Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd, Territorial Leaders

Welcome to our second season, this new set of episodes will offer insights into how The Salvation Army is adapting as we reopen during the pandemic. In the coming weeks we have corps officers, youth secretaries, our territorial music secretary, our integrated mission secretary and our chief risk officer all talking about how they have pivoted and continued to serve out The Salvation Army mission during the pandemic. 

Our first episode is an interview with Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd. We talk about 'Mobilize 2.0, Inspired for Mission–Positioned for Growth' and the upcoming 'Together in Mission: A territorial journey of discipleship and following Jesus in mission'.

Visit https://www.salvationist.ca/together for more information on 'Together in Mission'.

Transcript

Brandon Laird
I'm Brandon Laird, and you are listening to the Salvationist Podcast. Welcome to our second season, this new set of episodes will offer insights into how The Salvation Army is adapting as we reopen during the pandemic. In the coming weeks we have corps officers, youth secretaries, our territorial music secretary, our integrated mission secretary and our chief risk officer all talking about how they have pivoted and continued to serve out The Salvation Army mission during the pandemic. Here is the first of six episodes of mission in a pandemic.

Today we will talk with Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd who will offer their perspectives as territorial leaders of Canada and Bermuda. It is good to talk with you today Tracey and Floyd.

Commissioner Tracey Tidd
It's good to be here and being part of this podcast. Thanks for having us.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
We're really looking forward to the opportunity of dialogue together with you and with an audience.

Brandon Laird
It's so good to talk with you today and thank you for making time for our podcast during the pandemic. People around the territory are talking about The Salvation Army's future in Canada and Bermuda and our Mobilize strategy. How does Mobilize 2.0 fit into the backdrop of the current pandemic?

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
Great question and great context as well, Brandon. The conversation about the future of The Salvation Army is a conversation probably many of us who are listening to this podcast have been asking for decades if not certainly most recent years. What is the future of The Salvation Army? Where we going? And Mobilize 2.0 is a season in the history of The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda that really builds on the last five years' emphasis on 7 strategic priorities under Commissioner Susan McMillan and the banner Mobilize. So Mobilize 2.0 builds on all of that work with an emphasis on two key point. Whenever we say Mobilize 2.0 there are two tag lines that go with it: inspired for mission and positioned for growth. And we began to build that project plan just as COVID-19 was beginning to sweep across the territory. I say that might have surprised us, the COVID-19 and what we're trying to do with Mobilize 2.0, but I am certainly confident that it did not surprise God.

Commissioner Tracey Tidd
I think that COVID-19 has added to the opportunity for us as a territory to prepare not only for change but to be changed. I think it's caused us to stop some things that we were currently doing and increase our work and efforts in other areas during the pandemic. We may not have been able to gather for worship but I truly believe that we have gathered for mission in our centres, in our long-term care homes, our shelters, our family services and, most of all, our neighbourhoods. I believe we have more time to listen and to see what God is about and Mobilize 2.0 is about seeking a fresh move of God by his Spirit, just being able to slow down and giving us that opportunity to seek after God. Mobilize 2.0 is about positioning for growth as Floyd already alluded to, and COVID-19 is giving us that opportunity that opportunity to see what is it that God is doing and what do we need to do to join him in that.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
I'm reminded often of that point as a as a young kid when walking with one of my parents and getting ready to cross the street and go to the next block, the need to stop and look both ways before crossing the street. And COVID-19 has done that to a degree for us, has caused us to stop and to look carefully before we step into the future. So Mobilize 2.0 and moving forward to a new future is definitely still on the radar and responding to what we believe God is saying and what people are hearing. But the same point we're in this COVID-19. I don't think it's slowing us down I don't think it's stopping us. I think it's actually giving us a solid platform to move into the future.

Brandon Laird
There is an opportunity for our listeners to participate in Together in Mission. For more information and to register visit salvationist.ca/together to see how will this 12-week online Zoom event of discussions around being together in mission will help us move forward as a territory.

Commissioner Tracey Tidd
We are very excited because we've had the opportunity to make sure that we engage so many people in this opportunity that lies ahead. And we're excited that more than 300 people have already registered to be part of this territory-wide experience. Now we're also excited to say that 40 retired officers have committed to daily pray over these 12 weeks, that God would transform our lives and renew our minds as we together as a territory consider what is he saying to us about being a holy army, about his mission in our community. And so we're looking forward to that time together and anticipating that time together as a territory.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
I'd echo what Tracey is saying. This opportunity to gather together across the territory in this Wednesday night weekly event called Together in Mission, guided by Commissioner Phil Needham's book Christ at the Door, is a response and I think at the same point time it ignites the ongoing passion in our officers, employees, soldiers volunteers. I'm convinced as we walked across the territory and as we've talked to people and sat in conversations that there is a burning desire to move this army forward, to not retreat, to not settle for decreasing numbers of corps, of officers, of soldiers, of community and social programs, to not settle for decreasing numbers of people who experience the transforming power of the love of Jesus. So what's exciting is that we are moving forward the 12-week conversation will help us understand how God is calling us to be the army he raised us up to be, to be active in our communities where he's already working. And the last half hour of every evening will be spending online small groups with others from all across the territory as we discuss what we're hearing and share what's happening in our local communities.

