A few snippets for you……
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Our band and other corps members have responded heroically to our Christmas programme again this year. We’ve had a good time and had lots of good positive witness opportunities. A highlight for me was at a local Christmas Fayre in Portishead…I was giving out some ”novelty” gospel tracts in the form of Million Euro notes…people loved them…in fact, I had crowds of young people around me asking for more! The tracts have a link to the evangelistic website advertised at the top of this blog. Good fun. Not hard core evangelism, but better than doing nothing.

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My wife has started blogging…allegedly. I’ll withhold the URL until it looks like she is going to keep it up :o)

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I am feeling very much refreshed personally…the dark fog of depression has gone and its a blessing. I suppose I’m still a little physically run down, but thats due to being busy. I’d have hated to miss the Christmas Campaign and wish I’d been feeling a bit more organised about it, but we got through. The thought did come once or twice that it may or may not be my last in this appointment, but if its not my last, I’ve got a few ideas to spice things up for next year.
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Was struck by the thought a few times this Christmas, that before I was a Salvationist and saved, I doubt very much that if I had seen a Salvation Army uniform that I’d have know what it was. I had no concept of what the Army was other than, believe it or not, recollections of watching Hallelujah on the BBC with my grandfather in the 80s….and thats not exactly an accurate portrayal…fun, but not acurate (I hope). Bearing in mind I was about 3 or 4 years old at the time gives another slant!

I guess it it reminded me that we can’t rest on our laurels going around believing that people know who we are, what we look like and what we do. Folks in our village, most of them, recognise the Army because its very much at the visible centre of the community, but as we ventured to local towns, it was clear that some folds didn’t have a clue. I guess its important to think carefully about what we present as we try and enforce our public identity.

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Anyway, I’d like to wish the readers of Army Renewal a very holy and happy Christmas…may you know Jesus up close and incarnate in your heart.

yours, under the flag,

Andrew