The Early Days of Training

Training has always been part of the fabric that makes up Church Army. Seeing people accept Jesus naturally leads to them telling others this Good News, and so training Christian women and men in the duty of evangelism. This is how it started.

The Birth of Church Army Training

The story of Church Army training goes back to the earliest days before Church Army itself had come into existence. Fuelled with a passion to see the lost become saved, Wilson Carlile would hold services in the open air every night in Kensington from 9pm to 10pm even in the rain and snow. On top of his parish work during the day, the nightly preaching became so great a strain that he was compelled to train some of his lay helpers to become preachers. These were people who had come to know Christ through Wilson’s preaching and caught the fire to spread the good news to others. The first was a young butler, the second a groom. They began simply with a reading from the Bible, and then gradually ventured to tell how the passage read fitted their own experience. In time, he began to send them to the slums of North Kensington, where they held evangelistic meetings in lodging houses or on street corners. These meetings were also held in a hall after evening church. Wilson would conduct the meeting and also hand over to those who were helping him. Sometimes 50 people in one meeting would give talks or short prayers. This early hands-on training, as unofficial as it was, in many ways was a natural progression for those who had come to faith in Jesus and had their hearts turned towards sharing the good news with the lost.

Can you take a back seat and play second fiddle with a Happy heart?

The training was practical and effective but as Church Army was founded and beginning to develop, the need for full-time evangelists grew quickly. Advertisements were placed in church papers for applicants. Along with spiritual experience, those applying for training would answer questions such as: “Can you take a back seat and play second fiddle with a happy heart?”, “Can you use the same homely language in speaking for Christ as for your trade?”, “Can you turn a disturber out of a meeting in a smiling and kindly manner?”, “Can you be as daring for Christ as the worst are for Satan?”, and “Can you start tunes at the right pitch?”.

WILSON CARLILE’S VISION WAS THAT EVANGELISM WOULD BE THE ROLE OF
EVERY CHRISTIAN, NOT JUST THOSE WHOSE ROLE WAS IN THE CHURCH

And so Church Army training was established. Wilson Carlile’s vision was that evangelism would be the role of every Christian, not just those whose role was in the church, as at the very start, this type of training did not call for great educational attainment, but rather for those who knew and loved Jesus and had a thirst to see people be saved. Early recruits for training included tradesmen, miners, blacksmiths, shop assistants, clerks and factory workers.

Female candidates were usually nurses and teachers, as well as domestic servants, weavers, tailoresses and a number of young women who had never worked. Some came from the armed forces and even a few university graduates chose life of evangelism over a prosperous career, much like Wilson Carlile himself. The first Training Home was founded in 1882, in Oxford, in a converted shop. The building could house ten men at a time and provided one meal a day. For the rest of the time the Cadets (as they were known) fended for themselves. They would attend Evensong in the Cathedral before going out to do mission work in the back streets. A few years later, the Training Home moved to London and Church Army soon commenced the training of women to become Mission Nurses (who would later be known as Mission Sisters). A women’s Training Home was set up close by and the men and women began to share the same lectures and combine open-air services. At first, the training was very brief and lasted only three months, and just ten weeks for the Mission Nurses (including hospital work). There was not a lot of money to invest in training in those days, but as funds slowly improved over time, so did capacity to extend the training. Wilson was often accused of trying to push insufficiently trained evangelists onto parishes, but the training, though brief, covered the Bible, the prayer book, the life of prayer and devotion and also a lot of practical experience in communicating the Gospel indoors and in the open air, often in Hyde Park, where there was no short supply of opposition.