The Salvation Army Chatham

A more relaxed weekend than usual at the corps partly due to the Divisional Fiesta Day being held at Hawthorn School, Bletchingley.

Majors Drew and Beverley McCombe

Corps Officers Majors Drew and Beverley limited our own meetings to just one (morning) to make it easier for people to attend the Divisional event on which we’ll soon have a report.

Only one meeting at the corps to report on but a very special one as it featured more new commitments to God in the form of the acknowledgement of two new Adherent members, Renier and Chrismarie Mouton. Their elder son, Renzo (nearly 3) was added to the Cradle Roll and younger son Rico (1 year) was also dedicated to God by Major Drew. For those not familiar with Salvation Army terminology, dedication is roughly the equivalent of christening but with the added responsibility of bringing up the children to know and love Jesus accepted by the parents.

Renier Chrismarie

The meeting, which followed the theme of ‘Making Life Work – Forging Strong Families’, included songs 20, 324, 28 and 371 from the Salvation Army Song Book together with 1419 and 97 from Songs of Fellowship. Verses of scripture from 1 Peter 2:9-11 were used to introduce the theme. The Singing Company contributed ‘We are the Young’, specially chosen for the dedication, and the Songsters brought ‘We Bow Down’, a new composition by our own Emma Davis.

Emma Davis

Major Beverley delivered the address and said:

A family shares dreams, hopes, sadness, gladness and many other emotions. We have about 17million families in the UK and things are changing all the time. My feeling is that the family is not as strong a unit as it used to be in days gone by. The basic building blocks of a family are solid marriage and sound parenting and these need vigilant attention. We also need specific help and the book of Proverbs has much to say especially on the subject of parenting. Every human being needs to be loved abnormally and this emotional environment should also surround our children. How do we find that balance when children misbehave? We need to seek God’s help in a spirit of humility. We cannot make decisions for our children but we can advise them and train them in the right way. We need to show them the christian way and, as a church, we can be a prayerful support in this. Are we forging a strong family, in a personal sense, and a church sense.

During this week our music groups will be holding their last rehearsals before the summer break and the Songsters invite any who wish to attend the practice on Thursday evening (8pm) to do so. This is a social and fellowship initiative which has been the custom for many years and the Songsters look forward to seeing a number of different faces this week.

Next Sunday our meetings will be led by Majors Mike and Elizabeth Lloyd, both of whom grew up here in Chatham. We look forward to a great day so why not join with us especially if you knew Mike and/or Elizabeth from years gone by.

Here’s how to find us:

Click on the maps to enlarge