A Refresher on Developmental Theory and Youth Work in The Salvation Army

Yesterday in our Youth Work Leadership class at Railton School for Youth Worker Training, Dr. Dennis VanderWheele was teaching through Erikson's stages of development. I have walked through Developmental theory a hundred and one times, but yesterday, Denny helped me to link this theory to youth work in a way that I had never thought of previously. His insight was brilliant and got me thinking on a train of thought that I haven't been able to get out of my head. For my own sanity, I have recorded it on my blog. I hope this helps others who are interested in this area of study.

In Erikson's stages of development, the logical progression of psychosocial development would transition through these crises:

• Trust
• Autonomy
• Initiative
• Industry
• Identity
• Intimacy

[There's a lot more to Erikson's developmental model, but for the purposes of this post, I will just be dealing with these elements].

To clarify, Erikson, along with other 'ages and stages' theorists would seek to tack on specific ages to chronicle psychosocial development with physical and chronological development. Denny had an important clarification that the development of identity/identities (which is not limited to one moment in life, but is an ongoing process throughout all of life) is largely built upon the foundations of trust, autonomy, initiative and industry.

In a normative environment, traditional microsystems such as parent, sibling, teacher would help a child/teen navigate through these stages of development. In less normative environments - youth who would come from 'communities at-risk'* might not have the psychosocial support systems to help meet these needs through traditional means. What happens to these children and youth? (*note on communities at-risk: this does not necessarily have to be defined geographically or even economically. See the Search Institute's Forty Developmental Assets to explore this in greater depth).

Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg and Steve Van Bockern wrote a wonderful book called Reclaiming Youth At-Risk in which they introduce a wonderful model called the 'Circle of Courage.' In this model, they identify that youth have a significant need for:

• Belonging
• Independence
• Mastery
• Generosity

These needs (or 'assets') might be [a] unfulfilled, [b] negatively fulfilled, or [c] positively fulfilled. Each possibility normally results in a series of emotional and behavioral outcomes - some positive, others negative. A major question which they ask is 'how can we reclaim kids who have a unfulfilled or negatively fulfilled need and create an positive environment which can facilitate a transition towards a positive fulfillment of these needs? Much of the work of the Reclaiming Youth Network has sought to identify strategies to do so.

However, Denny's class yesterday helped me to link the work described above with Erikson's model of psychosocial development.

For example, a young man who is living in an inner-city neighborhood might find a sense of identity in a gang. A gang cultivates trust. It fosters autonomy. Even initiative and industry are a part of this world. So when it comes to identity formation, a gang provides all of the psychosocial scaffolding needed to fulfill 'the needs' of youth at-risk. The problem is that, like in the Circle of Courage model, these needs are being fulfilled in a negative, antisocial way.

In describing this scenario to Denny, I asked him, "How then is it possible for a youth worker to penetrate the microsystem of the gang, help the gang member recognize that the identity embraced places them at-risk and help that person construct an alternative, more positively-fulfilled identity?"

Dr. VanderWheele paused for a moment and then said, it requires that we move to the next stage, intimacy - by cultivating deep, genuine relationships, intimacy helps to provide a bridge to a second, alternative possible world in which trust, autonomy, initiative, industry and identity can be cultivated. Mentoring and the creation of positive peer cultures are critical to reclaiming children and youth.

Often people bifurcate program and relationship - suggesting that this is an either/or choice. However, both are absolutely necessary to help cultivate a positive, psychosocial support system. Programs create a context in which intimate relationships can be cultivated, trust can be built, agency can be initiated, where industry can create purpose and ultimately where alternative, positive identities can be forged. Such programs help to constuct an alternative, positive environment or culture which can serve as another possible world to negative influences such as gangs. However, there needs to be an intentionality behind these programs that requires creativity, commitment and continuous assessment. Such programs need to continually evaluate whether they are aiding the the positive psychosocial development of youth. [For more on this, I would recommend reading Milbrey McLaughlin's brilliant report and strategy outlined in Commuity Counts.]

So how does this apply to Salvation Army youth work?

Youth work has always been (and always will be) a top priority in the overarching mission of The Salvation Army. [For more on this, see my history of Salvation Army youth work timeline.] From our earliest of days, The Salvation Army has focused on the best strategies to holistically reclaim children and youth for Christ. This can be seen in everything from Corps-based ministries like Junior Soldiers and Corps Cadets; to life-skills programs like Boys Adventure Corps, Sunbeams; to after-school programs, orphanages, schools; to addressing child labor issues, human sex trafficking, etc. While some of the earliest literature in modern psychology was being written, The Salvation Army was working with the last, the lost and the least children and youth. As a result, we have been interested in salvation - being the eternal and temporal well-being of children and youth.

While the ministry of The Salvation Army begins with psychosocial- and moral- development, it also emphasizes the spiritual development of youth. Both are critical parts of our holistic mission. We are called to meet human need as motivated by gospel conviction. Yet ultimately, our desire is to expand temporal redemption to eternal redemption as can be fully realized in the life-transforming grace to be found in relationship with Jesus Christ. Not only do we want to construct an alternative identity which saves youth from prison, economic hardship, abuse, etc. - but we also want to construct the identity which comes from becoming a 'new creation in Christ.' When a relationship with Christ is embraced, this cultivates trust, autonomy, initiative, inspiration and most certainly identity.

With such a large, overarching mission, I would argue that all of the programs that are available through Salvation Army ministries provide some of the most profound opportunities to create these alternative, positive environments that can help to truly reclaim children and youth. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we do our utmost to, as our slogan says, "do the most good" when it comes to these initiatives. I think that Erikson's framework provides an essential evaluative tool that can aid us in our attempt to achieve that goal.

So, a simple class on a classic developmental theory sent me on a journey to explore youth work through a whole new lens. This is something that I will remember for a long time.

Thank you, Denny for being willing to sacrifice time and energy to train our students.

Growing Up Online - Missiological Reflections on Immigrant and Native Youth Work in a Digital World

I was extremely excited to hear that PBS’s documentary show, Frontline has put together a show on adolescents and the media. It's called, Growing Up Online. This past week, my students and I watched this together as a part of a class which I teach at Railton School for Youth Worker Training. The class is called, Studying the Social Worlds of Children and Youth.

I was very interested to observe my student youth workers watching “Growing Up Online” – as they represent some of the first youth workers that have grown-up as natives of the online world. Most of my students do not remember a world in which the internet did not exist. So while I viewed this as an immigrant to the digital world, they viewed it as natives.

This change has serious implications when considering a missiology of youth work. In mission studies, there is a remarkable difference which takes place in the contextualization of the gospel to a culture when a shift takes place from immigrant to native missionaries. Missiologists Ralph Winter and Bruce Koch refer to this as E-1, -2 & -3, evangelism. E-3 would be evangelism that crosses a cultural and language barriers as well as physical barriers. For example, going to a foreign country would constitute what he would consider E-3 Evangelism. E-2 evangelism would require crossing some sort of barrier, such as a physical barrier. E-1 evangelism would be when a person reaches out to their own people group.

When considering the ‘virtual’ as opposed to physical barrier of the online media world, one could easily perceive of the online world as a new frontier - as it has many similarities to that of an undiscovered tribe or people group. However, the shift from physical to virtual space is only one of many barriers that must be crossed by youth workers. Cultural engagement requires a person to learn new, online languages (whose code is continually changing); operate under new social structures; learn new customs, etc. It actually might be easier to go to a foreign country than it is to continuously be up t speed with the never-ending morphing culture of the online world. When looked at from this perspective, it becomes clear that there is a distinction between those who are completely foreign to the codes and customs of online tribes; those who have become familiar through continuous, intensive study; and those who have grown up in this virtual culture.

Personally, I would consider myself an immigrant to the digital world. As a youth worker committed to the contextualization of the gospel to culture, I have intentionally chosen to work (like an anthropologist) at learning about and engaging these worlds. I have read books on the history of the internet, video-gamming, the psychology and sociology of online activity, I have blogged and read blogs, I have played games, connected with people on FaceBook, etc. All of these are actions that I have intentionally made as a student of these cultures – and I have taken these steps in order to learn more about online virtual worlds and how children and youth live, move and present themselves. However, no matter how much I learn and engage these worlds, I will always be an immigrant to the virtual world – because I was born in a different world. I entered this world as an adult. I will always be something of an outsider.

