The Salvation Army Chatham

In view of the comments received regarding last week’s Monday Spot it has been interesting to track the sources of the visits made to this web site during the last seven days.

Of course we monitor our traffic continuously and this week we have noticed a considerable increase in visits from the home regions of our guests last Sunday. Seems like many of them have been contacting home and saying ‘hey! look at this!’. Well, there’s nothing in the world to compare with Christian fellowship, and Salvation Army fellowship in particular. That which we shared last week goes far beyond our building, our homes, our town or even our country and we are delighted to have made so many new friends, for that’s what they all are. There are always opportunities to expand our Christian brotherhood through the medium of modern technology and we would be delighted to hear from any who wish to contact us or use our comments facilities at the end of each post.

It was a very different sort of Sunday yesterday. For one thing it is a Public Holiday in Britain today which gives many the opportunity for the last ‘getaway’ of the summer before the children return to school next week. Consequently our attendance was low but the spirit most certainly was not. Only one meeting to report but what a sanctuary of worship.

Lt. Cols. Gillian & Anthony Cotterill

Led by our Divisional Leaders, Lt. Cols Anthony and Gillian Cotterill, songs chosen were 577, 53, 757, 294, 605 and 174 from the Salvation Army Song Book and 721 from Songs of Fellowship. Due to the number of people away only the Songsters were able to deliver a musical ministry though the Band were able to accompany the songs. Scripture used was John 21.

Lt. Col. Anthony gave the message in which he said:

We all know what it is to fail from time to time. We are all inadequate and mess-up! Even with hours and hours of practice we cannot ‘hit the bullseye’. Anthony outlined a number of definitions of failure and quoted the song used earlier which said ‘for this I have Jesus’. There comes a great liberation when we have permission to fail, but if we don’t try we cannot succeed. We must make an attempt because the greatest failure is not to try in the first place. The whole point is that we must invest what we have been given and only then can we expect a return. Only then can Christ make us more like Him, refining the evil nature within us and making it divine. It is true that we often fail to see what our lives should be. We should ‘love the Lord our God’, said Jesus, and ‘my neighbour as myself’. This is an area where we do not want to fail but often do. Peter, the disciple, is an example of a person who often failed, but in our scripture story Jesus took control and took the resulting catch of fish to make breakfast. Sometimes we act as if we don’t know Jesus, just as Peter had previously done. But Jesus will still ‘re-commission’ us so that we can have a glorious future.

Majors Drew and Beverley McCombe have been in South Wales this weekend for the wedding of their daughter Catherine to Matthew Williams. Hopefully some pictures will arrive soon for readers to enjoy.

Cat McCombe

Majors Drew & Beverley McCombe

Matt Smith has completed his time on the staff of Camp Tecumseh in New Jersey, USA, and is now recovering/reviving in California before returning home! We hope he’ll tell us all about it in due course.

Matt Smith

With schools returning after the summer break it is likely that the corps will be getting back to normal next week and we look forward to an interesting autumn ahead. If you live near enough why not pop in to see us at some time. You would be most welcome. Here’s how to find us.

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