Brandon Laird
Recently, Floyd, you interviewed Commissioner Phil Needham about his book Christ at the Door in preparation for the Together in Mission online series. Let's take a listen to one of Commissioner Needham's answers to your questions.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
The book Christ at the Door is structured in three sections: the journey, the mission and the community. Talk to us about why these themes and how they relate to one another.

Commissioner Phil Needham
I don't particularly see them as themes. I see them as three parts of a whole. In other words, they should never be separated. The first section is really about the Christian, the Salvationist, spiritual life, their spiritual journey. It is a journey. It is not something we reach stasis in, because if you aren't growing you're declining, like every other organic thing that God ever created. So it is true spiritually. So it is a journey, a continuous journey in holiness, but you journey that with other people. We were not meant to be alone; were meant to be a community. And that's what the church is about is our family, our spiritual family. It's our faith community. So if a Christian thinks he could be a Christian without other Christians he is sadly deluded. So we journey together with other Christians but our ultimate objective is beyond the church, beyond ourselves personally, beyond the church; it is the world. God so loved the world that.... He doesn't say for God so loved the church. It says for God so loved the world that he gave his Son and that's the genius of The Salvation Army. It's like the difference between a movement in an institution: a movement exists for the sake of those who are not its members; an institution exists for its members. And that's what the church by and large has basically evolved into -- an institution. It's what the army has evolved into. That in of itself is not bad, as long as we can keep that that missional spirit alive and bless it wherever we can find it in our ranks.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
Let me ask one final question. Take me back to that moment that you refer to in the beginning of the book, in the introduction, of kneeling at the rally and looking at that Light of the World  picture.

Commissioner Phil Needham
That was my … probably my best mentor at least over the last 30 years has been Ken Callahan, who's a Methodist minister, and when I was in my doctoral program at Emory I asked him to be my advisor. That was a good choice. That was when the church growth movement was in its heyday; everything was church growth. How do we do this to get more people? And Ken's view was mission growth: you don't go after the numbers growth, you grow the mission. He was actually working with a church a Methodist Church and they were puzzling through their continuous decline. They were sitting in the in the chapel they were praying and he looked up at the stained glass window of Christ at the Door and he thought what this church needs is to open the door and come out and join Christ in the world. Christ isn't just in the church he's primarily in the world, asking us to join him there. And that gets at something else which I think is so important: we sometimes think of a good Salvationist as someone who is very active in the corps. Actually that's like 10% of your time maybe 5%. What about the 90 to 95% of your time? That's your mission field.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
Thank you for that image again for us. In the Canada and Bermuda Territory we sense very strongly that Christ is at the door and he is beckoning us to come back into our communities and to join him in the work that he is doing there. So thank you for this book, thank you for the interview today and we look forward to journeying again with you on September 30th throughout the pages of Christ at the Door over the next 12 weeks. So thank you once again and God bless.

Commissioner Phil Needham
Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity.

Brandon Laird
Having more time to pray and to listen to God through reading of Scripture and connecting with others in Zoom prayer meetings has seen an increase in the past six months in what is God saying to us in these days.

Commissioner Tracey Tidd
I truly believe in these last seven months that God has given us the opportunity to just stop and to reflect and renew -- just seeing how God is changing us and that is obvious in these COVID days. He is active in our communities and he has a plan to use us, I believe, as a Salvation Army in a new and powerful way once again. He gives us the opportunity in these moments to be still and to know he is God and just listen to what he is saying to us. Perhaps some of us have stepped out of our comfort zones in these last seven months, but we've stepped out in obedience to what God is telling us to do and just joining in him in that space.

Commissioner Floyd Tidd
I think it's a great question. What I'm really appreciating is that so many people that we're meeting are saying that they are really listening to hear what God is saying to them at this moment for their own lives and for our movement as a Salvation Army. I believe what God is saying to us is calling us to believe him to be the only source of inspiration that can bring this army to its feet, to make its dry bones come alive as Ezekiel saw an Ezekiel 37:10. He wants to stand up a vast army. Ezekiel 37:10 starts not only both the bones all being connected and flesh and skin being added to those bones when they're connected, but then times with this element of God breathing afresh into that body. I believe what God is saying to us is, Will you not only let me get you connected and add fresh flesh and new skin but stand up as an army that I have breathed into, a fresh inspiration of fresh inspiring from God, so that we stand up. It's time for this army to stand up confident because it's the breath of God in our lives, in our movement, in all that we do.

Commissioner Tracey Tidd
I just want to take this opportunity as we close say thank you to everybody across the territory, whether you're a Salvation Army officer, whether you're an employee, whether you're a volunteer, whether you're a soldier. And we just want to thank you for being partners in the gospel with us. You know that that is our philosophy of ministry as your territorial leaders and so we just want to come alongside you. Just be still and know that he is God and allow him to speak to us as a Salvation Army as a movement. We have the opportunity to just do that in these next, weeks, months perhaps a year that lies ahead in this COVID space. So thank you for this opportunity to share with you over this podcast and in the days that lie ahead.

Brandon Laird
Thank you commissioners Floyd and Tracey for taking time to connect with us today. It is a unique time for the army and it is good to have leaders listening to God.
 
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