Google "William Booth"

So we are on to week 8 of the Soldiers Challenge and so far it is going really well. It has been something that I thought I would struggle with and something I would find very difficult to keep going. However that has not been the case, the tasks so far have not been to much of a challenge so far and the momentum is beginning to build so that when the more tasking challenges come round the impetus will be there to continue despite the difficulty.

So this weeks challenge was to google "William Booth", although this one is a fairly easy challenge to do it is a somewhat important challenge because William Booth is the founder of the organisation I am a part of. Knowing about the history of the organisation I am part of and knowing the principles that it is founded on is very important if I am wanting to go out in to the world and win souls for Jesus through this organisation. It has also fallen at an interesting point in my journey into learning about the Salvation Army because I have just finished reading a biography on William and Catherine Booth and the early Salvation Army and have just started reading the book Blood and Fire which is similar in scope to the book I have just finished but much grander in its execution.

So lets have some William Booth facts;

1. William Booth was born on the 10th April 1829 in Sneinton in Nottingham.
2. He was the only son of the 4 surviving children of Samuel and Mary Booth.
3. William was apprenticed at 13 to a pawnbrokers.
4. He married Catherine Mumford
5. William had 8 children
6. He died on the 20th August 1912 in London

These are facts that are easily found out about William Booth just by checking the internet on sites such as Wikipedia. However the most important fact is that William Booth was a God led minister who had a passion to save souls by any means necessary. Booth was determined to see people saved for God from the depths of sin and depravity. He saw the need of the poor and destitute in "Darkest England" and decided that something needed to be done.

It is not really possible to talk about the amazing work done by Booth that was carried on by The Salvation Army, the organisation be founded. But that is not what this post is about, this post is about encouraging myself and those who are reading it to go out there and discover the work of these Saints such as Booth and to think about how we can continue this work now and in the future. It may be that you are not a member of The Salvation Army and you are not hugely interested in it or its work, but my thought is that we should learn about whatever organisation or Church we are a part of. But also we should know what we can about other Christians and Christian organisations in the world and the work they are doing.

So next week we have a somewhat different task to do, a task that for me personally is going to be a little difficult to do. The challenge is to pray for your government leaders each day this week. There are two reasons that this will be difficult for me, the first is that although my prayer life is improving and growing day by day it is still something I have struggled to remember to do on a daily basis. The other reason is that I do not support or believe in the policies of the current government and find it difficult to support them when they seem to be so actively attacking everything I believe should be done to fix the problems we have. However this may be a good thing for me to do, to pray for the leaders to see sense over policy decisions and to try and prevent our society crumbling under our noses. Check back next week on the Soldiers Challenge tab and see how it goes and see what will be the task following that.