HAZARD: ETERNAL PUNISHMENT

I have been flat out this week. Yesterday I went and did some OH and S training for my red card. (Construction site) And I learnt something that has made alot of sense to me. When there is a hazard there is a chain of things to do to make sure that the hazard doesn't eventuate...

Step 1 - Elimination - Is there a way to eliminate the hazard?
Step 2 - Substitution - If we cant eliminate, what can we swap it with?
Step 3 - Engineering - If we cant swap it, how can we change it?
Step 4 - Admin - If we cant change it what policies, procedures can we put in to harm minimise?
Step 5 - Personal Protective Equiptment- This goes with the above steps, what can we wear to protect us from the hazard?

We are living in dangerous times. People are going to hell as we read this blog. That is a BIG HAZARD. People seem to like Jesus but not the church, so what should we do?

We can eliminate the things they dont like about church, the boring bits, the hypocrisy, the rituals, the sitting down listening to one person... What do we need to swap? We can swap the 'conservative' church for new expressions of church. House churches, cafe churches, etc...

But what do we do? We start at the other end of the hazards list. We look at ourselves, ourselves, ourselves. Then we look at the policies we have, as if that would make a difference to anything, and then we look at tweaking the problem. Never do we look at elimination or substitution. And if we do its a last result.

William Booth was not like this. He eliminated things that were preventing people from getting saved. Things like baptism, the sacraments, boring church. He substituted the old form for the new form, for The Army. And people loved it. He adapted for OTHERS. He didn't start off with personal protection and sheets of paper that say how to do things. He started from the top.

What are we doing? We have lost our way. We have lost our tradition. We are not even being logical. We are controlled by this fear of change. Its time to break free Salvation Army! Its already happening in some parts.Llook around your Territory to see some of the logical soul saving thats going on...