Mission in the Margins Conference 2024: Meeting Christ in the world

Captain Chris Button (Stroud) reports on the inaugural Mission in the Margins Conference.

Salvationists from the UK and around the world gathered together in person and online for the first Mission in the Margins Conference.

This two-day event celebrated, discussed and explored how the Army can most effectively wage its mission in, to and with marginalised communities. Conducted under the remit of the territory’s Justice and Reconciliation team, it was planned and organised by a team of officers and staff members engaged in frontline ministry.

The keynote speakers included Colonel Wendy Swan, director of the International Social Justice Commission, who reminded the 45 delegates that God sent his son, Jesus, to the margins to stay and live there, and so we must go to the margins to see the display of God’s glory.

Justice and Reconciliation Officer Captain John Clifton called attendees to move from empathy to solidarity, while Jenny Sinclair questioned the dominant philosophy of our society, which leads to loneliness, individualism and undermining dignity, contrasted with a theology of the common good. It is through loving and serving people in need that we meet Christ in the world, she emphasised, and to lose contact with those who are most oppressed and marginalised is to lose contact with Christ.

Small group presentations were given by Assistant Territorial Addictions Officer Major Will Pearson on addiction and harm reduction, by Captain Tony Kakande (Gateshead) on building church in the margins, by Major Andrea Still (Morley) on children and family life in the margins, and by Assistant Director of Older People’s Services Andrew Wileman on loneliness in the margins.

Wide-ranging discussion provided opportunities for the delegates to bring their own experiences into the conversation, recognising that everyone who attended had their own stories of mission, which fed into the rich learning taking place across the two days.

During a prayer walk around Blackpool, organised by Captain John, Captain Sam Tomlin (Liverpool Stoneycroft) spoke of experiencing a God moment. In the midst of abandoned and derelict buildings, he sensed the resilience of the town and people who lived on those streets. For Captain Sam it was: ‘A reminder that the places that people have given up on are the places where God is most likely to be found. We mustn’t pity the people who live in marginalised communities, but we must stand with them in solidarity. Not on our own, but by joining with Christ who is already at work there.’

John 4:1–42 speaks strongly about Christ going into places where sometimes the Church doesn’t want to go. Christ went and sat with and spoke to a woman who was marginalised in her community. As the Church, we are often confronted with situations that we don’t want to get involved with, or people that are a bit too complicated and chaotic to be comfortably welcomed into our communities. But it’s at those times we need to remember that the Army doesn’t belong to us: it belongs to Christ who raised it up out of the slums of Victorian London and continues to send it into communities where the powers of empire have turned their backs.

The Salvation Army exists for the sake of the marginalised. William Booth wished he could stretch his arms to reach earth and sky – rich and poor – and wrap his arms around them, but to touch the sky was to lose contact with the ground. Perhaps this conference will be a reminder of where and of whom God has called and is calling this Army to go and love in the name of Jesus.