because more importantly than any task that is actually taking place is that every church has a culture. And so, it's not spoken. It's hard to put your finger on it. Outsiders probably see it quicker than you see it. And people just learn a way to behave around one another. And you can have a very toxic culture where there's a lot of, you know, gossip and sects and people kind of, you know, fighting with one another. Or you can have a very healthy culture that right away feels welcoming and warm. So, I think our next goal was really to move towards a very healthy culture. And in order to do that, we had to call out some of the things that were toxic and some of the historical things that were behind that, and walk through seasons of forgiveness and reconciliation. And where that wasn't possible, some people needed to move on, and they often self-selected and did that, and the outcome was that you had a space that, where everybody that was in that space was on the same page about what it looked like to be a warm, welcoming, loving community. Our byline during that season was, you belong here. And so just slowly, bit by bit, over time, this culture has shifted to one that is friendly, open and healthy. And when that happened, well, we had this brilliant interruption of Covid, which kind of stopped everything cold. And God really took over. And one of the interesting things that he did was it was a time of real shifting in leadership, because certain groups of people who had led in the past were the ones that were less, were more afraid to come out and interact in physical spaces, and other groups of people, particularly young people, were less afraid to come out and interact in physical spaces. So, all these young people ended up just integrating quickly into our ministry and then starting to grow into leadership roles. And with them, they brought some energy and new insight and a lot of fun. And so, the dynamics of how our church was led and what it was about really moved quickly during that period of time.

Bill Blackman

And like, Debra felt a real calling to say, What am I supposed to do as we come out of Covid with my time? And she felt this calling to really cultivate these young 20s. And so we cooked for them every week. We had them at our house. Eventually we moved them to the church, but we kept on cooking for them. And she did discipleship courses that kind of journeyed them through a place of entering into Christian maturity. And from that, we've been able to see leaders in our church, but also our staff. So, we have, I think, five people on our staff who are under 25 or around 25, and so that's kind of changed even us in our perspective, and helping us to think things differently. And we've spoken into them, but they've also spoken into us and said, you know, simple things, like, You need to put visuals into your sermons. We’re like, Oh, I've never done that in 20 years of preaching. And so, adding those visuals in, kind of, even our senior people are like, Oh, it's so much better now that you have visuals. I'm like, OK, I wish somebody had said that 15 years ago then, because, you know, it's made a difference. So learning from them, as well as us, you know, pouring into them.

Kristin Ostensen

And at this stage, where do you think you're seeing God at work the most? 

Debra Blackman 

There's a high emphasis on intergenerational ministry: one generation pouring into the next pouring into the next. And so, we have a lot of vitality, because we have a very young staff. A lot of the ministries they're responsible for are for teens and children and outreach to those groups as well. So, there's a lot of energy with that. And they're building right into the DNA the idea, on every level that you are pouring into the next level. And I think a lot of our seniors are understanding that as well. One of the really interesting things about some of our people in their 20s is there were a number of people that came from backgrounds where, for whatever reason, they were not parented, whether they're from foster care or whether they're from difficult home situations or whatever—that they grew up with a lack of that family environment, and that was just part of their story. And God gave this prophetic Word through one of the prophets in our church one day, stood up and spoke it: just that as a congregation, we're to be mothers and fathers to—just mothers and fathers is part of our calling as a church. And a number of people of all ages have taken that seriously, and they look out for the people who they can pour into. And so, we've seen some really beautiful things happen through that. You know, recently we had a wedding of a couple of very young, 21-year-olds, and they don't have a ton of family support around them. And our church, just completely of their own initiative—we didn't organize it—different people came and said, You know what we're going to cook for you. We're going to organize this for you. We're going to help decorate. And they just came around the way a family does, and gave these young people a beautiful wedding, and it was so special to them and special to their families to see how loved they were. And so that organic family has been a big part of what God's doing among us. 

Kristin Ostensen

That's so lovely. 

