Salvation Army Vocational Responses

I first wrote this essay in 2005. The passage of time without significant change merely demonstrates the critical need to rethink what we've 'always done'.

As we now well into the third century of a Salvation Army presence in this world, we continue to ask what the Army will be like in the future, our near future.  Certainly we desire to be filled with the passion and drive of the 19^th century; and we cannot fail to appreciate the systematic growth and stabilizing structuring of the 20^th century.  But just as assuredly, we know that only dead things stop growing, stop evolving and changing.  Our prayer is that as we grow we follow God’s plan, his path, move forward by his Spirit.

Among the many questions that head the list of concerns at this critical time is this one, paired with an observation: In many parts of the developed western Army world, we continue to see a lack of qualified officer candidates; is God simply not calling our gifted soldiers into service anymore?

This statement-and-question is packed with assumptions, of course; these assumptions can be separately debated, but many readers will find them readily recognizable.  Our training colleges enlist fewer cadets than in even recent decades.  The cadets, on the whole, come to the training colleges less prepared and less able to provide the strong leadership needed; and some require remedial work and/or counseling to even rise to a minimum standard (and not just in an academic sense: spiritually, emotionally, and socially candidates carry many challenges).

Meanwhile, across many territories, a good number of our corps’ soldiers who are quite skilled and capable, who possess many favorable spiritual qualities, and would seemingly be  ‘good’ candidates for officer service, find instead valued and fulfilling service opportunities elsewhere; some even as Army employees.  So: is God not calling these soldiers into service?

We must say, clearly and forthrightly, from both experience and conversation, this: God is calling soldiers into service.  Some are called to be officers, some are called ‘other’ wise into service.  But all are called.  Every believer is called, and the will of God is clear that a believer has a consequent duty to respond.  The path this response should follow is likewise established by God, by the giftedness of the individual.  It is to be a natural response, and identifying an area or emphasis of service might well be a clear task.

What stands in the way of naturalness or clarity of response is, of course, the unnatural: in every church denomination there are such impediments.  With the Army, we might identify several areas.  Together these institutional barriers form a network that pushes away potential candidates for service.  These same structural habits work also to depress and discourage the good functioning of many who have already responded.

I believe one means of remedy lies in part with a recapturing of an ancient Christian understanding of holy vocation.

At its root meaning, vocation is the response to God’s call.  When we speak of vocations (plural), we mean the variety of paths God designs by way of the spiritual gifts and talents given to an individual.  God’s will is that every believer be in his service, and more: that each one follow the progressive path to growth to meet new and unexpected challenges and opportunities, through the leading and grace he provides.

This is to say that any one of us benefits and learns from new situations; indeed, the unexpected (or latent talents) may be the very way God leads us into once-unknown and unconsidered avenues of service.   So we cannot say that being placed by others (as officers within the appointment system) into situations and appointments not of our choosing does not allow for the progressive leading of God in our lives.

Yet we can acknowledge that a system that largely ignores or is forced to disregard giftedness can work to deflect potential officer candidates from responding, and discourage those already in service as officers in their work.

A more developed sense of vocation would regard responses to God’s calling as entailing a spectrum; a variety of ways by which one may faithfully and responsibly develop their giftedness in God’s service.

Note here that a spectrum necessarily implies degrees; in this case degrees of formal adherence to the role of commissioned and ordained officership.  That is, every soldier and every office are to be found somewhere along a spectrum of holy vocation.

This is a profoundly biblical concept.  Consider simply these two principles: that tenet of faith commonly called the “priesthood of all believers,” by which we mean that every believer has a role within the larger community that itself plays a witnessing, intercessory function in the non-believing world; and the understanding that not all are identically called, but rather there are necessarily different members of the whole that must work together for healthy functioning.  There is not a spiritual hierarchy here, but rather a straight-forward acknowledgment of diversity and integrated variation.

So: so one soldier’s giftedness find suitable service within the local corps setting, even as they find “living wage” employment outside of this arena.  Their vocation is not in this secular employ, however, nor is it, strictly speaking, to be confined to their time at the corps alone: their vocation is to be worked out in every sphere of life, but focused as vocation by considering life lived as service to God.

