Book Review: Our Rallying Cry by Commissioner Miriam Gluyas
REVIEWER: MAJOR MAL DAVIES
In February 2023, Commissioner Miriam Gluyas commenced her current appointment as Territorial Commander of the Australia Territory, and from the very start, she has promoted a three-part rallying cry for the territory: Jesus-centred, Spirit-led, hope revealed.
While it’s aspirational, it’s also inspirational, and the territory has found new missional energy and focus as it seeks to realise this rallying cry.
This new book offers a very clever approach to expanding on and explaining the rallying cry to its readers. Rather than offering an academic theological unpacking of the three-part call, the book provides story after story from Salvationists, corps and social centres that ‘show’ each part of the call in action.
As with any change, new process, or new method, while some people get on board quickly (they can envision the outcomes already), most of us need to see what it looks like first. This book allows us to ‘see’ what it looks like. As you read through the stories, you can’t help but be energised by their positivity – lives transformed, God at work.
The book opens with a preface by Commissioner Gluyas as she speaks of her motivation for producing the book. We then have a very helpful overview of the rallying cry by Auxiliary-Lieutenant Rosy Keane, Secretary for Spiritual Life Development. The bulk of the book is then divided into three sections, each containing about 15 short stories (one or two pages) on the elements of the rallying cry: Jesus-centred, Spirit-led, hope revealed.
In the conclusion to the book, Commissioner Gluyas writes: “In a post-modern, post-Christian and hopefully post-COVID world, The Salvation Army, especially in the Western world, has a great opportunity to reimagine. Now is the time to reimagine an Army fit for purpose for the 21st century and take bold steps to make this a reality. Faith needs to rise.”
She then discusses how corps life, as we know it, could adapt and take different forms. ‘Gathered worshipping communities’ are akin to current corps as places where we gather to worship, serve and grow together. ‘Communities of hope’ serve in the local community, and the focus is on building relationships outside of our church walls; they’re about Salvationists walking alongside people in engaging and helpful ways. ‘Community tables’ are where people gather informally to discuss faith matters. They can take place in a home, at the corps, in a café, in a social centre, in a park – anywhere!
Commissioner Gluyas points out that the focus of all three approaches is relational; they’re about building a community of faith, be it with a few or with many.
At the end of the book, there are helpful links to online resources and more stories supporting the rallying cry, meaning the book moves beyond stories and text to provide help and advice on how to actually move forward in practical ways. I also appreciated the inclusion of the lyrics to Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘A charge to keep I have’, especially the second verse: ‘To serve the present age,/ My calling to fulfil,/ O may it all my powers engage,/ To do my Master’s will.’
As mentioned earlier, this is a clever book because it is real. It is not the dry unpacking of the theology behind an ecclesiological methodology; it is story after story of how we can do ministry that keeps Jesus at the centre, is led by the Spirit, and reveals the hope God offers freely to all.
The book is $25 and available from Salvos Publishing here.