This is totally different to most of my students – who cannot even fathom a world without cellphones, online social networking sites, instant messaging, YouTube, etc. Even my own daughters are regular participants in the media-sphere through WebKinz and Club Penguin!

So, what was the difference between an immigrant and a native’s perspective on a documentary about growing up online? Well, I would encourage you to interact with my student’s perspectives on this show. I asked them to write about their thoughts on the documentary both as natives to this world and as youth workers that are seeking to reclaim children and youth. These could possibly be two different lenses through which they engage this show - however, it might not be... They can speak for themselves! I am going to attach a link to each of their postings (as they send these to me!):

• Stacy's Thoughts
• Zuheil's Thoughts
• Felipe's Thoughts
• Brennen's Thoughts

As I watched the show, I was very interested to note how my students were reacting to what they were viewing. Often, there was a communal laugh in the room – like an insider’s joke at a member’s only club. I was especially interested in their perspective on the mother who reported to the Principal and parents that her son and all of his friends were drunk on a trip into New York City. Cell phones recorded some anti-social behavior which was immediately uploaded to YouTube and a variety of other web sharing sites. As a parent and an immigrant to the digital world, I found myself empathizing with the Mother (while questioning the wisdom of some of her actions) whereas most of my students reacted with complete horror at what happened. As I viewed the documentary, my personal response was that this culture was somewhat anarchic – a virtual Lord of the Flies! Children and youth who were engaging a no-holds-barred culture without a moral compass. However, I recognized that this was my reaction and perspective as an immigrant. It was at that point that I realized that there was a whole new insider’s perspective that I was completely oblivious to.

Marshall McLuhan has observed that when a new technology is introduced into a culture that there are significant psycho-social shifts which take place in a culture. Often these shifts are not easily perceived of by those who are in the midst of such entropic change. I think that one of the most significant changes in social structure is that those who are considered children and youth are in the position of authority as they are natives to this culture while parents are perceived of as socially and culturally incompetent. This places a great deal of strain on the parent-child relationship. Similarly, those who are in positions of leadership in ministry to youth often find themselves in the vulnerable position of being a cultural outsider. We don’t understand the psyche of youth who are growing up online. We haven’t considered what I would call ‘virtual ethics and moral development.’

As a person deeply committed to sharing the gospel of hope with children and youth and to developing young leaders, I want to empower a generation of natives to the digital world to begin to consider how to communicate the gospel in virtual cultures. I can only engage in Winter and Koch's E-2 and E-3 forms of witness. Whereas my students are able to engage these cultures as digital natives in E-1 evangelism.

I pray that as this world which is a social reality to our youth becomes more and more a cultural norm, that we would have more adults who are willing to cross the threshold to become immigrants to this environment; and that we would be able to develop leaders who are immigrants to this world who would be able to help cultivate a spirit of wisdom, moral reasoning and godliness in the digital world.

Bramwell Booth on the History of Salvation Army Youth Work - 1924

I recently came across this incredible piece of first-hand history. It is written by Bramwell Booth in 1924. He reminisces about the earliest days of Salvation Army youth work. This document by 'The Young People's General' helps to defend my argument that youth work has played a priority in the earliest days of The Salvation Army - in fact, the priority of youth work easily pre-dates the emergence of the East London Christian Mission's birth in 1865. Catherine Booth, the Mother of the Army clearly was significantly involved in children's work - as was William.

Bramwell Booth (1924)

Children and Young People's Work

I

The work of The Army for the Salvation of children really began in the home of the Founders. There is no doubt that the Army Mother even before her marriage entertained very definite views about the work of Divine Grace in the hearts of little children. Her own conversion when a girl at school, and the desire which forthwith took possession of her to make her Savior known, left her also with little question about the service which could be rendered by the young to the cause of Christ. But it was in her own home and amongst her own children that she was to see the practical working out of many of the things which she had believed and hoped from her earliest days. I feel no doubt whatever that in any circumstances she would have deeply impressed on her children the claims of God as she saw them, and I believe she spoke the literal truth when she said: ‘I will not have a wicked child!’ She used to pray in the very presence of her children that she might rather have to lay them in an early grave than to mourn over one who had deserted the path of righteousness.

That their children were won for Christ and that the change which was seen in those children’s lives after their Salvation greatly confirmed and encouraged both parents in their faith for children generally, we know to have been the case from Catherine Booth’s own testimony. ‘If our children may be thus transformed,’ she argued, ‘argued, ‘why not many others, and if many others why not all! Let us call the children to their Savior’s side and plant their feet upon the Rock.’

Her own children had given her great joy. She regarded them as good children measured even by her high standards, and the very fact that she could and did apply her own vigorous – at times even severe – (I speak from experience!) methods of training is in itself a tribute to their early development in much that belongs to what we all value. But she did not for one moment allow this to obscure the fact – the dominating fact – that they must repent and be converted, that they must be born again of the Spirit if they were to be saved. The thought was ever present to her mind, the prayer for their Salvation was ever on her lips. They also knew – they felt from the very dawn of intelligence that she believed they could be saved – that she was praying and laboring to bring them to Christ.

In ‘The Training of Children,’ a most valuable book (of which she was really a joint author with the Founder), I find the following on parents securing the Salvation of their children, and the words seem to make a powerful appeal to Officers who have the care of children in The Army, not only the children in our Homes and Institutions, but the children who attend the ‘Companies’ all over the world.

Set yourselves to [secure their Salvation]. Make it the main purpose of your dealings with the children, keep it in view early and late. Sacrifice everything that seems to stand in your way… Take the children by the hand and lead them with you into the Presence of God. Show them how to converse with Him… Do not be influenced by the notion held by some people that children are not to pray until they are converted. Men and women and children, too, are to pray anywhere and everywhere under all circumstances in they want mercy or anything else at the hands of the Lord. Surely the decree has not gone forth that publicans and little children are not to smite upon their breasts and cry to God to have mercy upon them because they are sinners!

Therefore… urge the children to repent and confess their sins to God and ask for forgiveness. Make them look into their hearts and lives. Help them call up to memory their naughty words and ways and they will go on to remember also the naughty feelings and thoughts of which you have no knowledge, and as they look at their sins the Holy Spirit will help them to see how bad they are. Then they will accuse and condemn themselves and cry for mercy on their own account. Hold them to this… and when they do so trust Him He will appear to them as their own Savior and they will go into the Kingdom with joy and thanksgiving.

It was upon such principles as these that the Army Mother worked, and saw her children go one by one, as the Founder says, into the Kingdom with joy and thanksgiving.

But I am thinking of something more than this when I say that the work of The Army for the Young began in the Founders’ home. While their four elder children were still between ten and fifteen years of age they began to invite their acquaintances and the children of neighbors to visit their schoolroom at Gore Road and to hear from them the strange sweet story of a Savior’s love shed abroad in the heart of a child. Those occasional and very small and at first quite ‘unorganized’ gatherings were different in almost very particular from the ‘children’s services’ which the Founder had often included in his special missions in the various towns. The only thing they had in common was an earnest desire and appeal that some one should decide for Christ. Nevertheless those meetings had an important result. They convinced the Army Mother, and her influence prevailed with the Founder himself, that it would be possible to organize and sustain a regular work for the Salvation of children by means of the children themselves. From that moment, 1871, efforts began with this end in view. Tentative plans were made, experiments were tried, special campaigns – all, or nearly all, in a small way – were instituted, always with these objects: (1) the immediate Salvation of the children by faith in Jesus, and (2) their organization and training to do work for the Salvation of other children.

