Commissioning.....

Commissioning is the sending out of a whole new batch of Salvation Army officers, the passing out parade, an 'ordination' and it was good to be there and to celebrate with them. These are people that I have taught mission with for a year and you feel a connection.

I usually have a theory. Usually a third of the cadets that I teach mission with get it all totally, they already understand the holistic nature of mission, they already understand how mission can be shaped by looking nowhere else but Jesus and the values he lived out, mission for them is not a trendy euphemism but is a living out of the Kingdom of God in both word and deed. Usually for a third of the cadets I teach - the penny drops and they leave having a great grasp of what they are called to. Usually there is a third that it doesn't connect for whatever reason. Some have a hardened partisan approach to holistic mission failing to see its importance, seeing it as anything between being an unnecessary distraction to being a negotiable of ministry.

As I told them before they were commissioned they blew my theory out of the water. These guys certainly have got it and know what it is to make the kingdom known in word and deed!

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It was good to meet up with friends and to meet up with 'blog colleagues' and to put faces to minds only known through comments and posts!

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