The Salvation Army is known for many things. Red kettles and bell ringers come to mind. So do brass bands, auto auctions and soup kitchens.
Back | Next ![Salvation Army Lt. Lee Wilson greets worshippers after Sunday church services at the Salvation Army Church on Gardner Street. The congregation will move to the Kroc Center when construction there is complete. Lt. Michelle Wilson, Lee Wilson's wife, calls the church a "best-kept secret" of the army. MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF](http://chronicle.augusta.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/editorial/images/feed/msms/photos/4576332.jpg "Salvation Army Lt. Lee Wilson greets worshippers after Sunday church services at the Salvation Army Church on Gardner Street. The congregation will move to the Kroc Center when construction there is complete. Lt. Michelle Wilson, Lee Wilson's wife, calls the church a "best-kept secret" of the army. MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF")
But at the core of the organization is the church, which celebrates 120 years in Augusta this April.
"It's a best-kept secret," said Lt. Michelle Wilson. She and her husband, Lee, are associate corps officers who lead the local Salvation Army church.
Across the country, with the image of the Salvation Army cemented as just "another social services organization," Wilson says, membership in the movement is dropping.
Since 2004, the number of ordained ministers has fallen about 30 percent, to about 3,500. The number of members, referred to as soldiers, has fallen 10 percent, to 107,000, according to the Salvation Army.
In 2007, the Come Join Our Army Campaign was launched to address the trend. The three-year campaign aimed to add 125,000 members in the Southern region.
"People know us for our social services, less so for our worship services," Lee Wilson said.
He notes that Augusta has begun to buck the trend, in part because of excitement over the forthcoming Kroc Center but also because of neighborhood outreaches, a van ministry and the sort of generational ties that keep members involved for decades.
Church attendance and membership are up by a dozen or more over the past 18 months.
Last fall, the Augusta church, which meets in a facility off Gardner Street downtown, recognized more than 25 members who have worshiped at the Salvation Army for more than 40 years.
Lee Wilson is a seventh-generation Salvationist; Michelle Wilson's family goes back six generations. They both wear navy uniforms with an "S" on their lapels.
After working for the Salvation Army as employees for 10 years, the Wilsons pursued a call to full-time ministry. This is their first assignment as ordained officers. With their arrival 18 months ago, the number of local Salvation Army officers doubled to four. The Wilsons were sent to head up church ministries, freeing Todd and Wilma Mason to oversee the Kroc Center and the corps as a whole.
They have high hopes for the church as it finds its place among the programs and offices of the new Kroc Center. By summer, the church will meet for worship inside a 400-seat theater, part of the performing arts, community and social programs to be offered at the complex on a 17-acre campus off Broad Street. The 150-seat church on Gardner Street, built in 1955, will be sold to Free Will Baptist Church.
"People will walk into the Kroc Center theater and say, 'Wow, I didn't know this was a place we could worship,' " Michelle Wilson said.
On an average Sunday, between 115 and 130 people attend. Only 10 or so receive assistance from the Salvation Army. Nearly 100 are full-fledged soldiers who have sworn a covenant and attended classes to learn the Salvation Army's history and doctrines.
"Yes, it's for membership, but it's really about what you pledge for God," Michelle Wilson said.
The movement dates to 1865, when William Booth, a Methodist preacher in London, took to the streets to reach the poor and homeless. He founded his own church when Victorian-era churchgoers rejected the people he sent to established churches.
The organization spread quickly, making its way to Augusta in 1891, a year after the first Southern command was started in Atlanta.
"For it to make it all the way to Augusta by 1891 is a pretty incredible thing," Michelle Wilson said.
The reputation of the church, now an international religious movement in 106 countries, grew out of its expansion at the turn of the century.
The Salvation Army continued to expand with missionary hospitals and, during World War II, service units that led to the formation of the USO.
Today, the church is largely separate from the social services provided by the Salvation Army. It wasn't always that way, said John Gilliam, who has been the Augusta corps' sergeant major for 10 years.
It's a title akin to the head deacon of a church.
"Originally the soldiers were the workers. They ran things and served in the soup kitchens. Now there are paid employees that do that.
"The church members are left with the social aspects, which isn't enough to keep people involved. The Salvation Army will have to change. It's the job of the church to feed and clothe the down and out. It's key to ministry.
"Our chief job, however, is salvation. If we do anything without presenting Christ, we've failed altogether."
Of all the demographics within Augusta's Salvation Army church, youth is growing most rapidly. A van drives three routes through local neighborhoods picking up children younger than 18.
More than 60 young people attend Wednesday-night dinners. Many stay for music lessons with the Salvation Army's brass band.
The church, as a whole, Lee Wilson said, is investing more in the Salvation Army's "other half." Over the past year, the congregation has held quarterly sobriety dinners for men in recovery.
Those at the shelter are invited to attend church, but it's not mandatory.
"We're very blessed at the Salvation Army to have a lot of teenagers, teenagers who want to be involved," he said. "We have 17- and 18-year-olds choosing to come.
" It's a real blessing and a natural opportunity for our future.
"We encourage them to come alongside us and be part of the work of the Salvation Army for Jesus.
"We teach them that it's not about bell ringing or the Salvation Army. By those kettles and wherever else they find themselves, they are representatives of Christ."
The Salvation Army church meets at 2020 Gardner St. at 11 a.m. Sundays. Call (706) 737-9424.
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