II

Soon after this a Lay Secretary of the Mission named Rapson [Some of Mr. Rapson’s own children became Officers in The Army in the United States in later years.] began to interest himself in this work and was appointed to organize it. A small Hall in the East of London (Thomas’s Passage) was placed at his disposal, and Meetings were held regularly on Sundays and on two or three nights of the week. The neighborhood was a very rough one. The police were obtrusively unfriendly and the juvenile portion of the population practically heathen as regards respect for any form of religion. The Meetings, always, (if we so permitted) crowded on Sundays, were more or less disorderly, sometimes even riotous. But they were nevertheless wonderfully blessed. Children – ordinary boys and girls – were saved, and at once took their stand for Christ. Some of them, with whom I became personally acquainted, suffered cruel ill treatment at the hands of their former companions as well as from their parents, and yet stood firm in their new joy and love. Presently not a few of their persecutors were led to Christ through their influence. Small meetings were held on the week evenings for instruction and for prayer and testimony, some especially in preparation, week by week, for the coming Sunday. Always the greatest impression was produced on even the most disorderly gatherings by the saved children’s own testimonies which often ran something as follows, though I cannot of course pretend to reproduce correctly the East End terminology or pronunciation of those days. A boy of twelve or thirteen, known perhaps as ‘Happy Arthur’ or ‘Praying Tim,’ would say:

I say, you boys, just listen half a minute… You know I was always getting into scrapes, you know I often did you in at ‘two and one’ (a kind of pavement game of that time with marbles). (A howl of derision here.) Well, I say, look here – you know I don’t do it now – do I? (dead silence). Even mother says I am different and she has stopped ‘sugaring’ me (a play on the word cane) and why? –‘cos… you know why – I’m saved – I am in the Mission for Jesus Christ, and I pray to Him and He helps me! You can come! We want you to come! Sam (turning to a particular boy chum with just as much show of feeling as a boy might risk in a company largely made up of boys), Sam, I do wish you would come – God can do for you the very thing He’s done for me.

Such testimonies uttered in evident sincerity usually produced a marked effect upon the boys. The girls were more influenced by the girls, who, though often very shy, were generally more emotional and sometimes wonderfully eloquent with the untrained eloquence of the heart. I have more than once seen a wholly unruly audience of two or three hundred children subdued by tears by the simple story of a girl’s struggle for her mother’s Salvation – told by the child herself.

In these Missions both in Whitechapel, and, as the work spread, at Three Coats Lane, in Bethnal Green and in Cambridge Heath, we suffered much open and violent opposition. I have now and again been with Rapson and a few of the saved boys and girls held prisoner for hours at a stretch, it being impossible to escape. Cheap fireworks were freely used to annoy, and ‘stinkers’ made from a mixture of common treacle, red pepper, and paraffin, which burned slowly and suffocatingly, were constantly in evidence! Tin whistles and broken tea trays sometimes produced a kind of pandemonium, while every type of East End fun was freely indulged in. But the work went on and proved the parent of much that followed. Numbers of children were undoubtedly saved, some of whom died in triumph, while others lived to fight as Salvation Soldiers in the days which then were far ahead.

The advance of the work to many aspects of the adult activities brought to the front more and more children, and questions arose as to the wisdom of allowing them to take part in the Meetings other than for children. Many of the boys especially developed striking gifts, and we began to use some of them in the adult Meetings – they spoke and sang and fished with much acceptance. Here were new dangers – very real dangers. But we had always a warning before us, and though the use of children in this way – that is, apart from their own Meetings – died down considerably as their own work extended and was better organized, I do not think this was because any very real harm had come of it. With regard to this aspect of the matter and the danger for children, especially the danger of their losing the simplicity of children, the Army Mother said at a Council in 1884: ‘Now directly a boy or a girl leaves off being simple, he or she leaves off being a child, and becomes a sort of a mixture between a grown-up person and an imp.’ There were perhaps, a few of these strange ‘mixtures’ to be found amongst us – but never very many.

It was in the year 1881 that ‘The Young Soldier,’ at first called ‘The Little Soldier,’ was launched. It was a weekly paper and proved an immediate success. It has been of incalculable service to this work and of immense help also to many people outside our ranks who love the children and desire to bring them to Christ. It publishes freely communications from our Young People and, with its daughters in other lands, is probably the only newspaper in existence which can be placed in the hands of a child anxious about its own Salvation with any prospect of leading it to Christ.

In all the activities and organizing of those early days, rough and rollicking as they often were, there was kept steadily in view the original idea – carrying on work for the Salvation of children by the children themselves. Thus, as with the adult, or, as it has come to be called, the Senior work, it was the creation of an organized force which was aimed at. Just as we wanted an Army of Salvation among the grown-up people, so we wanted an Army of Salvation among the children. Such an Army must, of course, have serious limitations, as for example, in always losing its Soldiers to become Senior Soldiers as soon as they reach the age of maturity, and again, because its Recruits – Junior Soldiers as we call them – cannot be as fully under our direction as the Seniors, owing, for one thing, to the influence and control of their parents. Nevertheless, it was an Army we set out to raise, possessed of the same over-ruling spirit and purpose as that among the Seniors. I am afraid that this is sometimes lost sight of even to-day. And yet any one who really studies (how earnestly I wish that Officers would study the Army more), any one who studies the work in this department must see at once how this thought runs through it all. The raising of an Army is, in fact, the idea which united the various operations and brings them all into one harmonious whole having one great aim.

The saved children – duly registered and cared for as such – are encouraged to testify to what God has done for them; they are urged to win their brothers and sisters and schoolfellows to Christ. Yes, and their parents also. They are to conduct their own Open-Air Meetings (I was so pleased to find from an Officer home on furlough in New Zealand that this is already seen in some Corps in China), and these Open-Airs were and are sometimes held in the face of much opposition and derision. The children are encouraged to speak for themselves as Junior Soldiers. They hold their own meetings for prayer (I have not heard lately of more than one blessed awakening which began with Children’s Prayer Meetings – in one case it was prayer for the Salvation of their own parents); they sell ‘The Young Soldier’ (I fear that this is not as frequent as it once was); they are encouraged to wear uniform (and warned against wearing showy or worldly clothes), urged to join the Young People’s Bands or Singing Companies, and to play and sing for God. The elder ones are given Companies as soon as possible; they are encouraged to become Corps Cadets training for future work in The Army, and to make public confession of their intention to consecrate their lives as Officers – sometimes for service in the heathen lands.

All this and much more which is seen amongst us points to an organized force deliberately planned and led to aggressive work for God and man, and is as far as the east is from the west from a mere Sunday School or even from a special Service Mission.

III

After a time it was found that many of the children as they grew out of childhood were in need of another kind of care. We saw that if their Army spirit was to be maintained there was a need for organized arrangements to watch over them and to employ them more adequately in God’s work for those of their own sex and age. The loss of some splendid lads from North London Corps in 1900 gave me great concern. It happened at the same moment that we were finding considerable difficulty in keeping up the supply of Candidates for Officership, though young people who had grown up in The Army were to be found at most of the Corps in the United Kingdom and at many Corps in other countries. It occurred to me that some definite effort was needed to reach them as Young People, as distinct from children, and to united and organize them still to witness for Christ and to work for others. After considerable thought I had a conference with some leading Officers. These, with the exception of Mrs. Booth and dear Commissioner Howard, rather discouraged my effort as likely to prove ‘hardly worth the time and labor involved.’ I began, however, by inviting them between three and four hundred young folks of sixteen and above of certain London Corps to spend a day with me in Council at Clapton. About two hundred and fifty came. Their very appearance at once showed to us all how necessary it was that something should be done, and their intense interest and attention convinced us that something could be done.

This, the first ‘Young People’s Day,’ proved a success. The Spirit of God moved amongst us. The confessions and consecrations at the mercy-seat put us in possession of important facts, first hand, and led to all kinds of inquiries, visitations, suggestions, experiments, for helping the young folks. Other ‘Days’ were held. Small groups for prayer and work, of those we desired to bless, were formed. A new Department was set up at National Headquarters. The Founder entered with enthusiasm into the new departure. Special regulations were issued. Presently Officers were appointed to the Divisions as Young People’s Secretaries, and to-day we count by tens of thousands in the Old Country, and by tens of thousands elsewhere, the Young People who are fighting in our ranks for God, for their own holiness, and for the souls of those around them. It has been in large measure by them that we have been able to extend the work among the children, and it is from their ranks in many lands that we have recruited our forces in training for Army Officership both in the West and the East.

It was not easy for some Officers, either Field or Staff, in the Homeland or elsewhere, to realize the importance of this development, and I fear that even now there are those amongst us who see but dimly – some see not at all and perhaps never will – what a mighty future there I for this work. It is not only for the sake of the Young People themselves that it should be done – to promote their Godly living – their nearness to Christ – their heart purity. It is also because they – the young and untaught and in-experienced of to-day will, to say nothing of Officers, be amongst the most important of Soldiers, the Bandsman and Songsters, the Local Officers of the future. We see it already. I am writing this article in New Zealand after a tour in Australia, and almost everywhere I have found the energetic Locals or Field Officers who, with beaming countenances, have come to shake my hand saying: ‘It was at the Young People’s Council at such or such a place that I gave myself fully to God.’

