SALVATION ARMY – What happened to you?
By David Woodbury
In a few months I will
celebrate my 80th birthday and I guess, like many before me, it has
become a time of reflection, review and evaluation. The world of my boyhood is
a vastly different world in which I exist today. For the first 25-30 years of
my life there were not great cultural changes.
On any given Friday night or Saturday if you walked down the main street
of most suburbs you would probably have to step off the footpath to get around
the crowds gathered at the local pub. They were, in a sense, a place of
community gathering and interaction, mainly for males.
RSL clubs overflowed with patrons
and membership of a service club like Lions or Rotary were prized relationship
only available to those who could be sponsored. Suburban movie theatres drew crowds every
weekend and the drive-in movies were a great family event. For The Salvation
Army the Sunday night Salvation Meeting was a big event. In my home corps, the
only people assured of a seat were the officers and band who sat on the
platform. If you wanted your favourite seat you better come early.
By the mid ‘60s the impact of
television saw families re-allocating free time at the expense of many of the
social activities of the ‘50s. In the
decades that followed suburban movie theatres began to struggle and many simply
closed. In the early ‘50s a family motor vehicle was somewhat rare but by the
late ‘60s most families had a vehicle, sometimes more, as teenage children
acquired driving status.
By the late ‘60s cultural change
began to emerge with what was termed “the permissive 60s”. Social norms were
challenged and feminism and the availability of the contraceptive pill saw
women seeking equality and freedom. Although the cultural changes were
relatively small and incremental, by the turn of the century they were seismic. Some organisations were awake to the cultural
change and were able to read them and adapt, others just simply plodded on with
the old, blinkered mindset. RSL clubs were a prime example: some quickly saw
the changes and adapted their operations, particularly catering for family dining.
Other began to decline, some merged and others just simply faded away.
In some ways, The Salvation Army
was either indifferent or perplexed and perhaps unable to read the cultural
changes and seemingly unable to adapt their operations and programs and a
steady decline in interest and numbers began. Corps began to close or merge in
what in some ways was a futile effort to arrest the decline.
In trying to comprehend today’s
culture perhaps the telling question we ought to be asking is: where is place of community gathering and
interaction today? Certainly not the local suburban, pub since many of
these are long gone and most of the remaining ones no longer draw crowds that
spill out onto the footpath. The reality is today that you may well have to
step off the footpath to avoid the crowd waiting for a table at the local coffee
shop.
In my lifetime I have seen the
cultural change from the masses at the local pub, to the small intimate groups
at coffee shops. Just in the last couple of decades, the number of coffee shops
in many areas has skyrocketed. In 2000 we moved into a quarters in Sydney’s
southern suburbs and there were two coffee shops within walking distance. When we left there 16 years later there were at
least 9 coffee shops within walking distance, all doing a significant trade.
What are to read about today’s
culture from this phenomenon? Perhaps it is simply this: people want the
intimacy, friendship and strong familial style bonds that a small group
provides and no other group is better equipped in this area than members of the
local Christian community. I am well aware that there are some Christians
switched on enough to understand this and have moved outside the confines of
their churches and commenced such groups based around an incarnational
framework. Unfortunately, they are few in number and ministry of this style
needs to be actively encouraged.
As good as these groups are they
have their limitations. By their very nature, they are small groups and generally self-limiting unless they have the
courage to divide and multiply. They have little impact on the public space
unless they are willing to break out their circle to intentionality embrace the
wider community.
If a number of these
incarnational groups exist within an area they need a central hub to help them
maintain focus and balance and provide whatever resources they need. A local
Salvation Army mission centre needs to exist to provide resources and
co-ordination for the overall mission of The Salvation Army. No other Salvation Army group can provide these
resources co-ordination as can a small corps.
As we have already discovered
people are looking for small groups that offer intimacy, friendship and strong
familial style bonds; that is today’s cultural landscape and the group best
placed is the local Salvation Army,
small corps. Curiously, as we realised this cultural shift to small, intimate
groups we were busy closing small corps, and effectively removing our presence
from the public space.
Many will take the economic argument
that we can no longer afford the expensive upkeep of a set of building designed
when corps had large bands and other sections which required a building with
many rooms, and I would quite agree. But to simply shut down a corps on
basically economic grounds indicates a lack of vision. Perhaps all a small
corps needs is an unused shop front, of which there are many today. From such a
place the corps could run its usual programs, outreach programs such as
community meals etc. and enable its incarnational groups a place to gather.
Such a move would keep a Salvation Army
presence in the public space.
Upcoming post: WHAT DOES A SHOPFRONT CORPS LOOK LIKE.
Upcoming post: WHAT DOES A SHOPFRONT CORPS LOOK LIKE.
You're on the money here. The Salvation Army seems to want corps to be like Westfield's or mega churches but the zeitgeist is looking for the boutique experience (shopping malls are struggling)
ReplyDeleteSmall churches spread through the suburbs ( like Earlwood, Glebe, narwee and panania) fit the pattern of intimate, local venues. Let's hope we can evolve because small, family type groups are needed more than ever