Founders Day

 SIW 05.07.2026

William Booth was a Methodist Minister who wanted to do things differently. He wanted to offer hope and salvation to the poor of London and he was discouraged from doing it in the churches so on the 2^nd of July 1865 he put up a tent in a burial ground and started the work of the East London Christian Mission which later became The Salvation Army. Today we are celebrating Founders Day by remembering Catherine and William Booth.

William was a travelling preacher and one night he had preached then had an eight mile walk home through London’s poorest districts. As he walked, he came to the realisation that this area and these people were the one’s he wanted to work with and minister to. On that night, during that walk home, William committed himself to working with the poor. He had a vision to lift people up, to feed the hungry, love the working girls and find work for the unemployed.

Catherine was a serious and quiet girl who spent a long period in her teen years bedridden with scoliosis. During this time of enforced rest, she developed her idea that women are as valuable and as talented as men and that they could and should be allowed to preach. Catherine became Williams wife and she influenced his ideas, she raised funds for his work and she challenged his thinking. I grew up being taught that William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army but we have since made a move to acknowledge Catherine as an equal founder, which is right and proper.

William and Catherine's lives have been very well documented and I don’t want to spend more time on biography, I would like to look at the way they were thinking and to do that, I thought we could have a look at some quotes from them both:

'Let the grown-up people set before the children a constant and living example of that gentleness and kindness to woman which was ever manifested by our Lord Jesus Christ.' - William Booth

Even in the 1970s, Australian women who were killed by their partners were not counted because nobody thought it was important enough. William Booth advocating for women 100 years or more before there was any real traction on womens safety.

'Let the boy be taught from his earliest infancy that his sister is as good as he is... Let the girl be made to feel that her value to God and man is as high as it would have been had she been a boy.'  William

Again, something like 100 years before feminism became a powerful m ovement, William and Catherine saw the value in women.

You cannot warm the hearts of people with God's love if they have an empty stomach and cold feet.- William 

One of the philosophies still at the heart of The Salvation Army is that people can’t be expected to care about their spiritual being when their physical bodies are cold, hungry or unsafe.

In this statement, William Booth summarised Maslow’s hierarchy of needs about 100 years before Maslow thought of it.

And now a quote from Catherine which will seem out of context but stay with me:

It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh-meat of any kind is essential to health. Considerably more than three parts of the work in the world is done by men who never taste anything but vegetable, farinaceous food, and that of the simplest kind. There are more strength-producing properties in wholemeal flour, peas, beans, lentils, oatmeal, roots, and other vegetables of the same class, than there are beef or mutton, poultry or fish, or animal food of any description whatever.- Catherine

Whether you agree with Catherine or not, the part I am interested in is her questioning of the accepted wisdom.

The pattern I see is that the Booths were critical thinkers. They were people who left no idea unexamined. No pattern of behaviour or thinking was accepted just because it had always been accepted.

The Salvation Army has done a great job of honouring and building on the work of William and Catherine Booth. We still help the needy, we help in disasters, we were famous for our help in wartime, Showing God’s love through practical care is still at the core of our work. Worldwide we install wells, run hospitals, provide homes and teach children.

I wonder, though, if we are still thinking critically about what we do and what we believe? I believe our leadership and the organisation as a whole is always looking to do better and be better, but we, the people in churches every week  are The Salvation Army. We have the power and the responsibility to set our direction just as much as our leaders do.

Are we re-examining our mission? We are really good at loving the people around us but do we love others in every way we can? Do we care for others in our voting? Do we care for others in our spending? Are we investing in ethical investments? Are we mindful of being good stewards in the way we live our lives?

Our founders, William and Catherine Booth, really saw people who had never been seen before. They loved in ways that had not been considered before. They focussed on the unloved and the un-noticed. Their match factories changed workplace health and workers rights forever.

Are we, as individuals, honouring the Booths in our love for Christ and for people? Are we loving the people we can’t see? Are we careful in our purchasing or are we contributing to poor conditions and servitude by our addiction to cheap goods?

Are we worried about the working conditions of people who serve us?

Do we recognise the full humanity of every group of people?

We love to remember the vision of the Booths, we love to tell stories of Williams fresh insights ands inventive methods.

On the 161^st birthday of the Salvation Army, are we making sure to examine our motivations? Are we praying for new insights? Do we believe that we have a role to play. Are we aware of the deepest tragedies and injustices of our modern world or do we assume that love, mission and changing the world are for the officers, the paid employees and the appointed leaders?    

The world is a complicated place and I don’t think it is possible to live a modern lifestyle without ethical compromises, we all get overwhelmed when we think about the things we can’t change and the things that don’t change fast enough. It is easy to think that our efforts can’t make a difference or to wonder what we could possibly do but my answer to that is in the words of William and Catherine.