I say in deep earnestness that there is no limit to the influence for good which may be exerted by the Young People of to-day on the future of the Army, and through The Army upon the world. Shall we be equal to our chance in dealing with them? One thing is evident, we shall only succeed in any really big or world-wide sense of the word, in so far as we can lay hold and keep hold of the young life of the nations.

IV

I am deeply anxious that this work should continue to have the right direction. As to the outside children, we are in danger of overdoing what might be called the educational side of our efforts. It is, no doubt, good to teach them the truths which the Word of God declares, but if we stop there we have done but little for them! Their Salvation, while children, is to be our first great aim. We are not a Sunday School – and, by the war, I wish the use of that word to be given up forever; it is not an Army term. It is, in fact, a misleading term, especially now that the Socialists and Bolshevists have so freely appropriated it. The Sunday Schools of the various Churches have largely failed in molding the character and directing the lives of multitudes of the children whom they whom they have had under their teaching for years, just because they have stopped short with instruction. What is the good of Bible reading, apart from Bible obedience; of observing Sunday if we profane the weekdays? What, indeed, is the use of any teaching which does not in fact change and exalt the life and make it a life after Christ’s own pattern and spirit! And how can this be done, whether in full-grown men or in children, without the New Birth and the New Creation which come by faith in Him? We know very well that it cannot be done. We must go on to Salvation. That is our own proper work; that is the reason for our existence. If we fail there we fail altogether! Alas! Is it not true that in some places we have failed? Have we not to bear the pain of seeing many children for whom we have labored drift of seeing many children for whom we have labored drift away from us and from God? Is there not in this a ground for grave concern, a call for close examination of our methods? In such cases ought there not at least to be at once a new beginning in determined and unsparing effort to bring the children to Christ?

And equally I wish our leaders to keep well before them that our aim continues to be, and must be, the raising and maintaining of an organized force for God among the children. The objective remains ever the same. The children are called to be saved, and are chosen to fight and, if needs be, suffer, in order to win their fellows to Christ.

Yes – to suffer! Just as many of the children in the early days of Christianity fought and witnessed and died for their testimony, so our children are to be led and trained to expect and to face opposition, whether in the form of ridicule at school or hatred at home, or of even more active persecution. [I wish more use could be made of that wonderful little book, ‘Red Flowers of Martyrdom,’ by the late Brigadier Eileen Douglas. It contains some of the most remarkable and most glorious histories of children who gave their lives for Christ.] Let us help them. Let us inspire them. Let us unite them. Let us lead them not merely to know the love and power of Christ Jesus in themselves, but to feel the burden of souls and to strive, in spite of suffering and distress, for their Salvation in their own simple, loving, trustful way.

As to the future of the Young People, as distinguished from the children (and it is important to remember that The Army makes a very definite distinction between them), I am anxious to insist upon the importance of improving and developing them as individuals. Important as it is to see that there is a good beginning – that is to say, that the Holy Spirit has accomplished His own work in the New Creation, and that they are united with The Army not only outwardly as Soldiers, but in the spirit and purpose which govern it – it is equally important to plan for the cultivation of their spiritual powers. Even now, though they are with us, all will fail unless we learn how to appeal successfully to their moral instincts and perceptions – to conscience and feeling and love.

I am sure that we ought to make more insistent individual appeal in the name of the Great Savior to what is best in them, definitely calling upon them to crush what is selfish and base, and to cultivate what is unselfish and pure. Let us raise on high the standard of a Godly life. No professions, no prayers, no labor for others, sacred as that may be, can take the place in daily work and life of humility, both of mind and spirit, of meekness, of silence under provocation, of faith in God, of kindness to friend and foe – especially to the weak – of respect for elders, of faithful adherence to promises, of integrity and self-control, of modesty, chastity, fidelity, and honor.

I am certain there is a very real danger, especially in certain classes who are independent and self-reliant, and in others who are emotional and excitable, that the outward exercises of our religion should come to be substituted for these practical graces and virtues which are the gifts of Jesus Christ for everyday life and labor, and without which all will come to nought.

It is just as possible in The Army as among the Buddhists, the Roman Catholics, or the High Church people to substitute forms and ceremonies, music and marches, testimonies and song, for the life – the life with Christ in God – that is, the separate life, the life apart from the world. These things, no matter how pleasing, unless they are attested and supported by rightness and truth and loving sincerity and gentle Christlikeness, become really hateful to God. Instead of helping the Young People to Holiness they really dull the conscience and injure the soul. But must we not teach them to love and seek souls? Of course we must, but that is not the whole of our ambition to them. We want them to be high examples themselves of what the justifying and sanctifying Grace of God will do for ordinary people in the ordinary affairs, the ordinary conduct of ordinary life.

I am sure we ought also to do more in instructing our Young People how to follow the New Light that God gives them from time to time. One of the leading facts of Army experience in every land is that they do receive new Light, that in fact they are constantly the objects of special visitations of the Holy Spirit. Let us show them how to distinguish these visitations from the mere impulses of human desire. Above all let us teach them to go forward following the Light, not to live on past revelations or mercies no matter how gracious or glorious they may have been.

Many Young People come to a dead stop in spiritual things for the want of courage to follow those new revelations which God gives of His will, and in the vital years when character is formed, and the future is largely molded from day to day, to half in following God is perilous, to draw back is fatal.

The system of the Army, the publicity given to much of our work, even at the smaller Corps, the prominence into which many of our Young People are thrown and the fact that in most countries they are seldom protected by persecution and hardship makes for a kind of self-consciousness and selfishness which once they creep in spoil the service, even of the best. The speaking, the singing, the fishing, together with the uniform and the constantly being under observation, all have danger for them. They tend to cultivate self, and may introduce-sometimes do-into their service a sense of their importance or usefulness or attractiveness, or of their ability. I will not claim that absolutely selfless service is likely for any large proportion of them, but we must never forget that if we want them to benefit by the service they render to God and man we must take them out of themselves, we must show them how to hide themselves even in the moments of their greatest prominence, we must help them to make it actually true in their lives ‘Not I-Not I-Not I-but Christ who liveth in me.’

My dear comrades, in all this let us make it plain to our young folks that God is Law as well as Love, that indeed we can say ‘God is Law’ as truly as we say ‘God is Love.’ We need to insist, with that repetition which live will show us how to employ, that you cannot sow one thing and reap another no matter how much you may desire to do so, or how good and sincere you may have been or what suffering for yourself or others the reaping will involve. It is still true that if men fall into the fire they will be burned. That we cannot gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles. It is in fact just as true as ever it was that lives built on the sands of wrongdoing or wrong thinking or wrong feeling, or upon mere professions of religion, will, when the storms come, fall and perish-fall and perish forever.

Teen-Age: The Creation of Youth Culture - An Interesting Take on 19th Century Youth Organizations

I recently picked up a copy of Jon Savage's monumental book, TeenAge: The creation of youth culture. In his book, he challenges the commonly accepted belief that the social construction of 'the teenager' as a psychological and sociological phenomena did not generate during the post-WW2 '50s and '60s, but that this had been growing as early as the mid-19th century. Exploring a vast array of iconic figures from literature and history along with movements focused particularly on this age-group, Savage's argument is extremely compelling.

I am particularly interested in his chapter on the period from 1875 to 1904. He focuses on organizations that utilize militarism as a means of helping navigate youth away from anti-Social behavior. As a person interested in studying the history of Salvation Army youth work, I found this quote particularly fascinating:

"At the same time, new voluntary organizations refined the regimented evangelism of the Young Men's Christian Association (established 1844) and General Booth's Salvation Army (established 1878) into a more specifically youth-directed program. The pioneer was William Smith's Boy's Brigade, formed in Glasgow during 1883. Combining parade-ground discipline with Sunday school teachings, the Boy's Brigade had as its specific aim 'the advancement of Christ's Kingdom among Boys, and the promotion of habits of Reverence. Discipline and Self-Respect, and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness." (Jon Savage, TeenAge (2007): 20).

It is interesting to ponder the significance of the militaristic model of youth work during this period. Shortly after, Baden-Powell would return from the Anglo-Boer War to begin the Boy Scouts Brigade. 

For more on the significance of these expressions of youth work, I have been stimulated by the thoughts of Danny Brierley in Joined-up: An introduction to youth work and ministry. 

