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Course A FAll 2014

Corps Cadet

sunday

BOLD fOr COrps CaDetsCourse A | FAll 2014 | 1st edition

Published by the salvation Army national Christian education department, national Headquarters

the salvation Army Central territory 10 W. Algonquin road des Plaines, il 60016

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exeCutive editor: Major Christine Poff

editor: Carolyn J.r. Bailey

Writers: Meeting outline: Barb Higgins, sermon: Captain Keith Maynor

Art direCtion & desiGn: steven e. Carpenter, Jr.

AdMinistrAtive AssistAnt: siomara Paz

CoPYriGHt stAteMent

this publication is a national document and cannot be changed without the approval of the Commissioners’ Conference. All rights reserved. no part of this curriculum may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopies, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission from the salvation Army national Christian education department. this includes the scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means. For permission information write:

the salvation Army national Headquarters Christian education department 615 slaters lane Alexandria, vA 22314

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, niv®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, inc.™ used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com the “niv” and “new international version” are trademarks registered in the united states Patent and trademark office by Biblica, inc.™

scripture marked MsG is taken from The Message™. Copyright 1993. used by permission of navPress Publishing Group.

leadership principles taken from The Maxwell Leadership Bible: Lessons in Leadership from the Word of God, Second Edition, New King James Version. Maxwell, John C. and elmore, tim, executive editors. nashville, tn: thomas nelson, inc., 2007.

every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders, but should there be any errors or omissions, the salvation Army would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgment into future productions of this publication.

Mission stAteMent

the salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. its message is based on the Bible. its ministry is motivated by the love of God. its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.

territorY Addresses

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Corps Cadet sunday

PurPose

The purpose of Corps Cadet Sunday is to encourage our young people and to recruit other young people for membership in the Corps Cadet program. Corps Cadet Sunday provides an opportunity for the corps cadets to use their leadership skills and talents.

ParticiPation

Prior to Corps Cadet Sunday, the corps cadet counselor should give the meeting outline to the corps officer or program committee. The corps cadet counselor should lead the meeting assisted by the corps officer.

Each corps cadet should have an assignment and time to prepare for it. Assignments could include: greeting, song leading, praying, reading scripture, giving testimonies, collecting the offering, making announcements, leading worship, singing or playing a special number, handing out programs, participating in skits and preaching.

suggested Meeting outline

Welcome ........................................................................corps officer/Ypsm

call to Worship ........................................................................ corps cadet

Doctrine One of The Salvation Army states: We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God, and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.

Second Timothy 3:16-17 (KJV) tells us that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Romans 15:4 (NIrV) tells us, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. The Scriptures give us strength to go on. They cheer us up and give us hope.”

praise and Worship .................................................................... praise Band

“Open the Eyes of My Heart” by Michael W. Smith

“The Word” by transMission

opening praYer ......................................................................... corps cadet

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scripture reading .................................................................. corps cadets

Isaiah 55:6-11 (NIV)6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

8 ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.

9 ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, 11 so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’”

2 Timothy 3:14-17 (NIV)14 “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

song 650/712 ............................................................................... corps cadet

“Break Thou The Bread Of Life”

SKIT: “Bible Reading” By Andrew Verrett

CAST: Mom, Dad

SETTING: Kitchen Table

PROPS: 2 chairs, table, newspaper

Dad reads the paper at the table. Mom enters and sits down.

MOM: I was just talking with Crystal.

DAD: What’s up with our oldest daughter? Another new boyfriend?

MOM: No, she was telling me about Paul and Timothy.

DAD: Are those her last two boyfriends?

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MOM: No. They’re from the Bible. Paul I’ve heard of, but who is Timothy?

DAD: Timothy? Oh yeah, he was Bob Cratchit’s son.

MOM: Oh? I don’t think Bob Cratchit was in the Bible. I think he was in the story by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. You know, with Mr. Scrooge?

DAD: You could be right. I always get Mr. Scrooge confused with Donald Duck’s Uncle Scrooge. So, why is Crystal talking about these people?

MOM: She wanted help with her Sunday school lesson.

DAD: Really? You should have told her just like the Good Book says, “God helps those who help themselves.”

MOM: That won’t work anymore.

DAD: Why not? Isn’t she the one who says we should use the Bible as a guide for our lives?

MOM: Well, yes. But the last time you told her “God helps those who help themselves,” she told me that wasn’t in the Bible.

DAD: You’re kidding me! Of course it’s in there.

MOM: Honey, Crystal told me she’s read the whole Bible, more than once, and it’s not there.

DAD: The Bible’s got to be over 1,000 pages! That takes a long time to read. When did she read it? In the three days between boyfriends?

MOM: On one of the cover pages of her Bible, she writes down every time she finishes it. She says she starts at the beginning of Genesis and reads 4 pages every day until she gets to the end of Revelation. She says it takes around a year.

DAD: Still, she must have overlooked that verse.

