What makes The Salvation Army deliberately different?

As The Salvation Army celebrates its 160th anniversary, Major Lynne Shaw asks what makes us who we are.

There are many reasons for assessing who we are, individually and as a Movement. Celebrating 160 years of The Salvation Army is an excellent one. In a recent conversation doing just that, the phrase ‘deliberately different’ came up. I wonder what it conjures up for you.

Fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood was deliberately different in an obvious and vocal way. Mother Teresa was also deliberately different. That difference was much quieter, though equally radical.

In contrast, consider the familiar phrase ‘carbon copy’. Whether it was the triplicate accounting books I used in my first appointment or the Banda machine I used in my first teaching post, I became quite familiar with the process of making a carbon copy.

The Salvation Army is not a carbon copy of other denominations, but rather an offspring who has made their own way and left their own mark on the world. We are sometimes different in obvious and vocal ways. At other times our difference is much quieter, though equally radical.

What makes us ‘The Salvation Army’? We might consider clothing, as we may have done at first glance with Vivienne Westwood and Mother Teresa, but that’s like a good book cover hinting at what’s within.

We could look at our music-making, the variety and depth of it, and the wonderful ways God still uses it to speak to people. It is definitely distinctive, but is it the hallmark of our deliberate difference?

‘We started on the streets of London to reach the people most in need’ says salvationarmy.org.uk. As an Army, we formed barracks and citadels, not as fortresses to stay in but as places to get ready to go out to those people. This mission is reflected in our corps and centres today: a mission to reach people who are neglected, overlooked, struggling, grieving, displaced, lonely – and facing many more difficult circumstances – with the good news of Jesus lived out in our hearts and through our hands.

Part of our deliberate difference is to follow in the footsteps of the Founders, Catherine and William Booth, by taking the good news with us wherever we go and wherever we meet others, rather than confining it to a pulpit or platform. This enables us to reach people who find it difficult to enter a church building – to that end, many of our halls have looked more like scout huts or community centres over the years!

An early Army slogan was ‘soup, soap and salvation’. It described a practical Christianity that sought first to give a hand-up to anyone in need. Today we continue this work in parent-and-toddler groups, men’s sheds, Lifehouses and allotments, among a wide variety of other community activities and outreach. Our mission is not practicality at the expense of the gospel, but the gospel lived out with a heart of compassion worn on rolled-up sleeves.

We also continue our legacy of fighting against injustice, speaking up for those whose voices are lost or ignored. We set good examples of how to look after the marginalised and support people amid the struggles they face, though by no means are we the only people to do this.

The most important footsteps we follow, of course, are the ones of Jesus, who consistently ignored barriers created by people in order to meet those he knew needed him. The Salvation Army has a history of daring to set foot in countries where they’ve not initially or even latterly been welcome, because of our desire to serve everyone without discrimination and our passion to speak about the love of God.

The Salvation Army is a vehicle for that love – it’s not the destination. We are a Movement of God, called to go out and be where others are, to be deliberately different as God’s people, individually and together. We are deliberately different for good reason: to reach the whosoever. ‘To serve the present age,/ My calling to fulfil’ (SASB 946), as Charles Wesley’s hymn says.

The Salvation Army is, above all, a people of God, with a story – both past and present – of hope and love for the valuable whosoever. May we take that forward with us, every step God calls us to take.