Dead or simply sleeping?

Yesterday we had our monthly meeting of leaders here in Latvia and following a period of teaching we were asked to pray about various things.

During this prayer period I felt the Lord directing me to Revelation 3:1-6 which says:

"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

It appears to me that this pretty much describes The Salvation Army (and probably much of the Church) in the West. To illustrate we spend a considerable amount of time looking at various strategies for extending the Kingdom of God through TSA here in Latvia, but I wonder when we are going to take the step of faith that is required to see the fruit of these talks. Commitment is there in the leadership group but we don't seem to be able to communicate it to the masses. What's worse is that we have a fairly good reputation for being a place where things are happening, but are not really seeing any growth and although our spirituality is increasing , some of our congregations are in decline.

This seems to be pretty much the norm that I see in my readings across the Army's blogosphere! Only in a few places do we seem to be fulfilling the mission that God has given to us. It reminds me of the Keith Green song "Asleep in the Light" which says:

"The world is sleeping in the dark, That the church can't fight, cause it's asleep in the light, How can you be so dead, when you've been so well fed, Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can't even get out of bed, Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed."

Our new General has already said:

"...but perhaps God is saying ever so gently and ever so lovingly: 'I love you, Salvation Army, but would you please look within and see if there is sin in the camp and if there is anything that causes the blessing to be withheld we must deal with it.'"

What concerns me though is that prophetic voices have been asking the question for sometime now, but still we have by-and-large continued in our sinful ways. There nearly always came a point when the Old Testament prophets stood up and basically said "There is sin in the camp and God says repent or be exiled/lose my blessing." Maybe now is the time for the General (because I suspect that is what it will take) to stand up and say what the sins of The Salvation Army are! This might not make him popular but its what is needed!