Bill Blackman

When we came here, there was a sense of, like, we don't know how we'll ever get back young people, because we lost essentially, two generations. So, we had lost what kind of would be, what? Generation X? 

Debra Blackman 

In their 60s now? 

Bill Blackman

Yeah, and then their children, right? So, like, millennials, essentially from this church. And so, there was, like—all of our young people have left. They've either left the faith or gone to other churches. And so, there was a point about year five where we started to look at our church. It's still not a not a large church at it as it was before. And we said, Oh, wait a second: a third of our church is seniors. A third of our church is people in there, like, around 40s, 50s, and a third of our church was under 12 years old. And to be able to go well, like—and you could see it, right? You could see that we’d have Sunday school start in the middle of our worship service, and a bunch of the kids would go out, and you'd watch this group of young people excited to be with each other, excited about God and all that stuff. But all of a sudden, where there wasn't children, there was a huge amount of children, and you know, kind of this excitement around the fact that they want to come to church. In fact, even just a couple weeks ago, a mom said to me, oh yeah, my five year old brought me to church today because if she wanted to come to church, not because I wanted to come to church. And so I think that kind of sense like, oh yeah, this is kind of neat that that's happening.

Kristin Ostensen

What a cute story! So, of course, you are seven years in now, and you've gone through what you said was sort of the pruning and the healing stage, and you've still got a few more years to go in this church revitalization process because, of course, it does take time. So, can you talk a little bit about what's next for Cariboo Hill, and sort of, what's the vision that God has given you for your core going forward?

Debra Blackman

Yeah, well, the next step is the intentional missional relationships. And I think maybe over last year, we kind of started to move into that zone a little bit. It's been really difficult in our community. We've been in some communities where The Salvation Army just already had a real presence, and it wasn't difficult to sort of get your foot in the door at the table in a community, but not in our city. In fact, in our city, we're very often met with an adversarial response because we're Christian. And so it took us probably two years to get permission to run programs in local schools, and now we have built a little bit of trust with some local schools. And so building those intentional, missional relationships through mostly our youth work that then connects back to—so that would be BRAVE, that would be a drama program that we have in the schools. So, from there, to give them the opportunity to come and participate in programs at the church that have more of a discipleship component to them as well. So, I think we just want to keep working on building those relationships. We are asking God to give us more partners in the community—both community partners, in terms of just to be known in the community and be able to be part of that; but also, we need more people that are a part of our church, that come from our community, because we're a real commuter church. And so to really do transformative work in the community—it's hard for people to ask their friend that lives 30 minutes away to come to this church and be part of this mission, even though they might attend this church because they've got background historically, or maybe they love the band ministry or something like that. So, we're asking God to give us more people from our community so that we can build more local ministry that way and reach out to our community.

Bill Blackman

When our BRAVE coordinator went to the local school, they asked her to come and do a lunchtime BRAVE program. So, she had been doing it for about a year at our church with, kind of, people we had connections with, most of them not from our church, but now are a part of our church, which is totally cool. And she went and they said, Oh, maybe you'll get a dozen girls. The first week, I think she had 17 show up. The second week, it was up to 25 or 30. And she just went for this eight-week program, and the school was like, Oh, this is incredible. Thank you. And just, and at of school with girls who are very vulnerable, and so it's just this incredible, beautiful offering to the community. And you know, there is some discouragement, because they're like, Oh, how can we connect them to our church? And I'm like, that is connecting them to the gospel, just us going and not being Christians who have done harm but have done blessing. That is something to our community. And the more we do that, the more opportunities we'll have, and the more we'll be able to be a safe place—and not just us, but other churches who want to come in—Oh yeah, they're safe. They're like that church. That's what we want.

Debra Blackman

I think God's also calling us to a renewed season of prayer. So that was a really heavy part of our early time, and God did amazing things through that. And then, more recently, we had a season of real program building. But because I feel like God wants to make another shift, we probably need to spend a season really heavily investing in prayer again.

