Birthdays, bands, and reconcilliation...

On Saturday evening I attended a festival to celebrate the 85th Birthday of Ray Steadman Allen.

In 1982 Rosemary (Ray’s daughter) and I got married at The Salvation Army’s Training College in Denmark Hill in London (UK).

Sadly, as with so many things in my life at the time, the marriage ended in failure and we divorced in 1991. However, Rosemary and I have remained good friends. We had two children Ben (23) and Caitlin (20).

On Saturday I took our children to their Grandpa’s birthday bash and sat with the grand old man, his wife Joy and their other daughter the Reverend Barbara Steadman Allen (an Anglican minister) in a box at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon.

I wore my Captain’s uniform, the badge of my calling, while my ex-wife sang in the International Staff Songsters. There was a moving and humbling sense of both reconciliation and forgiveness accompanying the proceedings. There was a definite nailing of the past, a restoration of the years the locusts have eaten and a warm feeling of love, forgiveness and mutual respect in the air (the sort that sometimes only seems to come with age).

The highlight for me was the playing of Ray’s masterpiece – Romans 8. Featuring the tune associated with the words

“In the cross of Christ I glory,Towering o’er the wrecks of time;All the light of sacred storyGathers round its head sublime.”

After an excellent and inspiring evening I went home to my new life with Tracey and marvelled at the wonderful grace of God that can draw life out of death and make all things work together for good.

Then to top off a truly wonderful weekend 5 people knelt at the mercy seat at Dartford in an act of faith in the future and in a spirit of re-consecration.

Sometimes God takes the most promising things in life and subjects them “to frustration…” in the hope that “they will be ‘liberated from bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” God has certainly done this with my life and I give him all the glory.

I cannot think of a time in my entire life when I felt more content or more at the centre of God’s will than I do now.

Love and prayers

A

California dreaming...

I love this photograph. According to the drum its the first California Corps (what fantastic faith - Corps were numbered even when they only had one!).

TSA arrived in LA in 1892, this pictue must have been taken prior to 1900. It's a real wild west picture. I wonder if anyone out there can spread any further light on the photo?

If you click on the image you can see the photo full size.

Love and prayers

A

Dartford for Christ - then the world!

So the Bale family are off to Dartford, a small town on the very outskirts of London. Step out of the hall and you step onto the town High Street - I can't think of a better placed bridgehead from which to mount all out war on the enemy. Lots of social need in the area and of course plenty of people hungry for the gospel.

The SA has a great history in the town...

One Sunday in September 1886, two Salvation Army lasses were brought to Dartford to begin a pioneering work in the town. The early days of the Salvation Army in Dartford were characterised by opposition and hard work. Despite initial opposition, the Salvation Army attracted a strong following in Dartford, local drunkards and criminals were converted to Christianity. A brass band was quickly formed to accompany worship and to attract people to open air meetings.

After holding open air meetings in Dartford for more than twenty years, a dispute arose with the local authorities regarding the Salvation Army's use of the Bull Centre (outside the Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel) for their street services. A general ban on outdoor meetings in Dartford was introduced and the police were ordered to ensure that the ban was enforced. The Salvationists ignored the new ruling and continued to hold their street meetings. A number of their members were summoned by the Dartford police for obstruction. Rather than pay the fine imposed by the local Courts, some of the Dartford Salvation Army Corps members elected to go to prison at Maidstone. This incident caused a public outcry.

The imprisoned Salvationists were given a hero's welcome when they were released from prison and returned to Dartford in triumph. Possibly the largest crowd ever to assemble in central Dartford greeted the Salvationists. The dispute was later settled at a formal meeting between the Salvation Army, the local council and the Kent Police.

A local newspaper report from the day reported the incident like this:

In defence of the Salvation Army - wild scenes on the streets of Dartford

There was a massive and fervent response to the arrest of Dartford's Salvationists. A defence committee was formed to co-ordinate the protest campaign. Public meetings of protest attracted large crowds; protest marches were held and banners, slogans and posters appeared all over the town.

Banners declared 'IMPRISONED FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE'; 'DEFEND RELIGIOUS AND PERSONAL LIBERTY' and 'WE DEMAND LIBERTY TO PREACH CHRIST'. 15,000 people gathered at Dartford Station to welcome home the prisoners when released from jail, two of them still wearing their prison uniforms bearing broad arrows.

During the course of the exuberant celebrations the Dartford police were stoned and pelted with rotten fish heads and bad eggs. Hooligans used the occasion to vent their spleen on the local constabulary. Dartford's Superintendent Poole was pelted for four hours. Policemen were stoned to the station. There were violent speeches at the Drill Hall - a torrent of rancorous abuse."

Sadly there is no band at the Corps now and some over-zealous Officer in the past decided to sell all the instruments! However the Corps does still sell 'War Crys' round the pubs and that is something I am looking forward to.

Read the following in my devotions this morning...

"The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

God bless, redeem and sanctify the people of Dartford!

Yours set apart by Christ, for the lost, in the Army!