A Global View of Salvation Army Missions

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. To redirect the course of a family's future or alter the direction of a childhood, to change the way a mother feeds her children and if she tucks them into bed at night, it doesn't take much. In fact, for families hit hardest by the pandemic, all it takes is a little help. When you give to the Salvation Army, you support those working tirelessly keep a roof overhead.

$25 a month can be the difference between homeless and home. Visit SalvationArmyUSA.org to offer your support. Hi, for the Salvation Army, this is Bernie Dake. And I'm Cheryl Gillum. Hey Cheryl, welcome back. Hey Bernie, how are you today? I am great and we've got a visitor in the studio.

We're launching a new series today on missions and throughout the series, you and I are going to be joined by Lieutenant Colonel Carol Seiler. Hi, how are you? Doing good.

How are you? Good. This is not your first time in the studio? No, it's not, but I still feel awkward. You're amongst friends. You're amongst family here. And it's not a visual medium.

So, you know, nobody's really watching to see the nerve, the nervousness. And actually I like another person in the studio right now. It gives more like, you know, synergy back and forth. It's good. It's gonna be fun. It's good to be here.

Good. Okay, Carol, we got to tell our listeners who you are. Who are you?

Carol Seiler. Grew up in the Salvation Army. My parents were Salvation Army officers. So it's very familiar territory to me.

Sure. But I first accepted Jesus as my savior when I was seven years old. Amen. Made a serious commitment when I was 16. And at that time also felt called to be a Salvation Army officer. So now I've been an officer for almost 37 years. I'll give you a little clue about my age. She went to training when she was 12.

I was very, very young. That's right. And throughout my officership, I've held a variety of roles as core officer at divisional headquarters, mostly in women's ministries arena. And now it is just my privilege and my pleasure to hold my current position, which is the director of international personnel services. I've had that position for three years.

Now that we're getting, I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but for the record, you're not in this alone. Is that right? Oh, that's correct. I, I work directly with our officers who are serving in appointments around the world. Wow.

She's very humble. I meant you're not in this alone. You're married. Oh yes. Yes.

Going back to that. Yes. Oh him. Yeah. That guy.

Yes. Been married for 40 years to my husband, Jim. Congratulations. I have two children and four wonderful grandchildren. That's awesome. And they are also a season ticket holders to a local amusement park that doesn't pay for advertising.

So we unfortunately can't plug them today. I have a grandson who's a rollercoaster aficionado. And so I've been, I've been privileged to ride with him on many rollercoasters.

You go girl. It's pretty cool. So the series that we're launching today is a seven week deep dive into missions. And we want it to be an encouragement to church leaders everywhere in a sense to reignite their passion for missions or even rethink how they're going about their missions ministry.

That's right. And to start off Carol, we wanted to get your input on a global view of the Salvation Army's mission. So first of all, I think some people may hear us speaking about some incredible work the Salvation Army is doing worldwide, and they may be discouraged thinking that maybe their smaller congregation could never be so impactful. But as we know, Salvation Army mission work is carried out by small congregations around the world. And so can you speak into that a little bit?

Well, that's right. Although we are, as the Salvation Army, a large worldwide organization, most of our congregations are small, under 100, well under 100, most of them. But each of our congregations is encouraged to preach and live out the Matthew 28 mandate to go and make disciples of all nations. And obviously not everyone can go, but there are a lot of things that they can do. They can raise money to support missions financially. They can sponsor missionaries monthly. They can pray.

Absolutely. Especially they can pray for God to raise up missionaries from their own congregations and for the missionaries around the world and for the work that they do and for the people that they minister to. One of the ways that we encourage our congregations to be aware of missions is to set up a missionary prayer board in their church and highlight the missions that they are supporting. So in the Salvation Army, we have missionaries who are serving around the world, and they can put up pictures of them, information about the places that they're serving, just to make people more aware of what is happening. They can also partner with churches in other countries to highlight what they're doing. They can exchange prayer requests. They can sponsor projects.

They can go on short-term mission trips to those places, and they can ask missionaries to come into their church and to talk about what they're doing when they're back at home. That's always a great way to kind of break down the mystery of what the missionaries do or how can we help. Well, it is a partnership. You've said that several times, right? We're partnering in missions together.