Bill Blackman

And probably, like, our youth stuff is healthy, and I mean it obviously is always going to need support. But a focus on, OK, how can we really connect now the adults in a way that is equally discipleship driven, mentoring driven? And realizing that it's hard to be, you know, at this middle age with children and teens, and parents who need more support, and that you know you're already stretched, and how can we be pouring into that group so that they can be vital heading into their next section?

Kristin Ostensen

All very exciting things, and love to hear about how successful that BRAVE program has been—that's just amazing! So, thank you so much for telling us about your experiences and inspiring me, hearing about all that God is doing at your corps. So, as we're wrapping up, I'm wondering, what would you—and I'm including you, Everett, in that—what would you all say to corps officers, lay leaders, Salvationists, who might be listening to this and thinking, Gee, I'd love to begin that church revitalization process at my own corps. What would you say to them?

Bill Blackman

I think the first thing I would say is that it's possible, you can do it, but you can't do it alone, and that by having people come alongside you, support you, encourage you, even just somebody else, a stranger, to walk in and to talk about revitalization to your church, opens up so many doors for your people to feel like, Oh, OK, we could do this. And I think that God loves the church. God loves your church. He wants your church to grow and to be vital. And that it is possible.

Debra Blackman

And this is the time. I am hearing word from all over the globe of God moving in revitalizing ways among the body, particularly rooted in Gen Z young adults right now and youth. And so I think God is going to do a thing, and we want to be part of that. And the very first step is just to get really low. Get down on your knees. Get down on your face below before God, and just say, God, I want to follow you and nothing else. Please strip off any other pretense, or any other false desires that's going to prevent me from being able to be a clear channel for your will. And just do the work yourself. There's a lot of tools that are included in this package that could be part of walking you through that process so you can make those inquiries if you're ready. But I promise that church revitalization will be a humbling experience one way or another. It's easier to start yourself off in the humble position than have God have to do that work for you. So, when we're, he gives grace to the humble, and he humbles the proud, and I think he's done that work a little bit in the church, in The Salvation Army. Maybe there's been times we've been a little too proud, and he's had to humble us. But now that we're in a position of humility, there's the grace that he's going to extend, to lift us up to follow him again.

Everett Barrow

And I think as I've listened today, and other officers will hear this, I think there's great credibility because we're hearing it from the grassroots. We're hearing from two officers who are living this every day. So, this is a real journey. This is not another program or materials we're rolling out from THQ. This is lived on the front lines in many of our corps. And imagine again, when we say yes to Jesus, what that would look like. I sometimes had this picture of a Salvation Army on its knees, really confessing before the Lord, if we have left our first love, to bring us back to that, to rekindle that flame within us, give that holy passion, and alongside of that, holy courage, because this is hard work. It's a courageous journey, tough decisions may have to be made. You may be misunderstood, but if you do it for the kingdom's sake and realize that this is God's church, he will not fail us. Let's not fail him. So, we want to have surrendered lives, and we want to see the mission field, to see the harvest that can take place in the fields that are around us, and God is calling us into that. This is a great opportunity. And I do sincerely believe, from other conversations I've had, that there's a fresh wave of the Spirit and we need to ride that. We don't need to create any more waves. It's not our agenda. It's kingdom business. And I would just encourage any officer out there, if you feel right now that you're stuck, you're wondering what the next step would be, what's the future of your ministry unit? We just want you to reach out to your AC, to reach out to us, and we can connect with people who have been on a similar journey, and now their story is a little bit different. And God is doing a new thing. God is always doing a new thing. And I believe that God is on the move. We just gotta keep in step, and he wants us. He wants us to do that.

Kristin Ostensen

Well, thank you all again, so much. I've really appreciated our conversation today, and I just pray God will bless you in all of this ministry going forward. 

Bill Blackman

Thanks.

Everett Barrow

Thank you. Thank you. 

Kristin Ostensen

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Salvationist podcast. To learn more about the new corps renewal guide, contact the corps mission team. For more episodes of the podcast, visit Salvationist.ca/podcast.