William Booth on Youth Work (1906) - "The Juniors" (From "Sergeant-Major Do-Your-Best")

William and Catherine Booth have to be some of the most brilliant story-tellers in church history. Taking a page from "Pilgrim's Progress," William Booth wrote the book, "Sergeant-Major Do-Your Best" to instruct through narrative on key, pragmatic theological points he wanted to emphasize in the local corps (church) setting.

It is no surprise that he devotes a significant chapter to youth work - correcting some of the misperceptions he himself had about youth work in this story - and how work with "The Juniors" must remain a priority - programmatically, economically and even in terms of property! This fictitious story provides profound insight into how reclaiming children and youth were an essential of early Salvation Army corps practice. 

______________________________

“The Juniors”

Sergeant-Major Do-Your-Best

William Booth (1906)

 

I want to tell you that we’ve got everything going at high speed now in Darkington No. 1. You would hardly believe the wonderful advances that’s been made this last few weeks.

 

Captain Faithful’s prayers and tears and personal talks, and all the rest of it, have brought forth a glorious harvest. It is just as I am always telling the Officers when they get downhearted. I always says as such times: “Captain, cheer up! You’ve put in the seed, and if you don’t reap the fruits of it all, another Captain will!” And then they says: “Sergeant-Major, we like to reap the harvest of what we sow ourselves” – which it is perfectly natural that they should. Leastaways, I think so.

 

Well, I was saying that we are going ahead at Darkington. You see our new Captain, he seems to have struck another vein, as the colliers say, with his seeking out the roughest and worst; and it has been a very profitable vein, too, I can tell you; not only because of the poor creatures that have been brought up out of the horrible pit, but because it has seemed to put new life into everybody and everything.

 

There is one thing, however, which our Divisional Officer is always worrying about, and where he will have it that we come very much short, and that is the Juniors. It is true we have a “Children’s work,” as they call it; but it is only a poor, bedraggled affair. It’s been going a long time, but nobody pays much attention to it. The place where they hold their meetings in cramped, and dark, and dirty; the big picture bills on the walls about Moses crossing the Red Sea, and Daniel in the lions’ den, and such like – which Deacon Propriety presented to us – are all covered with dust; some of them are actually hanging in pieces; while the Locals told off to look after the children, are – well, I won’t say anything about them, or perhaps it might come to their ears and hurt their feelings, and that would be a pity.

 

Then the children are a forlorn lot, with one or two exceptions; the order in the meetings is wretched; and altogether the thing has such a poor name that the Soldiers, instead of sending their children, simply give it the cold shoulder, and go on with their meetings as if there was no such thing as a Junior work in the Corps at all.

 

You see, Captain Faithful  was a wonderful man – God bless him! – but I must confess he did not care much for the children. Perhaps that is not a fair way of putting it, but his delight was more in an Open-Air Campaign, or a Sunday evening fight, or a struggle to get somebody saved at a demonstration, or to have a good Holiness Meeting, with everybody on their faces before God, than it was for going in for the young people.

 

Then, there’s our present Captain – God bless him! – he’s full of his Saturday nights’ maneuvers, and storming the factory gates, and fetching the backsliders out of the publics, and all that kind of thin; which doings, I say, is all right, excellent, first-rate. God forbid that I should ever speak a word against Officers who work day and night for souls! But, still, I must tell the truth; and that is, that neither of them ever worried themselves very much about the children.

 

The there’s Treasurer Hold-it-tight. He don’t concern himself much about the Juniors. You see, he has no family of his own, and his wife makes no secret of not having any particular love for children.

 

And, to tell the truth – may God forgive me! – I’ve not been a great advocate of the Juniors myself; and Sarah, she never misses a chance of laying the law down to me about it.

 

“Sergeant-Major,” she says, “where would your children  have been, if they had not been looked after and shown the right way, and stirred up to walk in it, when they was young? You’ve not done much at them yourself, have you now? You’ve been so  busy with the Seniors, and the Outposts, and the Open-Airs, and such like – which things ought to be seen to – of course they ought. But, then, you see, the children, Sergeant-Major, had the good fortune to have a mother who loved their souls, and who made up her mind that they should love God and be a good Salvationists, whatever came. Now, what I want to know, Sergeant-Major, is this: Where would your children have been to-day, if they had not been cared for when they was young?

“Look at Tom Blaze-away’s family – although he reckons he’s a good Salvationist – which he is, as when he sings, ‘Death is coming and the Judgment Day’ in the Open-Air, the people can hear him three streets off, and when he gets fairly a-goin’ on his knees in the After-Meetings, the windows of the Hall fairly rattle again, and I fancy sometimes that they very foundations of the building tremble.

 

“But, there now, just look at his children! Don’t they tear one another’s clothes, and pull one another’s hair, and make faces at their father, and sauce their mother, and use bad language, and I don’t know what else? What is to become of them if somebody don’t look after them? That’s what I want to know!

 

“It is true their mother, bless the timid little soul, ought to teach them and save them; but then, what does she know about saving and training children? Why, you remember as how as she was the daughter of that horrid, drunkard, Ted Never-full, and they were married when she was only seventeen, and the children came fast, and Tom drank all he could lay his hands on for the first few years. Then they have only been converted a little while, and have everything to learn. But there are the bairns all the same; and, I ask you, what is to be done with them?”

 

Then, Sarah, she goes on: ”Look at the children down the alley at the back of our house. What is to be done with them, Sergeant-Major, I want to know? You should look in there some times!

 

“I’ve just been down to visit that poor, dying woman, whose husband was found lying in the gutter, helplessly drunk, on Saturday night, and took home by Will Boozham. As I stood in his room I had a look out of the window at a gang of youngsters in the court, who was talking to each other in a most confidential manner about what they was going to be when they ‘growed-up,’ as they called it. One little, half-naked rascal said he was going to be a thief; another, scratching his head in ever such a ferocious manner, was going to get drunk every night; another declared that he was going to be a soldier, and shoot the Boers; and so on, and on and on. Oh, it did make my blood curdle to see them in their rags and filth, with their mouths full of cursing and filthiness. I felt as if I was looking at little-devils instead of human creatures. Sergeant-Major,” says Sarah, “what is to become of these young plants, if nobody don’t care for them?”

____________________________

 

Sarah has just got a letter from our boy, Jack, who, I told you, had got his first Corps at Flintville, and a hard-shop the lad has found it. Sarah says that if she had the management of things, she would not send a lad on his first command to a place where things was so difficult.

 

But I says, “Sarah, it’s all right! It will all turn out for the best, and it’ll be good for Jack; anyhow, in the long run.” Well, as I was a-saying, Sarah has got a letter, and it has cheered her up not a little, and she declares she is going to read it to the Captain, to push him up to doing something more for the Juniors. And then she made me promise to speak of it, and said it would be interesting. Perhaps there’s a bit of mother’s pride in this, but the letter really sounds very well. Here it is: –

 

“Dear Mother, – I can’t stop any longer from telling you the good news about our Corps. You know what a fight we’ve had; but, never mind, better days are coming on.

“And it’s all been through three young girls, the daughters of a Staff Officer, who have gone in for a Band of Love. They’ve got some of the dirtiest and lowest children in the place together, and they’ve loved and amused and taught them, with an amazing lot of patience.

 

“For a while all seemed to be of no use, the children only got harder and harder; but then the break came and some of the worst got saved.

 

“And now, to see those boys at the meetings, in the Hall and in the Open-Air, and hear them testify and pray, it is wonderful. It’s cheered up our Soldiers, and they’re working with a new heart. The mothers and fathers of these children are coming to the meetings. Some of them have got converted, and we’ve got a real new start, I do believe. Tell dad he’s to get the Captain to run a Band of Love at Darkington 1.”
____________________________

 

Sarah had a good cry over that letter. I couldn’t see for the life of me what there was in it to cry about. I should have thought it was real delightful to hear that Jack was in such good spirits, and that something was being done in that dark hole. But I suppose they were tears of joy. Anyway, after that letter, she took on about the Juniors again in real earnest. In fact, she got what you might call the Junior fever. So much so, that it took away her appetite, and kept her from sleeping. So at last I says to her: “Well, Sarah, you’d better go an talk to the Captain yourself.” “All right!” says she, “I must talk to somebody, or I shall be real ill about the business.”

