Smithtown Salvos???

By David Woodbury

I gotta confess it: I cringe every time I hear the Army using the term ‘Salvos’ to describe itself. We used to be:

The Salvation Army, Smithtown Corps

But now we are referred to, by ourselves as:

Smithtown Salvos.

I readily acknowledge that the terminology ‘corps’ is not easily comprehended by today’s generations and probably needs to be replaced. I would suggest that we look back into our earliest history and resurrect the term ‘mission’ which I believe, would be more easily understood and clearly describe our purpose. Hence we would be known as: The Salvation Army, Smithtown Mission.

The dictionary defines salvo as: a simultaneous discharge of artillery or other guns in a battle. While we are certainly in a war against sin and suffering I’m not sure we want such an aggressive persona attached to our image.

I have no problem with the general population using ‘Salvo’ as a term of endearment, which probably found its genesis in ministry to service personnel during wartime. However, I suspect that we started using it ourselves initially in the fund-raising arena, as a means of generating public goodwill and funding from a warm area who called us by this term of endearment. And that is a worthy use, given we need to fund our social ministry among the less fortunate.

However, somewhere down the track we got caught up with concepts about branding and hi-profile fund-raising and decided to use it as a blanket term to describe ourselves. I’ve often wondered what subliminal message it sends when it was initially instigated as a PR/fund-raising exercise. Is the subliminal message here really about the Army that helps saves sinners (The Salvation Army), or is it about simply generating funds to support or welfare work (Salvos)? We can’t have it both ways. We will simply confuse people and dilute our ministry.

The reality is that we are now living at a time when The Salvation Army in Australia is making very crucial and critical decisions which must inevitably, impact not only its mission but also its long-term survival. Such decision needs to be taken in light of our theological standpoint, our history, our mission and our ministry, and not on fashionable and populist trends and advice, much of which may well be more influenced by the non-Christian culture that surrounds us, than by our biblical viewpoint and the understanding of our historical journey.

I suspect that, as in so many areas of our Army these days, we are heavily influenced by consultants and ‘experts’ who are not ‘of the regiment’ and do not fully comprehend our mission, our ethos and our history. It is time that we stopped looking for all the answers to our challenges outside the movement and started looking, guided by the Holy Spirit, in our own backyard. Local solutions to our problems will always be superior to outside resolution for they take into account the total breadth and depth of our theology, our history, our mission and ministry.

It may well be that if we continue using the nomenclature Salvos; we will morph into nothing more than a welfare organisation, devoid of much of our spiritual essence and the message of salvation.  Our entity, as The Salvation Army, clearly spells out our identity, our mission and our reason for existence. Perhaps it is time that we give this issue some serious consideration.