Right. Well, with the Salvation Army, it's a little more natural because we have salvation armies across the world that we can learn about and partner with. But if you're not a part of the Salvation Army, you can still have a partnership with another church, maybe somebody of your own denomination, maybe a friend of yours, somewhat an acquaintance that you know that is serving somewhere around the world. Just find out more about them and ask what you can do to be helpful to them. A basic question that maybe we can just continue with is, why are missions so important?

What are they? Is it only something like building a school in a small town in Africa, or can it look differently? Some of the things you talked about just kind of gave light to that, but if we could even speak into that a little bit more. Well, I think missionary work is important because missionaries are messengers of the gospel message, and they bring the message of Jesus Christ around the world. So the work that they do, whatever it is, sometimes missionaries go just as preachers, but other times they go in other roles.

They might be teachers. They might just have another job, and their job to spread the gospel is something that they do on the side. But whatever it is that they do, whatever work that they do, they can help build relationships with people who don't know Christ. And through their friendship, the missionary can share the gospel message. So a mission might be gospel-centered with the goal of evangelism. It could be taking the gospel or the good news to people, or it could be service-centered. So they go to meet a need, a specific need, building a house or building a church, digging a well, helping set up farming, helping set up any kind of other industry. But there may or may not be in that case any directly sharing of the gospel, but the goal is to spread the message of Jesus Christ. And they go hand in hand, right? They do.

Preaching the gospel, giving the gospel message, communicating that, and then also works of service. That's correct. And it could be that way in this country as well.

It doesn't have to be overseas. Well, I was going to say, in effect, we're all missionaries. In that regard, I believe we are.

Yeah, absolutely. And I should say, we don't know a lot about what your actual role is. And I was at a dinner just last week with two people who are going overseas to serve as leaders of a salvation army territory in Japan. And they were speaking very high praise about the kind of support that you give them, the binder that they've already received with all the information about how they will receive support from us or how they can do X, Y, and Z. Tell us more about your specific role. So when someone in the salvation army in this territory feels called to missionary service, I work directly with them and help them be prepared for what they're going to be doing. I give them all the information that they need. I help them in filling out the forms that they need, direct them in getting their visas, their passports, and all of those kinds of things. There are a lot of steps involved in preparing for this move, including just arranging for the movers to pick up all of their supplies.

It's very different from moving within the United States. So all of those kinds of things, there's just a lot of details. And then once they get there, there are a lot of things that they might need, support that they need, just questions that they have about where they're serving. So I just attempt to help them with all of that.

That's pretty awesome. And they already, having not left yet, are encouraged by the kind of information you've given them. So kudos to you, ma'am. And I know that a couple of people who've served overseas under your ministry in that way, and I think it's more than just practical help that you give them in that way or specific details about the how-tos. I've heard so many people say how much you're an encourager. And so this really is a great ministry that you've poured into and into the lives of those who are serving overseas. Having the opportunity to work directly with the people who are involved in missions has been very exciting for me and a real encouragement to me. So to watch them and especially those with children, seeing them adapt to new cultures and just bloom wherever they are has been very exciting and encouraging to me. And it's not something that's, this is going to sound like I'm being a bad jokester, but it's not foreign to you. You've actually had family serve overseas.

We have. Our son and his family served overseas in Italy, and that was eye-opening for me. I learned a lot just from working directly with them and walking step by step with them. So it's very personal for you in that sense, but I want you to hear these words. Be encouraged because probably whether you realize that people are impacted in a wonderful way by your ministry and in our case, even just Steve and Wendy, who are soon going to Japan to take over the leadership of that territory. So God bless you. Well, thank you. It's my privilege. For the next six weeks, we are going to be discussing how the Salvation Army goes about entering new communities, how we preach mission mindedness from the pulpit and through worship, and we'll even discuss the risks involved and how we prepare our people to be in the field.

Yeah. Throughout this series, we'll have some behind the scenes videos and we'll be sharing some additional resources on social media. So to learn more, visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Carol, once again, thank you so much. It's hard for me to say Carol, but I, and officially for this radio program, I will say Lieutenant Colonel Seiler, thank you for joining us today. Thank you. God bless you.

And I'll let you do. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. And we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org.

Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at PO box 29972 Atlanta, Georgia 30359. Tell us how we can help share prayer requests or share your testimony. We would love to use your story on the air. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store, and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life.