Booth College Of Mission 2022 Graduation

The recording of the live event can be found online at: https://www.facebook.com/SalvationArmyNZFTS/videos/8413988152005110

I start speaking around 1 hour and 27 minutes into the recording.

Kia-ora

Ni Sa Bula Vanaka

Malo E lelei

Talofa lava

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, esteemed quests, members of the faculty of Booth College of Mission, Commissioners, and other ranks.

Fourteen years ago, I stood here on this very platform and delivered the valedictory speech for our season, The Witnesses for Christ! After my name was drawn out of a hat. My wife, Rochelle has informed me that she has absolutely no recollection of that speech. She has suggested that I need to make todays speech memorable than the last.

I am honoured to be here and to be able to congratulate and encourage you graduates on your attaining the qualifications that you are presented with today. You have achieved significant outcomes, spurred on by, your families, by the wonderful tutors and support staff of BCM, guest tutors and officers, the encouragement you received from one another, and I am sure many others who have walked along side you in the past two years and previously. Let’s not forget the guidance of those texts, the dictionaries, the concordances, and other study material. I am also sure that if your time at BCM has been anything like mine was, some of you may have had a conversation or two with Major Garth over teacups, the better-behaved cadets are wondering I am talking about. You all sit here as graduates due to your hard work. Well done!

You leave the Booth College of Mission adequately equipped to engage as officers of the Salvation Army in the Salvation War! For that is what it is, you are equipped to win souls for the kingdom of God, helping them to be saved from their sins and in doing so bringing glory to God’s name and rejoicing in heaven! Adequately equipped, is an interesting term. Fully equipped would be great but, I know that in my case I wasn’t fully equipped when I hit the ground running in our first Corps appointment at Sydenham Corps and am so blessed to have Rochelle with me. While I dealt with the blur of coming to an understanding that I was now a Salvation Army officer, I took part in practical aspects of Corps life like repainting the lines in the Sydenham Corps carpark and tidying up the garden as low hanging fruit, yes. those easy picked victories that would hopefully endear me to the people of the Corps. Cleaning the toilets also does this. While I did that, Rochelle dealt with the things that required deeper knowledge of things Salvation Army that I had a knowledge gap in.

There has been some comment about my qualifications, I gained them to fill in gaps in my knowledge, there have been plenty of those gaps and some still need filling and I would encourage you to do the same, either formally or informally. The Salvation Army is a great movement, in that we officers are encouraged to continue learning. I would encourage you to travel the path of lifelong learning and studentship, for your own sakes, but also for the credibility of your appointments and the reputation of the movement. Studying hard is also good for your character but be careful not to overdo it.

Your sessional name is quite the challenge, “Reflectors of Holiness,” “Life has its challenges to our walking in God’s presence. But we are presented with an opportunity in regard to reflecting holiness, in all things remember that “the closer you are to God, the more defined and visible will be the image of him that you reflect.” Jesus told us to take the narrow gate. For the wide path leads to destruction, I would say that being destroyed is a good place to stay clear of. Be holy, reflect his holiness.

Paul in Philippians 2:6-8 gives a bit of a heads up on holiness, in the way he describes our Lord and how we should relate to one another:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

We have this privileged responsibility to seek after an attitude of humility, in our relationships and that’s all of them, to be like Jesus, humble, obedient and bringing glory to the Father and freedom to our fellow man even at the cost of our own lives. No pressure! Your Tongan/Solomon Islander session mate the now Lieutenant Peter Otainao mentioned in part of the Reflectors of Holiness, Fiji final presentation two weeks ago at the School for Officer Training in Suva that “we, [reflectors of holiness] are accountable partners” and yes you are accountable partners with, Christ, with one another, with The Salvation Army. Serve as people who are accountable to our Father and one another.