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Salvation Army leaders share ministry news from the field.
By Tim Schaal
People—that’s the most important aspect of The Salvation Army’s ministry.
As a tool to help keep people at the forefront of the Army’s thinking and agendas, Territorial Commander Commissioner James Knaggs launched the territory-wide People Count initiative in mid-October.
“We are in the business of providing worship experiences, growing the kingdom and serving people who need our help,” Knaggs said. “It is with this focus in mind that I launch the People Count initiative. Quite simply this is an opportunity for us all to share and celebrate on a weekly basis the good that is happening in our corps and centers in the area of people.”
Every Monday morning, leaders at all Salvation Army corps, adult rehabilitation centers, institutions and programs receive an email from Knaggs asking them for four people-related statistics reflective of the prior week. The statistics reflect people saved, worship attendance, members enrolled and people assisted. Leaders can easily enter the information through a web page optimized to work on mobile devices such as Blackberries, Droids or iPhones.
In addition, leaders have the opportunity to share a brief story of success from their ministry in the past week.
In early November, the information will be available to the public at the People Count website, peoplecountusw.org, which will include a weekly video message from Knaggs or another Salvation Army leader, sharing in a positive manner the reported information, a random sampling of the submitted success stories, and an interactive graph of the four key pieces of data for every location in the territory.
Response from the field has been overwhelming so far, with almost 250 success stories and over 1,100 pieces of information submitted in the first two weeks. And the territory-wide totals indicate that each week has seen over 1,000 visits to the mercy seat!
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