William said:

I made up my mind that God would have all there is of William Booth.If there is anything of power in The Salvation Army today, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will and all the influence of my life.' - William Booth

And Catherine:

'I know not what He is about to do with me but I have given myself entirely into His hands.' - Catherine Booth

Let’s celebrate the Booths today, not just because they started this beautiful movement we love but because they committed to growth and to fresh thinking, they loved whoever they could in whatever way they could.

 The power of William and Catherine Booth came from their surrender; their fresh thinking and their love came from their surrender.

The legacy of William and Catherine Booth is changing lives, bringing hope and salvation more than 100 years after their deaths and God still wants and needs and uses surrendered people.

Hagar

Genesis 16 & 21

SIW 10.05.2026

When I was asked to talk about a biblical woman who inspires me, I had never really thought about it but I eventually settled on Hagar and I have 7 minutes so lets dive in!

The Egyptian pharaoh gave Hagar to Abraham to be a slave to his family before he left Egypt. Hagar became the maid servant of sarah. So straight away we have a woman given away like livestock and forced to live in a family of a different culture, then that family left her homeland and took her with them.

Sarah had been trying to get pregnant for many years and had not been successful so she said to Abraham, hey how about you try getting Hagar pregnant because the child of a slave automatically became the property of the slave holder. Sarah saw this as her chance at a child.

There was no IVF in those days so Hagar had to accept a relationship with Abraham that she surely didn’t want so that she could achieve a pregnancy. I would call this assault. I would also say that Abraham and Sarah were callously using her for their own purposes.

When Hagar does become pregnant she starts to get sassy with Sarah and mock her, finding a way to have some sense of power when she has no power. We do this, don’t we? And it’s a very human thing to do but its not smart. The tension between the women grows until Hagar feels that she needs to leave the camp.

So she has jumped from the frying pan to the fire, from the safety and provision of Abraham and Sarah's household to alone in the desert, reflecting on her choices. And of all the uncomfortable things in life, knowing you did it to yourself is often the worst.

While Hagar is out there in the desert, an angel comes and tells her to return to Abraham and Sarah. The angel says that if she will submit to Sarah, she will have descendents too numerous to count.

I will remind you here that Hagar is not a Jew, she hasn’t traditionally followed the same God but she understands that God has seen her and had mercy on her and she names Him, El Roi, the god who sees.

I don’t know about you but I have followed the same God all my life and sometimes I still don’t recognise him or his work. What a great moment that must have been for her and what insight she had.

Hagar returns to Abraham and Sarah and the baby Ishmael is born.

Life goes on for about 10 to 12 years and Sarah miraculously becomes pregnant, Isaac is born and it should all be happy times but Sarah becomes worried that Hagar’s son Ishmael will become the heir so she has asks Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.

Abraham isn’t overly happy about sending his son into the desert but that is what he does. Hagar and Ishmael go into the desert with a bag of water, which is soon finished and Hagar, not wanting to watch Ishmael die, tells him to lie under a bush and then walks away.

It is at this point that Ishmael cries out and God sends an angel who leads them both to a well. Their lives are saved and they go on to travel through the desert.

Ishmael becomes an archer and Hagar finds him an Egyptian wife, which would suggest that she eventually got to go home, not as a slave but as a free woman, the mother of an accomplished man.

Ishmael goes on to have 12 sons who all become tribal leaders and Hagar became the matriarch of the Ishmaelites, the modern nomadic Arabic people.

To recap, Hagar is isolated, marginalised, used and abused, and then cast into the desert to die. Through all of this, God is watching, helping, talking to her. It is reassuring to see that his eye was on her and He sent help and comfort to her. I think it is also worth noticing that Hagar was not part of the established religion so there is a lesson there in how we treat people, who we think are right, wrong, holy or worthy. We see a woman who was loved by God and who God honoured.

I think we all can find something in Hagars story that we identify with and I think it shows us the great depth of hope that is available for us when things are grim.

Day of Prayer for the Victims of Modern Slavery

 SIW September 22, 2025

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”’ (John 8:12 NIV)

 

In Australia, we have an estimated 41 000 people living in modern slavery.

Modern slavery in the Australian context happens in 4 main ways: there is forced labour, commonly affecting people in agriculture, construction, cleaning, hospitality, domestic work and meat processing.

These people may be held in bondage by withheld wages, confiscation of passports and other documents, unsafe work conditions or coercion and violence.

Another form is sexual exploitation of adults or children, women are commonly lured to Australia on the promise of marriage or work and then held as prostitutes, movements restricted, documents confiscated and income limited.

Child exploitation is a little different because often the exploitation occurs outside of Australia when Australians travel to places where it is easy to exploit children or when Australians exploit vulnerable families  by asking parents to supply images or video access.

Forced Marriage is the most common form of modern slavery reported in Australia. Young people, mostly young women but also men, are forced or coerced into marriages and the forced marriage is only the start, common experiences within the marriage included physical, verbal, sexual and financial abuse, restrictions on movement, domestic servitude, and being barred from accessing education and employment, typically at the hands of the husband or members of his family. Some young women in Australia have been murdered at the direction of their husbands family.

