Innovate. Or stagnate.

The other morning I dragged myself out of bed to be at Pancake Parlour at 6:30 for a meeting my friend Dave had set up. It involved a number of people from within the Salvation Army, including a successful business man from Sydney, and an amazing bloke I've had the privilege to know now for about 8 years from the UK - Phil Wall. Dave set up the meeting to talk through an idea he has about a network of innovation for the Salvation Army.

This could be one of those things that one day will be seen as a catalyst, or a turning point for change within the movement. Why? Because it has the potential to celebrate, foster and encourage innovation within the Salvation Army, to help find new ways to meet peoples needs and to support those on the cutting edge.

Is this the first sort of 'innovative' thing the Army is doing? Of course not. People all over the world are birthing God-given ideas into incredible success stories. But this may be the first opportunity to attempt to bring these people together - to give them forums to discuss and meet and chew over issues together. The website (which doesn't exist yet, but will) could be a great forum for these things that will shape the future of the movement.

Why is this all so important? Well, one person at the meeting gave us some interesting figures they have of Salvation Army life in the Southern Territory... Over 20% attendance down, over 25% soldiership down, and over 50% junior soldiership down... Now, this may be because some Salvo churches are just using some different programs... but I doubt it. In isolated cases that will be true - but the reality is the movement IS dying. Certainly, there is a groundswell around the world of people who care, who are making things happen. Things like 61:4 http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/order614/ (here is an example - there are other 61:4's around the world), the War College http://www.thewarcollege.com/academics.html, the Roots movement http://www.rootsonline.org/ and others are all great examples. But these are still just a small part in the overall size of the Salvation Army worldwide. And worldwide, the story is possibly not so exciting, as those figures may suggest.

We have a choice - we have an obligation. Now as much as ever before there is need for the Salvation Army. But there is a need for relevance to our community context, and that comes with a free flow of new ideas. Not from the top - from the grass roots. Doing the same thing over and over again is a recipe for disaster...

You innovate or you stagnate. And if you stagnate, you die.