I love this picture. Let me explain what it is. This is the new unnofficial corps plant in an area of Charlotte, North Carolina. Its not even significant enough to be a mere outpost but great things for the Kingdom are happening there. This flag is on the house of the people who have moved into this poor area to begin living incarnationally and working in the community.
This is an beautiful picture of a spirit of determination, of vision, of tapping into a dream much bigger than yourself, believing that the gospel will and can be established in any given area with a bit of faith, trust and hard work.
I love it when salvationists get a taste of that pioneer spirit…that apostolic urge to spread, to risk, to branch out, to establish and to impact the kingdom of darkness with some pretty powerful light.
My prayer is that God would infect every corps with a pioneering spirit that the gospel will catch and spread like a bush fire. John Gowans had a vision for a Salvation Army corps in every viable community in the UK…and he even said that during the time of largest corps dissappearances ever in our history. There is great life in planting.
When the Army had a strong vision for planting new corps we grew like nothing else. Even now, there is nothing more successful for evangelism than the establishing of new churches…there is tonnes of research and books on this subject.
Lord….Send the Fire!
Andrew C
Andrew M Clark 
Can’t help but agree! New is the way forwardx. I think much of the turmoil that we find ourselves in is to do with the fact that we got carried away with maintenance, and a whole system grew to protect that, rather than being about risk taking and pioneering.I’m not sure how much we live it out (you know where I mean!).
made me smile too and want to shout go on !!! I love the mixture of the words ‘planting church and incarnational’ – I think that might be the line of thought that makes planting churches authentic. I’m not sure the decade of evangelism go that mix right. Hope all goes well for sunday.
aye…not sure the decade of evangelism got much right…but thats a different question altogether! :o)
We were infected with a pioneering spirit after visiting Romania and have since planted new SA missions at Ripon and now Northallerton. Thankfully the Holy Spirit keeps infecting us again and again with it every time the world starts to immunise us. Planting is now so ingrained that when we go on holiday my husband usually visits the Town Hall to find out the number of churches per population and a good location for selling the War Cry!We are blessed to be in North Yorks where there have been 5 new plants in the last 12 years with two more planned this year. I was also recently in Warsaw which opened fire in September. They made their latest soldier last Sunday. Let’s get back that old vision of the whole wide world for Jesus!God blessCarol