The Salvation Army Chatham

Congratulations to those readers who noticed that we inadvertantly assigned the role of Songster Leader to Ruth Hardy in last week’s Monday Spot.

Ruth Hardy

It was our intention to say that Ruth would be leading our morning meeting this week but we messed up on the edit from the partially pre-prepared draft. Actually Ruth was leading on behalf of the Songsters, a number of whom participated in the proceedings. Adrian Horwood being away on holiday the brigade was led by Deputy Songster Leader Carolynn Woodman.

Carolynn

Ruth took a musical theme on which to base the meeting, ‘moving from unison to perfect harmony’, and the Songsters contributed three songs, ‘That’s what we came here for’, ‘They shall come from the East’ and ‘Singing in the Heavenly Choir’. Using only two congregational songs, 734 and 696 from The Salvation Army Song Book, Ruth chose Isaiah 40:3-5 and Revelation 7:9-17 as the scripture on which to base her message. She said I am a fraud. I’m in the Band and Songsters but I’m tone deaf. I take my hearing aid out when I sing because I know what I sound like (when I play my trombone everyone else takes their hearing aids out!). Unison is one note sung by everyone which sounds the same. Harmony is different sounds which are good together. Harmony is a richer sound that unison. Ruth asked are you proud to be a Christian? I love it because I know that Jesus died for me and forgives my sins. I love that. I also love being a Salvationist. Our church is well accepted all over the world and we are in unison with each other. We should be proud to say what we stand for because people should know. But I’m still an individual and find I am often ‘one voice in the wilderness’. I then have to be an individual representative of Christ. It is at these times we find out what God has created us for. There are many things we cannot do but other things at which we excel (in my case oral communication - I talk too much!). But God needs people who talk too much, voices in the wilderness, to tell others about Him and to use the other gifts they may have. Put simply, God needs us to use our gifts and talents for Him, whatever they are. The world does not need another William Booth. it needs each of us. With all our different gifts we have the potential to be a big, beautiful and effective force for Him. This corps has strength in its diversity and its complexity and together we can achieve great things for God. Its who we are and how we are that is crucial. We must work with one perfect and harmonious voice so that one day we will be in perfect harmony with God.

In the evening our leader was Nigel Day

Nigel

The theme of his meeting was ‘how great is your God’ and he chose songs 8 and 37 from The Salvation Army Song Book together with 1015, 10, 902, 379 and 478 from Songs of Fellowship. The Band contributed ‘Great is the Lord and most worthy of Praise’ and the Songsters ‘Jesus will still be there’. Nigel used three portions of scripture to support his message, Genesis 1:1-5, John 1:1-5 and Mark 4:35-41. He said it is easy to get carried away with euphoria when worshipping a great God and gave a number of scripture references outlining some of the qualities of God. An impressive list was revealed and reinforced by the Army’s own doctrines. Nigel asked how scientists reconcile their findings with God’s creation and stated that many actually confirm the existence and greatness of God. Is your God this big or is he the size you make him to be? Do you remove the majesty of God? Do you give him the respect he deserves? God is still working in the world today, still performing miracles. His greatness is constant. He is still firmly in control. He is bigger than us!

Sadly we have heard this weekend of the passing of Dot Parkes, from the Robert Bean Lodge, on Saturday. Dot was associated with the corps for many years and was a regular attender at meetings until age and health made it impossible. At the time of writing we have no news of funeral arrangememts.

Next week will be the last of the days when lay leaders are leading our meetings. In the morning CSM Murray Smith (R) will be leading and in the evening, Mark Scoulding.

Murray Mark

We look forward to the return of Majors Drew and Beverley McCombe on Sunday 24 August.

Majors Drew & Beverley McCombe