The fourth type of modern slavery we see in the Autralian context is imported products. Nearly two-thirds of all forced labour cases are linked to global supply chains, with workers exploited across a wide range of sectors and at every stage of the supply chain. Most forced labour occurs in the lowest tiers of supply chains; that is, in the extraction of raw materials and in production stages. If we purchase electronics, garments, textiles or fish, there are likely slaves involved.

 

PRAY

 God of justice, hope and love, Father of the fatherless, defender of the oppressed, our hope for years to come. We believe that it is for freedom that you have set us free, to serve one another through love that we may live in abundance and goodness. Dear God, In this moment, we stand with our sisters and brothers, men and women, boys and girls who are victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. We know you feel their hurt, fear, excruciating pain, humiliation and all they might be going through, of which we may not be aware. Lord, we pray that you rescue them from the hands of their oppressors, release them from the clutches of the wicked and by your grace restore their lives and bring them into light. Help them heal, grant them justice and may their traffickers repent and come to know you more

Fill us with your sacred passion and love that we may continue to fight for justice. Use us as your tool, to help end this human tragedy. And may your love, embrace and presence never depart from these victims. Hear our cry and prayer, O heavenly Father.

We follow a God who hears our prayers and as we celebrate the International Day of Prayer for Victims of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, we are using the God inspired theme ‘Light to Life’, based on John 8:12, where Jesus calls himself the light of the world. I am sure we all relate to the fears, uncertainties and sense of isolation that the dark can bring. The thing that is terrifying at 3am is so much easier to think about in the light of day.

The power of light, brought by jesus, brings life.In JOhn 8:12, Jesus affirms: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ This declaration reveals Jesus’ as the one who combats darkness, bringing clarity, hope and renewal. His light offers direction and purpose, allowing us to experience divine grace and love. The light of Jesus shines in everyone, including victims of human trafficking, exploitation and violence, who are subjected to oppression and humiliation, and are deprived of their freedom. We must also remember that the oppressors are children of God and are experiencing their own form of bondage, maybe because they are in spiritual darkness or because they are, themselves vulnerable to exploitation.

 

PRAY

Dear God of Justice,

We hear the cries of people trapped in incidences of modern slavery

and exploitation.

We are overwhelmed, dismayed and desperate for justice for the defenceless,

the exploited and the forgotten.

God of light, we ask for your immediate justice for all those trapped in modern

slavery and exploitation.

We desire justice. We pray for reconciliation for the wrongs the perpetrators have

done, and may you pierce their hearts with your righteous illumination and help

them to humbly repent and turn from their wicked ways.

We pray that perpetrators will turn themselves to the task of helping to prevent

others from participating in the victimisation of humankind.

 

Amen!

 

For us, who have freedom, we want to see all people free, we want to see justice and want to see everyone enjoy life in all it’s fullness.

 

 

Father God,  we pray with confidence at this moment knowing you will hear our cries, especially for justice for those wronged by sexual exploitation and forced labour. For the oppressed and destitute experiencing darkness, we ask that you shine as the light of hope and peace. Please break the chains of those who bind others in slavery and poverty, that all of God’s children would experience the blessings of freedom and the opportunity to live a valued and healthy life. Lord, we ask that you give strength to those courageous souls who work with victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and forced labour. Encourage them in their spirit, heart and body, and provide these workers with the resources they need to support those inflicted by the injustices of the world. We thank you, Lord, that you are the God who hears us,  May our hearts join in one accord as we lift our voices praying for freedom and justice for all. Lord, thank you for hearing our cries. Amen!

While we pray, we must also act as we are able. When we can we need to speak up, through our vote, our voice and our spending power

 •We must identify ourselves with Christ, with his light and remember that we are called to reflect his light, in the case of modern slavery we do that by speaking up for those who have had their voice silenced.

Bringing light means restoring dignity, we don’t have a lot of opportunity to restore dignity for the victims of human trafficking and slavery but we can give dignity, healing and freedom to anyone who we cross paths with. Every human being is worthy of dignity, healing and freedom and if we spread dignity where we can, it can ripple out to reach many more.

 We are invited to be reflections of this light in the world. We can support, care for and be a source of hope for the oppressed and wounded. As we celebrate this day of prayer, the message can remind us that even in the darkest situations, the light of life shines through the grace and mercy of christ

 

PRAY

 

I hear the cries of daughters and sons beyond the dark; trafficked and enslaved for the profit of others.

 I stand with you.

I see the next generation of vulnerable children targeted for the benefit of worldly pleasures.

 I will fight for you.

I stand with front-line practitioners, advocating for the freedom of victims of oppression and walking alongside survivors.

 I acknowledge you.

I lament for the ways I have knowingly and unknowingly contributed to modern slavery and human trafficking through my ignorance, my privilege and my spending power.

I refuse to be blind.

May my prayers and those of your people turn into action as we fight against injustice together. We are not free until we all experience light.

**Prayers used were supplied by the International Social Justice Commission of The Salvation Army