Another soldier find their giftedness might well be used of God within the wider employ of the Army, so that both their “living wage” work and their holy vocation merge within this role as Army lay leader and/or employee.

Yet another soldier senses God’s call to respond as an officer.  But perhaps this one does not also sense that this call means to volunteer as an itinerant generalist, a mobile “jack/jill of all trades.”

An institutional framework limiting responses tot he generalist role only might very well be filtering out the “specialists.”  (Indeed, did not the Methodist New Connexion Conference of the mid-1800s move along to other fields a fervent and gifted evangelist for want of a flexible vocational response framework, one that instead insisted that Rev. Booth be restricted to a role that did not fit?)

These specialist-leaning soldiers (identified as such by gifts, and – dare we say? – interests and desires) may well choose after all to become an officer.  And then face the discouraging possibilities of not serving in ways that are fulfilling or fruitful.  Again, this is not to say that there is not a great need, nor even that circumstances often require that some fill roles “unsuitable” – for God can surely use anyone who is open and yielded: His strength in our weakness, His eternal plans not finally frustrated.

But still the observation remains: if you are not yourself an officer who has had at some time felt less than suitably appointed in some manner, you need ask around too long or far before finding some who are so discouraged, perhaps even near resignation for want of a hopeful option.

Again: I am cognizant of many objections, so hear me clearly – not one of us has ever initially felt comfortable or fully prepared for any newly-received appointment, yet God’s grace is plenteous and sufficient, and many of us find that despite our initial reservations we discovered wonderful times of growth in our dependence upon God.

I am really aiming at a problem surrounding vocational understandings that is much more fundamental than this kind of anxiety and discomfort in an appointment: this speaks to those who are profoundly out of place in their appointment, and who find their service to be significantly out of sync with their holy vocation.

An ancient Christian understanding and practice of vocation included a variety of institutional and non-institutional responses.  Some responded as faithful believers who Christian witness flowed throughout their lives in whatever “secular” work life they found matched their talents; this service – as farmer, baker, seamstress, etc. – was rendered unto others as unto God.

Others found their life’s vocation to be a merging of their service to God and “living wage” labor in work roles within the church structure as laymen.  Their full-time Christian service – as scholars, teachers, musicians, clerk and so on – were sometimes formally ordered (that is, categorized, in orderly fashion) as a vocational response to God’s call, worked out along the lines of their giftedness.

Yet again others found a sense of calling that led them to offer their lives in God’s service in ordered institutions that used them in prophetic and pastoral ways, and were recognized as ordained clergy.  In each of these more formal categories we could see administrative leadership rise within the orders, with gift-expressions developed across the spectrum.  But there were (and still are, in some traditions) more-ore-less clearly defined avenues of service that could be held up as viable paths of response.

What are the implications, then for the Army world?  Among perhaps others, are these:

·         we must be willing to continued blurring the lines of distinction of ordination (and commissioning) between soldier and officer

·         we must be willing to formalize an array of employment opportunities as vocational options

o   this would include standards of education and proficiency, and entail as well some time spent in training in addition to “secular education” (such as music, education, social work, finance/accounting) that would describe a period of Army training, whether at a training college setting or through home-steady course work

·         we must be willing to consider commissioned officers interests and desires, in concert with a careful evaluation of giftedness, to be a predominant factor in making appointments

o   this should take place within a re-structuring of the appointment availabilities, whereby one may enroll in a course of officer training for service that is ordered to follow, say, social work, or counseling, teaching, finance or other types of administration work; or ordered to follow prophetic and pastoral roles; all of this restructuring done with the understanding that leadership is a gift that may be expressed within each (and across all) orders of vocation

·         we must not allow even this new thinking to become so structured and inflexible so as to prevent an easy crossing over, from order to order, as God’s leading calls and equips, and as needs require positions to be filled by individuals who faithfully respond

This essay is a considered reflection offered in the great hope of opening discussion and spurring on to good work those who may hear God and respond in his holy vocations.