The Salvation Army Chatham

Our weekend began with an historic event at Dartford Corps in which our Band participated.

Celebration of the Battle for the Bull Centre

It is one hundred years since Dartford Salvationists were sent to prison for preaching in the streets. We will be giving a more detailed report on the celebration of this event later in the week – so watch this space!

Our meetings yesterday were led by Major Beverley in the morning and Major Drew in the evening and again followed the themes of recent weeks ‘Belief in action – its what you do that counts’ and ‘Unexpected People – Unexpected Places’, repsectively.

Majors Drew & Beverley McCombe

Amongst songs chosen for the morning meeting were 506 from the Salvation Army Song Book with 1404 and 1144 from Songs of Fellowship. Our scripture reading was taken from Matthew 25:31-46 and the Singing Company and Songsters provided musical ministry with ‘He found me’ and ‘People need the Lord’ respectively. A change in leadership was also recognised as Sam Wood is to relinquish responsibility fot the Primary. She will be replaced in this responsible job by Heather Scott.

Sam Heather

The Alpha Course, which started last Wednesday, was again the subject of encouragement and prayer. Eighteen people attended the first session and anyone wishing to join the courae at this stage is most welcome. Please contact us for information and registration.

To begin her message Major Beverley showed us two loaves of bread she had made on Saturday, one with yeast and one without. Of course the two loaves looked very different, the one with yeast having risen to three or four times the size of the other. She used this example to illustrate her emphasis this weekas being ‘it matters’. She asked what can we be sure the scripture passage is saying? She then highlighted 5 points.

We are accountable

It will be fair

We are not all going in the same direction

There will be surprises on Judgement Day

The heart of Christianity is our relationship with Jesus

It is not possible to be saved by doing good works, only by Jesus’ death on the cross and nothing else. What we do for others we do for Christ. Many are simple things, things that anyone can do. Our focus must be on others and our motivation must be towards them. The more we see Christ challenging us in this way the more we shall be prepared to meet Him on Judgement Day. Does what you do matter? If you do it out of love for Christ it makes all the difference in the world.

Once again we were able to welcome new members to our corps. Kevin and Maureen Bromage have come to live locally and will be worshipping with us on a regular basis. They have moved from Boscombe, on the south coast of England. We offer them a warm welcome.

Kevin & Maureen

In the evening Major Drew used songs 22 and 308 from the Salvation Army Song Book together with 145, 1632 and 1346 from Songs of Fellowship. His chosen scripture was Psalm 95:1-8 and Luke 19:1-10.

The Band contributed ‘My All is on the Altar’ and the Songsters, ‘Christ Calls’.

In his message Drew spoke about how God can do things for people who have many problems in life. When talking about a particular individual he asked when so much is stacked against a man can God bring him through? Sometimes situations seem like a brick wall. Jesus himself said how hard it is for some to enter the Kingdom of God. But what seems impossible to man is possible with God. He cannot be put into a convenient box for the downtrodden because He is for all people everywhere.

It is important to know that what must come first is a change of heart. We also need to remind ourselves that we are a ‘salvation’ army and it is salvation that brings that change of heart. We must regain confidence in the power of God to change lives.

How do we evangelize those people who are self-sufficient? Like Jesus we must talk to them. Ask them to do things for us, for God, which will help us and bring them into what we are doing. Sometimes this will lead to the discovery of their own needs, in particular their need of salvation. These are people we rub shoulders with every day.

As we now enter two weeks of concentrated work in the form of door to door collecting we commend the effort to prayer and ask that God will bless all those who work, in whatever capacity, to help boost the funds available to The Salvation Army for its social and goodwill work. We also pray that those who give shall be blessed by God and have the confidence that the money will be well administered. We value the trust of the general public. Contact us if you would like more information about the Annual Appeal made by The Salvation Army or click here.