One of the most challenging areas of my life to give over to God when exploring his call to ministry was that I would not be able to chose where I worshiped. It took me nearly a year to accept that I would not be able to choose this for at least the foreseeable future.
For two summers whilst I was at university I worked for a hotel and worshiped at the nearby ‘big corps’ of Derby Central. This was my first experience of traditional Army worship, but it was also the first time in a number of years that I would consistently worship with other people who were around my age. We were all doing similar things, moving into the adult world, going to uni or finding work, and adjusting to each new season that God was bringing to us.
When I returned to university for my final year, knowing that I would not be able to go back to this setting which had encouraged and supported me, I was so troubled. I cried out to God a few times about how unfair it was, how I missed the company of people near enough my own age, the encouragement and the support they gave and the love they had for each other.
God used a Youth Councils weekend in November 2019 to convict and encourage me, and ultimately what He said over that weekend gave me what I needed to continue along the path He was leading me down.
God spoke through other people that weekend, but the message was clearly from Him, and his words were ones of chastisement, of conviction and of comfort. I heard God clearly telling me that “there will be people like you along the way”, people who would come alongside, help and support me, and who I intern would be able to pray for and to help, support and love.
The message at one of the sessions had the phrase “life is what you make it”, this was in the context of following God’s plan, but I took the words and applied them to corps, quite simply my corps life, my involvement and desire and joy would be what I could make of it. Yes perhaps there would not be people who were my age, who were going through the same things I was facing, but God would still be there, and that I had to make the life where God was placing me.
The final words were encouraging, and they came from a quiet conversation with the weekend’s leader, the Divisional youth leader for Central East (which included Cambridge where my family live), I spoke quite generally about what I had been feeling in the run up to youth councils, and how I missed a corps with young people in it. He told me that there was nothing wrong with looking at other corps if I had that option, and God had perhaps led me in this direction for a reason.
I reflected on what I had heard God say a few days after the youth councils and decided that I would try the bigger corps at home when I went back for Christmas, but that in the meantime I would re-invest in my relationships in my corps in Scotland, and that I should not be concerned about the future, because God is already there, and as He supports me today, so he will be supporting me tomorrow and every day.
I am not saying it was easy to give up my previous corps lives and instead to pursue corps life as part of the my work, but as the old song says “He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater” and God has blessed me abundantly in both my corps here in Buckhaven, and in my relationships with members of other corps.
So if you are struggling with your corps or church life just now, if you do not feel like you fit where you are or you feel that you need that something more, spend some time with God and with other Christian friends and see what God has got to say, and what He has in store for you. When you trust God, you are never disappointed.