MOM: I don’t think so. We don’t even know what’s in the Bible and what’s not. We don’t know who Timothy is. I’m thinking we should read it for ourselves. In just a few years, she’ll be married and have children of her own. I think we should be able to tell our grandchildren what the Bible really has to say.

testimonY ................................................................................... corps cadet

Give two corps cadets the opportunity to share how God is at work in their lives. Encourage them to share what they’ve been learning about God’s Word and how it applies to their lives.

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recognition of corps cadets .......................corps cadet counselor

Corps Cadet Sunday provides an opportunity to recognize the following:

• NewMembers–Newmembershiprepresentsanimportantpassageintoaserious commitment to prepare our students for leadership. Newly accepted corps cadets should be publicly recognized.

• CourseCertificates–Eachcorpscadetreceivesacertificateiftheyhave completed a course with 300 points and 30 activity points. The Bronze, Silver, Gold and Gold with Honors certificates are sent to the corps from the Divisional Youth Secretary.

LevelIandLevelICertificates–ALevelIcertificateswillbeawardedtoeachcorps cadet who has completed two years of study and earned four course certificates. A Level II certificates will be awarded to each corps cadet who has completed four years of study and has earned eight course certificates.

LevelIandLevelIICertificatesofCompletion–ThesearesentfromTHQ.

LevelIIICertificates–LevelIIIcertificatesareissuedforthecompletionof five years of study (ten course certificate)

LevelIIICertificatesofCompletion–ThegraduatediplomaandpinwillbesentfromTHQ.

• TerritorialCorpsCadetAwards

• Recognitionofcorpscadetcounselors/leaders

corps cadet report ...................................................... cadet counselor

This is an opportunity for you, as a corps cadet counselor, to share what the brigade has accomplished in the previous year. It is a time to explain the goals and curriculum for the coming year. This will also give you an opportunity to introduce the new BOLD curriculum.

announcements and offering ........................................... corps cadet

Have the corps cadets pray for the offering and act as ushers.

chorus 130 .................................................................................. corps cadet

“I Believe In The Word Of God”

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sermon“all aboard!”Out of all the programs and groups the Salvation Army has ever produced, Corps Cadets might be the trickiest one to explain. Usually, when we speak to the outside world about Junior Soldiers, or Sunbeams, or our old favorite, “League of Mercy,” it’s not too difficult to explain the point of it. But far more importantly, it’s easy to explain why these Salvationist programs are fun and how they create value in the world. When we define and explain Corps Cadets as a disciplined and focused curriculum that rigorously challenges teenagers to study God’s Word with the intent of equipping them to be local corps leaders, the typical response to that definition is, “huh?”

Corps Cadets is about the future. It’s about ensuring that the corps will have viable leaders for tomorrow. But, Corps Cadets is also about a process, a way of guiding teenagers right now. It’s true that, while the Corps Cadets have a cool identity to look forward to, the journey to get there won’t always be easy.

Samuel L. Clemens (otherwise known as Mark Twain) personally knew this Corps Cadet predicament, but he knew it in another world. Twain wrote the story of an adolescent boy who had a romantic fascination with the Mississippi River, and the steamboats that navigated it. The boy’s dream was to become a riverboat captain one day. He pictured himself steering the steamer, and as he passed by the shores of the Southern States, the folks standing by would wave at him, showing their respect and admiration. As the story unfolds, the boy got the chance to be an apprentice on a riverboat. On his first day, he was so excited. He could hardly wait to steer the ship and crank up the engines to full speed. But when he climbed aboard, the teacher showed him to a workroom. Within the room stood a plain desk, two chairs, and a vast library of Mississippi River maps. The boy was simply ordered to read the maps, and commit it all to memory. Days, weeks and even months passed, the boy was only assigned to read the maps, and know the shape of the river by heart. He read depth reports, studied the latest cartography maps of the river bends, and found reports on how erosion was affecting the water movement. After long and difficult study, the boy couldn’t take any more of it. He went to the pilot and said, “Enough is enough. I am so sick of studying the river, and my head is so heavy for it. I will need crutches placed under my ears to keep me upright!”

The pilot responded, and I will do my best to paraphrase it now: You think piloting a boat is about looking cool as you steer the ship from the top of the steamer. No, piloting is about knowing the shape of the river, from the bottom to the surface, from New OrleanstoMinnesota–you’vegottoknowtheriver’sshapebetterthanyourownsoul.

Very much like the riverboat apprentice, the Corps Cadet is about the diligent study of the Word of God! It’s about the Bible taking shape in the mind, and in the heart.

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In our day and age, taking the Bible and forging its shape into our lives is a critical issue for Salvationists. The issue takes on two forms: our knowledge of Scripture, and our submission to Scripture. The Bible makes our mission absolutely clear: to save souls, make disciples, and win the world to Jesus. If The Salvation Army has any hope in succeeding in this mission, we will only do so by being faithful to God’s Word. Before we can be faithful to God’s Word, we have to know God’s Word. If The Salvation Army has any hope of growing in our knowledge of God, we will only do so by approaching the Word in humility and with an obedient spirit.

