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By Sharon Robertson, Lt. Colonel
For millions of students, this is the season of returning to the classroom, ready for another year of academic challenges.
Of these students, a God-chosen few entered for the first time through the imposing doors of The Salvation Army’s College for Officer Training (CFOT). It is to those special people (and to every other student of the Word whom God has honored with his calling to servanthood) that these words are addressed. Receive them, meditate upon them and act upon them, and I promise without reservation that your ministry will be fuller, richer, more deeply blessed and more abundantly a blessing to others in the years to come.
That sounds pretty presumptuous, I know, but presumptuous or not, I make that statement because it is firmly based upon the promises of God, which cannot fail. He gave his WORD!
The man or woman training to become an effective servant of God faces a lot of choices, even when the curriculum is pretty much defined by the academic institution, as is the case at The Salvation Army’s training college. One of those choices has to do with one’s major, the area of study that the student selects as the most appropriate avenue to achieve his or her life goals. Even at the CFOT, that is a choice, and it needs to be made early on.
Yes, I know that the curriculum at CFOT is for the most part pre-determined. The training staff puts a lot of thought and prayer into developing a standard “one-size-fits-all” course of studies that will most efficiently prepare cadets to achieve proficiency in those studies and skills necessary to Salvation Army officership. They are doing their part, but their part is one aspect of the training you are about to undertake. Your own commitment, your own determination, your own view of what you hope to become will have a far greater impact on your future ministry as an officer.
You, and only you, can choose your major focus during this training period. Your personal goals will have critical impact on the kind of officer you will become. Are you planning to be a future commissioner (or even general)? Do you have administrative skills, leadership potential that you expect to take you to the top, to recognition in your field? Okay, well and good. We need leaders, but more than “just” superior leaders, we need committed, God-motivated leaders whose leadership is based on a solid, biblically-sound understanding of the principles of Christian life and practice.
What should be your major focus at the training college? Army history? Policies and Procedures? Public relations? Power politics? Nope, none of the above. If you want to excel as a God-selected and empowered leader in The Salvation Army, choose to focus on the subject our most outstanding leaders have chosen: major in the Word.
Do you see yourself in a servant ministry, investing your time and energy in serving suffering humanity? Your best option, then, is to follow the example of the suffering servant who called you. Psychology, sociology, social welfare, medicine are all important, God-honoring ministries, but to be most effective, their practitioners must above all major in the Word.
Did God call you to be a minister, an evangelist, a teacher of the Word, winning lost souls and nurturing them in the gospel of Christ? By all means, dig into the pastoral studies: study of techniques of preaching and teaching; of pastoral counseling the grieving, the disconsolate, the sorely perplexed. Study the methods of sermon preparation, and learn how to effectively minister from the pulpit and at the altar. Learn how to lead others to the Lord. These are critical in Christian ministry. But most of all, when you choose the subject you are going to major in, go for the highest: major in the Word.
The world has many great leaders, many self-sacrificing, praiseworthy individuals doing good works throughout the world, and the world has many preachers proclaiming a popular gospel, some for personal benefit, but even more because they have committed themselves to Jesus’ command to take his message to a needy world. The most spiritually compelling of all are those who have chosen to focus on the Word of God as their most dependable guide for life and ministry.
Great challenges lie ahead. Dreams may shatter, but vision will grow as your relationship to Christ grows stronger. God will give you many teachers in life, but he has given but one essential textbook that will help you to expand your own spiritual boundaries, and give you skill in “rightly dividing the word of truth” in the ministry that God has for you.
You desire to honor Christ in your future ministry? Then choose now to major in the Word. Study it, learn it, memorize it with the memory of heart and mind, and live it moment by moment. Pray for insight, pray for guidance, pray for grace, pray that the living Word of God will infiltrate and influence every aspect of your life. As the Word speaks through you, you will fulfill your calling. You will be what God ordained you to be: a Salvation Army officer.
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