____________________________

 

Sarah has seen the Captain, and had a good go with him. She told me about it after. She says he fairly cried when she told him about Rom Blaze-away’s children, and the poor neglected little things down our alley. He said that he had been in India, when he was in the king’s army, and that the heathen children were not in so bad a case as the poor things she described to him. “But,” said the Captain, “how an I go about forming a Band of Love?”

 

“Well,” says Sarah, “there’s Sergeant Never-tire. She’s the soul of what it done for the children in Darkington, and she’s been telling me that they must have a bigger place. And the Sergeant says that there’s an old warehouse close by the Hall that they can have for five shillings a week, and that it could be cleaned up and made quite grand for a few pounds; and if the Soldiers would only set to, they could do nearly all that wants doing at it themselves.”

 

Well, the Captain, he promised Sarah to pray about it, and to bring it up at the next meeting of the Locals.

____________________________

 

We’ve had the Locals’ Meeting, and I’m sorry to say that some rather hard things were said about the Junior scheme. You see, the Captain, he made a nice speech, which, to tell the truth, was just about the same that Sarah had been saying to him, and then he proposed they should take up the children in earnest, and go for the warehouse that Sergeant Never-tire had recommended. He’d been to look at it, he said, and he thought it would do proper.

 

There was no response to the proposal, and I must confess that I didn’t feel like saying anything myself, which vexed Sarah very much. She told me afterwards that I hadn’t the heart of a chicken, or else I should have jumped up, and said: “Well done, Captain, that’s it! And there’s my five shillings towards doing the place up!”

After a little silence, however, Treasurer Hold-it-tight, he gets on his feet. I smelt mischief as soon as I see him shuffle off his seat!

 

“Captain Seek-the-lost,” says he, “this is a good case you’ve made for the children. I’ve no doubt that many of ‘em is in a very poor way, both for this world and the next. But who’s responsible for them? Isn’t it their fathers and mothers for, if it isn’t to take care of their children, and have them taught and saved, and got ready for Heaven? If I had any children, which I haven’t, I shouldn’t want other folks to come and look after them – me and my wife would reckon that we had to do that work ourselves. The work of The Salvation Army, I reckon, is to go for the fathers and mothers, get them saved, and then let them take care of the children.

 

“Then, as to the warehouse, who’s to pay the cost of doing it up, please? Why, there’s our own Hall, doesn’t that need painting, and don’t the spouts want mending; and ain’t there other things that want seeing to? And then, who’s to pay the five shillings a week? Can you tell me, pray?

 

“And then,” he went on, “if you fill this warehouse with children, where are the Company Sergeants to come from? That’s what I want to know. Then, Captain, if you have all the Soldiers at work among the children, just ask yourself, where will the Open-Airs and the Pub-Boomers’ and the Drunkards’ Brigade be? And where will all the other work of the Corps be? I say, let us stick to what we’ve got in hand, and do that well. We never was doing better than we are. Why not let well alone?”

Then Treasurer had not got down on his seat before Sarah was on her feet. Her face was crimson, and her heart was full, and she talked – bless her! — as she can talk when her blood’s up. I can’t tell you what she said, nor nobody else can. I know she cried, and we all cried, and made the Captain promise to take the warehouse, and I promised my five shillings, and Boozham and Grumbleton and a lot more promised to help as well.

 

And then what should the Treasurer do but jump up and resign, saying that if such wild things as these was done, he could not be responsible for the Corps, and he would have no more to do with the money.

 

But the Captain, he says: “Treasurer Hold-it-tight, we cannot let you go out of the office like this. You know I’ve not been a strong advocate for the Juniors myself, but I see now that we ought to do something extra, and we will do something, God helping us. But, Treasurer,” says the Captain, “you must stay my time out, anyway; and if this thing does not turn out to your satisfaction, I’ll write to the Divisional Officer, and you can give up your office then, and we’ll go out together.”

 

Now, things took a strange turn after this meeting, and this is how it happened. You see, Treasurer Hold-it-tight had a brother, Charley, who was the misery and disgrace of the family. It appeared as if the drink fiend had got possession of him altogether. I don’t know how he got into this wretched plight – but he went from bad to worse, until he got about as far away as a man could get who is not actually dead and lost. His wife died of a broken heart. He lost situation after situation. Nobody would look at him. Hold-it-tight and his wife helped him all they could. They gave him food, and clothes, and money, and paid his rent to keep out the bailiffs again and again. They prayed with him, and advised him, and got the Captain to talk to him times without number; but it was all in vain, and at last they gave him up, and told him they would do no more. And this made him real mad, and set him on to hate his brother with all his heart.

 

He had three children. They lived in filth and wretchedness – if you canal it living at all – in an old hovel belonging to a farm-house at the very end of the town, in a field all by itself. Poor wretch! He was at the bottom of the ladder, and seemed but to want to go one step lower to be gone for ever.

 

Well now, it seems that just after we got into the warehouse, the Sergeant Never-tire, by some means or other, persuaded the eldest of this drunkard’s children to come to the Band of Love – and directly afterwards they got her beautifully saved. You see, she was a real nice child, about twelve years old, and what you might call regular good-looking. Sarah had just got a new bonnet and frock for Polly, so after she had mended the old ones up, she fixed Sally up in them, and when she was dressed in her uniform, she looked just like a little angel.

 

Well, little Sally no sooner got right herself than she set to work to get her father saved. She began by singing to him the songs she learned at the meetings. Her favorite was: —

 

“Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord,
Or you can’t go to Heaven when you die.”

 

Then she used to pray for him, and cry over him, and talk about her mother in Heaven, and about Jesus dying for him on the cross. But he only seemed to harden his heart and drink more and more.

 

One night, however, he let her bring him to the meeting. I don’t know how it came about, but there it was. I think he was a little gone with the drink, but he knew quite well what he was doing. My word! Wasn’t everybody surprised to see him there! Many of us knew that he had sworn a thousand times that he would never enter the doors while his brother Steve, the Treasurer, was alive.

 

When he came in he was a strange spectacle, I can tell you. His face had not been washed for many a day; his hair was all matted with dirt; all the clothes on him was a ragged shirt and a pair of old trousers, all patched and torn, while on his feet were two old boots, both belonging to the same foot.

 

As he got inside, he slunk down on a back seat close by the door with his dear little daughter, her face radiant with smiles, sitting by his side. I cannot describe that meeting. I believe every Soldier, and everybody else in the place that knew Charley was there, prayed for him that night. The converted old topers testified furiously. Everybody sang over and over again: “Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord”; and when the After-Meeting had got well on, the prettiest sight my eyes ever beheld in Darkington was to see little Sally lead her ragged, miserable, drunken father to the mercy-seat, and kneel by him, and pray that God would have mercy on his soul. 

He was not there long before the Treasurer was kneeling on the other side. Hold-it-tight may have done some crying before that night, but I had never seen him shed a tear. But his poor drunken brother, Charley, smashed up and groaning for mercy at the Savior’s feet, broke the Treasurer’s heart, and he sobbed till you could hear him right over on the other side of the Hall.

Charley got properly saved; and when he and the Treasurer stood hand in hand, singing “Praise God, I’m saved!” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place.

____________________________

The fastest friend of the Juniors possess in Darkington to-day, the one who gives his money most freely, and works hardest and longest and most successfully for them, is Treasurer Hold-it-tight.

Bramwell Booth and Youth Work - Catherine Bramwell Booth (1933)

These comments were written by Catherine Bramwell Booth, the daughter of Bramwell and Florence Booth. What a fantastic memoir to 'The Children's General."

William Booth had written to Richard Cory in 1869, when Bramwell was thirteen:

"My children are just beginning to work. The four eldest take a service among the young people and are very useful. Willie conducts the meeting." 

His illness interrupted the work, but it was resumed and better accommodation was found where two or three hundred children gathered. The meetings were held on the same plan as those for adults: anyone desiring to give his heart to Christ was invited to come forward. Bramwell talked personally to many of these; heard of their sin and temptation; came to understand with all the quickened apprehension of personal sympathy what it meant to grow up in a drunkard's home.

Bramwell Booth is called the Young People's General by thousands of Salvationists the world over, and to those who understand (always the few though ever the important, for they alone can carry on a man's creative work) there was something of prescience in his Father's calling him when seventeen years of age "Commissioner of the Children's Mission."

Mrs. Booth was away with the family, and Bramwell was sent out for a day or two. The note to Mrs. Booth ran:

"Tell him [Willie] I say he is to make himself agreeable to all and that I wish to remind him as special Commissioner of the Children's Mission that one of his duties is to look after is brothers and sisters. He must take Katie with him to see things."

