On the 14th of October 2025 General Lyndon Buckingham gave a call to action to the international Salvation Army. The link for it is directly below. I think we need to best understand this call as a call to sanctification.
The General is calling Salvationists to rediscover their personal excitement, enthusiasm, and commitment to the mission of God and the ministry of The Salvation Army.
Collaboration With Culture
His concern is that Salvationists have become too concerned with the prevailing cultures and ideologies. This has distracted them from the calling of Christ on their lives and led them to prioritised other areas of their lives. The result has been a general disinterest from Salvationists in personal mission.
I think that while this is partially true, and, while it makes for good rhetoric, it does miss out something deeper and more problematic for all Christians in all times and all places. Even in highly missional churches, second generation members are less likely to be engaged in direct action. Further, as missional activities become increasingly professionalised it reduces the capacity of members to engage with it and increases their freedom to abrogate their personal responsibility to someone else.
His response is a call for a return to faith in Jesus and trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that will bring a renewed sense of urgency to the life of the Salvationist.
This is not a new call. The call for revival has almost always been tied into a call for a return to the Holy Spirit. This does not make it wrong. It is entirely right to tie revival and renewal into dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit. The reality is that it is experiential faith which drives and motivates action. People are more likely to take personal responsibility for mission when they have had a personal experience of faith, and particularly of sanctification.
His hope is that this power will lead to growth in both numbers and spiritual depth across the Army world.
This is a right and proper hope to have. It is the Spirit that convicts for salvation, and it is the Spirit that preserves the faithful in their justification. Sanctification grants the power to resist sin and opens the eyes of believers to see the need of people around them. Sanctification sets fire to the hearts of the faithful and fills them and transforms them with the perfecting love of Christ. Without sanctification there is not Church, and without sanctification there would be no Army.
Revival of Sanctification
I believe the unsaid reality is that the General is calling for a renewal of sanctification.
He may not be using that language but that is what he is calling the Army to focus on. If it is the power of the Holy Spirit that is needed to make this renewal and revival across the Army possible, then sanctification will be needed. This is because it is through sanctification that the power of the Holy Spirit is mediated into the world.
The Salvation Army has always been a holiness movement. From it’s earliest days it believed that it was sanctification alone that gave the power and authority for ministry. This is why uneducated working class men and women were free to become preachers and evangelists. Since sanctification is the privilege of every believer, every believer is called into and empowered for ministry. The Army’s understanding of holiness is what gives authority to its roots as a lay movement, and which continues to empower it’s call and expectation of total mobilisation for mission for every disciple.
It was sanctification which drove the Army to seek the salvation of the world, the transformation of society, and the ending of poverty. They believed that society could be saved, sanctified, and made new. Poverty,. destitution, and crime would all come to an end when people were sanctified and the roots of sin were removed from their hearts. It was the belief in the possibility of total Sanctification here on Earth than led the early Army to believe that the world would be saved and Christ would return.
Along the way the Army has lost its love of holiness and its belief in the transforming power of sanctification. Even by the 1930s complaints were being made that not enough people were seeking the second blessing of holiness. Today, holiness teaching has very much taken a second seat to the rest of Salvatinist life and faith.
But holiness is the underpinning belief which gives power to so much more. It informs our commitment to the priesthood of all believers. It empowers our social reform work. It gives passion to our commitment for justice and the fight against poverty. It is what gives us as individuals the enthusiasm for ministry and mission that could drive this Army forward.
The future of the Army rests not on its officers or on the General, on its donors or on its employees. The future of the Army is entirely dependent on a passionate, engaged, and sanctified soldiery who are committed to the ministry and mission of the Army. Without that, the Army will continue it’s decline in the West.
Sanctification is the game changer. That is where the call to action needs to begin. With the call to sanctification and the command of holiness. God tells us to be Holy as God is Holy. It is a divine command.
Sanctification Is The Game Changer
What does it mean to be holy? It means to be like Jesus. We are not holy on our own or by our own nature. We share in Christ’s holiness as he conforms us to his nature in our sanctification. God alone is holy, but God has commanded that we should be holy, and so God makes this possible by allowing us to share in God’s holiness. Until glorification, our holiness properly belongs to Christ, but we are actually transformed into the likeness of Christ through that shared holiness. That is why being holy means being like Christ.
What does it mean to be like Jesus? It means to a person who unselfishly and self-sacrificially loves others. Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. We know who God is because we know Jesus. Jesus reveals the very nature and being of God to us. Jesus always acts not for his own sake, but for the sake of others. It is God’s promeity, God’s self-giving and directed attention to others, that we find in Jesus. This is God’s love in action. Jesus is the manifestation of God’s love. To be like Jesus is to love, so holiness is love expressed in the world.
What does it mean to love another person? 1 Corinthians 13 tells us. To be merciful and forgiving, to be patient and kind, not to hold onto grudges but to be gracious and gentle. Love directs our hearts and minds towards people that are different to us. It is easy to love people that are like us, or that love us too. Just as it is easy to forgive people who haven’t really hurt us. The love of God is always directed to that which is not God. So too must our sanctified love be directed towards that which is not us. To love like Jesus means fully, deeply, graciously, and not limited only those people closest to us or to those who love us back.
That is what it means to be holy. Not to live without sin, but to live a life of love for other people. When we remove moral purity from holiness and focus instead on radical love for our neighbour, then we will find that we naturally move beyond sin as a consequence of our love. Holiness drives us to care for and act on behalf of our neighbour because holiness is our love for others. That is why holiness is necessary for revival. Because without the passionate love for our neighbour, we will never be able to break out of our own inward turned hearts and minds and actually live in the reality Christ has created.
The call to action is a call to Sanctification, and the call to sanctification is a call to perfect love. To fulfil that call, we need to be preaching and teaching holiness like never before. Then we need to eagerly expect the blessing of Christ. We will not be disappointed and the Army will be renewed and reformed in new and exciting ways.
But it will only happen if all of us take up the call and responsibility of holiness.
If You Found This Interesting, Here Are Some Related Posts…
William Booth’s Big Decision – Politics or Religion
By Love Serve – the Mission of the Army
What is the Vocation of Salvation Army Soldiership?
We Don’t Need Priests! – The Salvation Army Doesn’t Need Ordination
What Does The SalvatioN Army Believe About Holiness?
Communities of Resistance: Creating Covenantal Communities in Reclaimed Spaces
Compass – Salvation Army Global Strategic Framework 2024 – 2027: An Initial Reflection
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