Corps Cadets is fostering this commitment, allowing God’s holy Word to take shape in our lives. Hebrews 8 describes it in this way; “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Hebrews 8:10).

So, I make this charge, this call to all that are present, not just for the corps cadets here today, that we all respond to God’s promise.

In order for God’s Word to take shape in us, we first have to understand some doctrinal facts about the Bible.

Since we’ve learned so much already from the riverboat captain, let’s go a little further down the stream with the metaphor. Though we won’t be able to exhaust the entirety of the knowledge regarding the Bible and what it means to us, we can summarize two essential teachings about it. For each teaching, I’ll introduce a parallel from life on the Mississippi!

The first essential about the Bible is the realization that it is not a human achievement. The true and original author is God! The apostle Peter talked about this mystery, that the Bible is the result of the interaction of divine power and a human response. “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). We believe that God, through the moving the Holy Spirit, inspired, enlightened, and directed the writers to produce a trustworthy history and witness to God’s story. So, though the Bible is a collection of documents of history, poetry, letters, and narratives, it is ultimately a divine gift to us.

After the boy spent considerable time in the map room, one of the other vital tools he eventually learned about was the steam whistle. As the name suggests, it was a super powered whistle that projected a blasting sound out from the ship. The interesting thing about this whistle was that it could vary its pitch. The whistle’s purpose was to alert other boats and dockworkers—it was a communication device. When the whistle blew, depending on the pitch, nearby ships know the direction in which the boat was turning. Likewise, the Bible is one of God’s prime communication devices. Imagine this -the Bible is the record of God’s whistling to the world! And perhaps even more profound, as the world continues to read the Bible, God is still whistling through it!

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The second essential about the Bible is that, since it reveals the Triune God, it shines in our world as a beacon of truth, and therefore it is endowed with unique authority. Since the beginning of civilization, people from all around the world have tried to reach out to the divine. In this sense, religion is humanity’s pursuit of God. The apostle Paul writes in the first chapter of Romans, that all generations have witnessed to an awareness of a divine presence, or an underlying conviction that a creator has ordered the universe. But, having this general awareness about God is not enough to discover the exact truth. Without God’s own help, the world would never truly know God and His saving power.

This is one of the greatest blessings of the Bible; God has made Himself known. Therefore, the Bible is our light, it is a guide, and it has authority over the church. Paul also summarized this succinctly in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The Bible is like a steam whistle, and it is also like the steamboat’s torch basket. When the steamboat sailed down the river at night, the sailors suspended large baskets made of iron over the sides. Inside the baskets were oil soaked cloths that were set aflame. These torch baskets were navigation instruments. They lit the way forward. The prayer hymn, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” echoes the steamboat captain’s thought.

The torch basket wasn’t just a blessing, however. It also carried considerable risk. Can you imagine if our modern day insurance company (Chesterfield in the Salvation Army) did an inspection on the steamboats and saw oil soaked baskets blazing on the side of the boat! The insurance inspector would imagine fantastical thoughts of the Titanic floating into an iceberg made of fire!

The Bible is a powerful torch, and such instruments of power must be handled with care. The care I am speaking of is the careful and diligent interpretation of the Bible that is guided by the Holy Spirit. There have been occasions in the Church’s history when the Bible has been greatly misunderstood. When there is confusion on a biblical matter, the consequences can be extremely painful. The Bible has been used to say hate-filled things to non-believers. It’s been used to persecute God-fearing and scientifically-minded men like Copernicus and Galileo. It’s even been used to justify and defend slavery before the Civil War. Like handling fire, the Bible needs to be respected. We can do that by approaching Scripture humbly, diligently studying, and allowing the Holy Spirit to interpret the Bible’s words to our hearts and minds.

Twain’s story of the boy and the riverboat captain had a sobering ending. The boy, feeling like he needed crutches under his ears, no longer had a romantic view of the river. He said that he once saw the majestic rushing of the water and the opportunity of adventure in the Mississippi. After his study though, he only saw patterns of erosion along the riverbed, and the danger that those rapids would posed to the cargo. The process had stripped away the beauty.

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But, thank God, when we dive head first into the study of the Word, that’s when we truly see beauty that is eternal. If we go through the discipline, through the process of intense biblical, Corps Cadet training, we discover a faithful God and our eternal purpose with Jesus Christ.

Now, just as a Mississippi steamboat captain would invite those eager for adventure with these words, I invite you into an adventure with God’s Word: “All Aboard!”

response time ..........................................................................corps officer

closing song 757/797 .............................................................. corps cadet

“Standing on the Promises”

closing praYer .......................................................................... corps cadet

Web resource

http://amhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/4_5.html

Christian EduCation dEpartmEnt

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