In addition to the public meetings, meetings were held for converted children. Bramwell talked to them, prayed with them in groups and individually, shepherded them. Many have heard him describe these little meetings, the children's poverty-pinched faces and meagre clothing; there would be a score or less present, aged from nine to sixteen or so, in winter gathered around the stove. They gave their experience, confessed failures and hopes and prayed for unconverted companions and relatives.

Bramwell visited the homes of many and, almost unperceived by those around him, was learning his way about a new world. Its treasures, its language, its degradation and vice were soon familiar to him. He was himself young enough to receive indelible impressions. Knowing as we now do what was to be his place and part in The Salvation Army, we can hardly conceive anything more essential to him than that he should understand the people for whom he was to spend his life; and not only that, but that he should know how to make them feel that he understood them, make himself understood by them.

(p.54f.)

1907

When General, he inaugurated a special plan for helping boys. Those received six weeks to three months intensive agricultural training on the Farm Colony at Hadleigh, and were then employed by selected farmers in the new lands. Bramwell Booth's understanding of the young gave him a positive horror of the effect likely to result if lads grew to manhood without acquiring the habit of work. He would have spent the nation's money on training them before he would have paid the unemployment pittance to youths who had had no chance even to learn to work. He made no secret of his views on what he considered the selfishness and folly of excluding the people from the unpopulated areas, waiting 'only cultivation to become a garden,' as he said when on his way to Winnepeg. But the apathy about the idle young roused his indignation, it was more than a folly, it was 'wickedness': 'a crime'; and in his eyes nothing could be worse than a crime against the young.

The young! Of all the work that his love and vision inspired, none was more tenderly nurtured by Bramwell Booth than the work of The Salvation Army for young people. Treasured by some as their last, is the picture of him amongst a thousand slum children, met to receive gifts, in the Congress Hall in January, 1928. To hear them sing, "The more we love the Savior the happier we shall be," and to watch their faces as the General spoke to them, and to see his face as he talked, was unforgettable. As someone said who was there, 'the General looked sort of heavenly that night; I felt almost afraid, as if he didn't belong to earth.' Those familiar with the physiognomy of the London slum child can conjure up the scene for themselves: the sharp-featured, restless-eyed crew, following the General's white-crowned figure and crushing up to get a nearer view.

p.306f.

Twenty-One Years Salvation Army: Youth Work References (1886) - by George Scott Railton

These comments were written one year before Sunday Schools were band in The Salvation Army. This was largely due to the dissatisfaction of the missio-ecclessiological strategy. A few years later, it would be replaced with the "Junior Corps."

"The Sunday School party scarcely needs description, being represented so widely throughout the world, and having had so many years in which to proclaim its theories. Suffice to say that, as late as ten years after the foundation of the Mission, there were to be found, at some stations, men and women whose whole interest was concentrated in the Sunday School; and who would actually prefer to inconvenience and even shut out the adults, rather than that one of their lessons should be shortened. Yet, let it never be forgotten that, in Mission Sunday Schools, there were earnest soul winners, and that there were children saved who afterwards became gloriously useful in the work."

(p.42)

How to Reach the Children and Young People - Major John Fynn, 1906

I recently came across this message that was presented at the 1906 Western Congress by Major John Fynn. I am startled by how much of this continues to remain relevant to the challenges of youth work in today's culture.

Enjoy!

How to Reach the Children and Young People
Major J.T. Fynn
Western Congress Addresses, 1906

This is an age of progress and scientific thought, and most people nowadays profess not to believe in anything without being able to give a reason for it. But we have a nobler and higher stand point – Faith – and can rise superior to such considerations, but, as we are constantly asked what grounds we have for our faith, it is well to be able to give an answer to such questions.

The subject before us is, How to Reach the Children and Young People?

This is a matter that everyone present is interested in, and most of us have faith in glorious possibilities for the children and young people, and I think we can give many reasons for our faith. As you hold writing paper up to the light, you can see there, letters stamped during its manufacture. These are called “water marks,” and are made while the paper is in liquid state. Metallic and glass articles also have trade marks wrought into their very substance.

So every age has its trade mark stamped upon it while the days are passing by, but the deepest and most striking trade mark of our age is the recognition of the Importance of Childhood.

1. Never before has the world heard of so many enterprises for children, educational and otherwise. There are many people living who can remember when there were not half a dozen children’s books that had any extended circulation. Today a collection of the popular children’s books would make the largest library in the world.

At the great expositions the most striking characteristics of modern sculpture and paintings are subjects of childhood in various characters: Childhood in prayer, in play, or asleep. The hearts of the artists seemed to have been turned by the spirit of the age to the children.

All this recognition of the rights and importance of childhood is but the starlight that shines upon us from above the manger of the Godchild. It was Bethlehem that taught wise men that a child’s face was a grander study that the stars.

Remember the words of Jesus: “Whosoever receiveth this child receiveth me, and whosever receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me.”

2. Leaving Bible times for more recent ages, we see that the recognition of children is the unerring thermometer of the progress of Christianity. It is a matter of history that following in the wake of the Reformation and the great awakening of the Wesleys, came the moving impulses from which sprang the modern Sunday school.

The good farmer not only observes the nature of his seeds, but also his soils, and adapts the one to the other. The good physician not only studies books and medicines, but symptoms and temperaments.

The Salvation Army officer is sower, physician and warrior and needs to be equally practical in his work.

3. Everybody quotes the proverb, “Prevention is better than cure.” We are learning the chameleon’s philosophy to “destroy crocodiles in the egg.” We are recognizing the fact that it is easier to form childhood aright than to reform manhood. So in our work we must not be satisfied by breaking off the branches of the great tree of evil, but strike at the tap root by working more for the children. The surface of an ordinary diamond may be polished in forty-eight hours, while seven to ten weeks are required for a surface that has a knot or “fault” in its crystallization.

Forty-eight hours will ordinarily accomplish more in the saving of a man when he is a child than seven weeks when the bigotries and vices of manhood have become fixed in his heart and life.

4. Not without designs has Christ commanded, “Feed my lambs,” meaning to inculcate upon his followers the duty of caring for the children at the earliest possible period. Nor can parents nor all well-wishers to humanity be too earnest and careful to fulfill the commands of Christ in the matter. Influence is as quiet and imperceptible on the child mind as the snow flakes on the meadow. One cannot tell the hour when the human mind is not in the condition of receiving impressions from exterior, moral and spiritual forces. In innumerable instances, the most secret and unnoted influences have been in operation for months and even years to break down the strongest barriers of the human heart and work out its moral ruin, while yet fond parents and friends have been unaware of the working of such unseen agents of evil. The error is this: Most people seem to be asleep to the fact, as the Bible declares, “While men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares and went his way.” If this, the, is the error, how shall it be corrected, and what is the antidote?

Some one has said, “A child is a man in small letter,” yet the best copy of Adam before he fell. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with the observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred book. The young mind can be impressed with sincerity, truth, honest, benevolence and their kindred virtues, and thus the welfare of the young can be assured for time and eternity. What a responsibility! To mold a creature, the frailest and feeblest that heaven has made, into the intelligent and fearless follower, interpreter and adorer and almost representative of Deity!

5. The earliest impressions are the deepest. Those things which are instilled into the hearts of children endure forever. The mind is the heart’s mouth. Thrust truth into the child’s mind. If it is the Bread of Life to the child it will not stay in his mind, it will sink deeper; it will go to the heart, and the heart will grow by what it feeds on. The heart will crave more and more. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Why? Because they will eventually cease from hungering? No! That would be no blessing. But because they shall be filled again and again. Truth is the Bread of Life. Let us teach it.

The maker of a garment with the material spread before him on the table recognizes that the whole future of the garment depends on the way it is cut. No trimming, stitching of fancy workmanship after will make up for a bad cut.

6. The presidents, governors, senators, citizens, preachers, officers and soldiers of the future are today in our homes and within our reach. They are our future.

A story is told of an abbot who wanted to buy a field near his monastery. The owner would not sell it, but at last consented to lease it for the growth of one crop. The abbot planted it with acorns. With oaks growing on it he was sure of it as long as he and his fraternity might want it. The devil outwits good people in a similar style. He gets the first planting of the children’s hearts, and he has them for life. God’s message to Moses was, “These things that I command thee this day shall be in they heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to they children.”

