“We need Officers ... -1-

"We need Officers ...


Officership by its nature is about availability and mobility... We need people who are available. So the more officers the better!"

General Linda Bond

Two years earlier General Shaw Clifton wrote in his New Year 2010 Pastoral letter...

“This season of new beginnings allows us to place before the Lord also the hopes we have in our hearts concerning our daily work. Many of you reading this are Salvation Army officers making plans for the spiritual advancement of those you lead and those you serve in Christ's name. I say to you, 'May God bless those plans, those sacred ambitions for the souls of others.'

Today, just over two years later, more than 700 of the officers addressed in that Pastoral letter are no longer serving in the Army, having giving up their sacred ambitions in the role of SA officers committed to supporting General Bond’s appeal.

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A LOST VISION 

Twenty years ago while serving as a reinforcement officer in Sweden the then Chief Secretary, Colonel Gote Lindgren, lamented that the Swedish territory was experiencing the highest attrition rate in the Salvation Army world, a 78% decline. It was the army I’d grown up in as child, and had, at age 40, left a successful career in the airline industry to invest my life and that of my family in its ranks”.

The CS’s remark prompted me to put my professional market analysis skills to work. With some 20 – 25 SA Year books and other resource material at hand I set to work and analyzed soldier, officer and corps attrition rates of every SA territory worldwide. It was a four-month long labour of love;  joy coupled with disappointment.

What followed were a series of articles that I wrote for the Swedish Salvation Army “The Officer”, and subsequently translated in large part and published in a series in the International SA, The Officer.

Since those studies were completed 25 years ago, I have moved 11 times and to 5 different SA territories on both sides of the Atlantic. Nonetheless, those many sheets of typewritten pages (pre PC era) detailing SA officer statistics have somehow always found a place in my ‘must have files’. And in gleaning those old stats regularly through the years it's clear that the attrition problem not only remains to this day, but regrettably, it’s snowballing, and some would add, is out of control.

Had major changes been made three or four decades ago they might have prevented, or at the very least, stemmed the losses to large degree; thousands of officers have left their SA calling. True, many are faithfully serving God in other denominations, local corps and fellowships. However, the root of our (SA) problem then and now is that we’ve become mired down in maintaining the status quo, burdened by regulations that ought to have been rewritten and implemented from the day that they were first given even cursory attention.  And many also argue that the SA needs to study progressive Christianity and perhaps adapt and/or adopt certain provisions.

Studies conducted by the FSAOF indicate that the majority of those who went through the pain and anguish of divorce had wished to continue in active service. Had this in some form been permitted or the restrictions relaxed the army would have had opportunity to provide much needed counseling and spiritual support. And without question hundreds of officers would have returned to service, restored, reconciled with the Army and colleagues at the very least. It needs to be added that the regulations were applied with obvious and extreme partiality.

Concurrently, the dearth in the number of Candidates and accepted Cadets in western countries, coupled with the mandated retirement of officers at ages directed by law or TSA, casts a troublesome providence when witnessing the increased shortage of officers for today and the future.

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THE HISTORY, MISSION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE FSAOF

 General William Booth, Field Officer (December 1900) pp. 453-4.

“The ex-officer, no matter what was the cause that resulted in his loss to our fighting forces, is still a child of the Army. He entered the sacred circle. He became one of us, sharing our joys and sorrows, losses and crosses. He received the commission of a divinely- appointed authority to proclaim Salvation, build up men and women in their most holy faith, and help to win someone to God.”




General Linda Bond wrote a year ago in the May-June 2012 issue of The Officer that the “way we (officers) lead still bears the mark of our life experiences.”

 The General shared that our spiritually charged leadership skills are honed through conferences attended, formal study, books read and advice from our mentors... realizing that what she does now is not much different from what she did as a corps officer; the relational challenges are not dissimilar. “So much has changed. Yet so much has not. We still lead as officers for him (God), for them, for life!”

If TSA were to use the accepted formula across Christian denominations acknowledging that; Fifty percent of all Pastors/Ministers resign from their appointed ministry role within a decade of their ordination they would have to acknowledge that there are at least 10,000+ former officers in the world with the majority living in North America and Western Europe. And, where are those thousands upon thousands of officers who have quit the field? The FSAOF has found 1,100 in our six years of existence. Is it worth the Army’s effort to find the other 14,000?

Next is to analyze why they resigned, and what did they do subsequent to leaving the ranks, and are their ‘spiritually charged leadership skills honed through conferences attended, formal study, books read and advice from mentors’ available to the Army as we seek to strengthen, restructure and realign a weakened band of officers?

In the last two decades the Army has opened fire in an additional 26 territories, a 26% increase but with only a 1% increase in its officer strength. More alarming is the realization that we’ve experienced an overall loss of 22% in the number of Cadets, the Army future leaders.

 Many will argue that reality is not as bleak as I’ve painted it; employees with appropriate professional skills have assumed many of the tasks previously held by commissioned officers.

Provided that it hasn’t cost us a great deal in additional financial expenditures I suppose that’s all well and good. However, employees assuming roles that require a spiritually committed, and ministry-focused person, i.e., a Salvation Army officer, should not be viewed as providing an equally valuable contribution to our overall mission, but rather as a loss. 

Accepting and agreeing with the Army’s mission statement may well qualify one as a Salvation Army employee but is a far cry from signing up and joining in the battle!

END PART ONE

Dr. Sven and Major Glad Ljungholm

Liverpool