7. Why was it that Christianity went westward instead of eastward from its cradle in Palestine? Some one has said, “The East was old, its habits and characteristics fixed. The West was new, its nations, child-nations whose characters were yet to be formed.”

I have endeavored to show at length some reasons why we should be intensely interested for the child’s own sake, and having passed the experimental stages in Army warfare in this branch of the Army’s operations, we have plenty of evidences around us that the returns are profitable for the labor expanded. For growing up around us are hundreds of promising young people who will help to solve many of our present problems for future extensions; also hundreds of officers in our ranks today come to us by way of our young people’s work.

8. Let the fact of the child’s worth to God, to itself, to the world and to the Army, burn its way into our very being, and “How to reach them” and win them for God will be solved. Quickened hearts and minds will toil and plan and sacrifice and devise methods and measures, and put into practice the existing proposals that our regulations provide for. This is the key to the situation when we have a full conception of their value.

9. The present system in all its branches from the cradle roll to the corps cadet brigade and young people’s legion simply wants putting into active operation in dead earnest by all concerned, and 1906 will be the best year of our career.

10. There are difficulties; we should be very foolish to overlook them – difficulties that are stupendous. Every hour of an officer’s life seems to be filled with duties and obligations. Some of these difficulties are:

Prejudices against our work.
Lack of proper help in the corps for local officers.
Need of proper halls for this work, and many others.

But has this not always been so? Difficulties have beset our paths al through our Army history, but what has made the Army what it is today is the fact that we have endeavored to overcome them, and the results have been in proportion to our having succeeded.

11. We should not for one moment underestimate the noble work that has been done, but this is only a proof that it is possible to deal with this problem successfully. We are a God-sent people, and this fact alone will inspire us.

During last year in New York City and suburbs, no less than thirty-six new churches of the Baptist body were successfully opened as a direct result of their Sunday school work, which had its beginning in a small room or vacant store. Then after securing the children, they planned for a church building, and succeeded in getting the same, and made up their membership from the parents and relatives of the children in the Sunday school. We can learn a lesson from this.

As a matter of fact, many of the churches are supported from the fact of their Sunday school work thus building up a congregation. Revivals are beautiful and much to be desired, but most of the church bodies are built up out of Sunday school results. Let us have the revival, let us save the drunkard by all means, but let us save the young people and children as well. To save them we must love them, and love them in sincerity. No one detects insincerity so quickly as the young. We cannot accomplish much in this work without love.

12. The kind of children out of which to make juniors.

a. The young people belonging to our officers and soldiers.
We have a right to expect this.
b. The children of unsaved adherents.
c. This includes the spiritually uncared for children. We have a large field. It is estimated that 75% of the young people in the United States never go to Sunday school or church, and only 5% are saved. Thus we have about fifteen millions to work amongst.

The work to be done.

Nothing short of conversion will do. It must be a new birth. That must be our ultimate aim. Love will invent ways and means. Their affections must be won. Their feelings must be roused. Their understanding must be improved. Their memory must be assisted. Their soul must be saved. They must be taught that goodness, happiness and usefulness cannot be disassociated with the cross, the fight and the victory. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Godhead. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army and its leaders. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army’s principles, government, aims and purposes and the Army spirit cultivated among them.

13. This will involve hard work, sacrifice, expense, tact, wisdom, firmness, consistency, perseverance and adaptation, and I would emphasize each of these. We must be practical, each one of us, if we are to build up a coming Army.

14. The General’s words are vastly important in view of these facts,
“The importance of the junior work is in my estimation so great and so nearly allied to goodness, happiness and godliness of the next generation that were I not burdened with so many toils and anxieties, I would gladly devote the rest of my days to the promotion and welfare of the young people.”15. The various branches of work, each important in its own place, should be intelligently understood by our people.

We must take the trouble to make our people acquainted with our aims. There is a great deal of ignorance among our people in this direction. Many of our F.O.’s do not sufficiently and intelligently understand the Army’s plans. We take too much for granted on this line.

Let it be understood that our plan is a Cradle Roll for the youngest and Junior Meetings for the children.

Company meetings where Biblical instruction is given to the young of all ages.

The Band of Love for the purpose of influencing the young to kindness to one another and to animals, thus teaching them to live for others’ happiness as well as for their own.

The Corps Cadet Brigade, with all it means to the Army’s future so far as officers are concerned, and herein is a paying proposition. We ought through this branch to have hundreds of young people in training all over the country, who in due time will come to our help in this great battle.

The Y.P.L. [Young People’s Legion], with its unlimited scope for dealing with both saved and unsaved youth and helping them morally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

There must be a greater recognition of the officers, staff and field, of their official as well as their moral responsibility.

16. If the young people’s work is simply to be a side issue, and not counted in, and its official importance not recognized from every point of view, both in the grading and appointment of officers, then it can never hope to advance.

17. How to deal effectually with the youths and maidens is a problem, and we have a great deal to learn on this line.

It is a general lament everywhere that so many drift away from us. It is a sad reflection upon many of our Sunday schools of today, and a great concern to all who are interested.

The converted youth is, of course, easy to legislate for, but it is the unconverted who need help and who cause us anxiety. This is a period of unrest and curiosity, a time of awakening from childhood to manhood and young womanhood. If we would win these we must be prepared to look after their interest. We must cater for the physical and social side of their lives as well as the spiritual.

Recreation is needed, and I think we need to have no fear if the recreation is wisely and carefully regulated. We should endeavor to provide healthy literature, simple games and amusements, music, lectures, etc.

Here is an unlimited field, and, as previously stated, will involve wisdom, tact, expense and hard work, but if we get a proper view of this our interest and love will help us to devise ways and means, and we shall be prepared to adapt ourselves to the great needs.

The Y.P.L. will give us some scope in this direction and should be taken up in a dead earnest.

18. One of the chief defects and hindrances of our past policy has been the lack of continuity. One officer commences a good work and another neglects it and drops it entirely. Up and down. Up and down. Sometimes, meetings, then for weeks or months none, and this in some of our best corps.

We should have a more strict oversight of the staff, provincial and divisional, and the matter dealt with firmly. Experience has taught us in all branches of our work that if matters are left optional, they are never done. We may carry the judgment of our people and swing their sentiment, for almost every officer is of the opinion that the Y.P. work is important and should be done. The time has come when we say, “It must be done,” and the regulations must be carried out in view of the importance of this work.

19. The hands of the P.Y.P.S. should be strengthened in every possible way, and the F.O.’s should understand that his report on inspections, good or otherwise, will receive strict attention when appointments are considered.

Also Sec.4 of Chapter 2, Orders and Regulations for the Junior War, should be seriously looked into regarding the Divisional Officer’s responsibility.

It will be impossible for either of these officers to go to a corps and do the Y.P. work for the F.O., as the officer on the spot is the best calculated to organize and establish this. At the same time the staff can and should assist by proper oversight, supervision and encouragement.

Local officers. The key to the situation lies here. Where we have the best and most substantial Y.P. work is where we have local officers who have the work at heart.

We have some splendid people who are devoting themselves to the salvation of the young, and I would suggest that every effort be made to secure suitable people who shall carry this work forward under the instruction and supervision of the F.O.

The very best people in the corps should be put on this work, and not those who are fit for no other position.

20. In conclusion, we must keep hammering away at this. Keep it to the front. Teach it to our people.

In the phylacteries of the Jews, in which they carried the most precious passages of their scriptures, there was kept a record of the Passover, the Old Testament picture of Redemption, the Law in the two great Commands of Love, and beside them, only this command to diligently teach the children.

The purpose was, the world to be reached; the method, the truth from god through a human heart into the hearts of childhood.

Christ had a multitude of 5 000 hungry men to feed. How was this accomplished? A lad brought to his side five loaves and two fishes. Christ blessed them, “and all did eat and were filled.” There are multitudes around us hungering for heavenly bread. The young people will help us like the lad of old. Let us bring them to the side of Christ and He will use them.

A lifeboat returning from a wreck and stranded outside the breakers had thrown its ropes ashore, but all the men and women on the beach had failed to stir it from its place. The children, unasked, came and put their little hands on the rope beside the large rough hands of their parents, and they pulled long and strong together and the boat came off and was saved.

In our work for God in rescuing men from death, we need little hands on the rope with ours, the prayers and sympathies and words of youth and childhood, and then we shall have success.