Officer Formation

What is a Salvation Army officer?

Officers are the equivalent of full-time clergy and pastoral leaders in other Christian denominations. Officership provides an amazing environment for ministry leaders to grow and thrive, to live out God’s purpose in their lives and to lead and serve others well. Officership as a vocation is complex and officer roles include local corps or faith expression leadership, social programs or management as well as specialised functions.

The Salvation Army in Australia has two officership pathways: commissioned and non-commissioned:

• Commissioned officership is what most people typically understand as officership and includes a pathway of formation and training as a Cadet leading to covenant, ordination and commissioning as a Lieutenant. Commissioned officership is The Salvation Army in Australia's preferred pathway for people in long term (lifelong) ministry. The availability of officers to go where and when there is a need sets commissioned officership apart from other forms of ministry leadership in The Salvation Army.
• Non-commissioned officers perform the same functions as commissioned officers but have not signed the Officer's Covenant nor been ordained and commissioned. Auxiliary Lieutenancy is The Salvation Army in Australia's preferred model for short-term pastoral and spiritual ministry leadership. Auxiliary Lieutenants are accepted for a specific appointment for a term of three years (which may be renewed).
  Both commissioned and non-commissioned officers come under Officer Formation Stream for their formation, development and training.

What is the three-fold approach to formation?

The holistic approach of training officers of The Salvation Army is delivered through a threefold process which integrates theological and educational formation, personal and spiritual formation and mission and ministry formation.

• Personal and Spiritual Formation: Our focus is upon deepening your self-knowledge as well as your responsiveness to the gracious presence of God in your life and your practice of key spiritual disciplines. A range of opportunities (from class-based, to experiential practices, to personal reflection) will all contribute to this process.
• Theological and Educational Formation: Our focus is upon developing a required level of educational and theological literacy. Key educational units will help you to develop the broad theoretical foundation which will serve as the building blocks for your future learning, intentional reflection, and practice of mission and ministry.
• Mission and Ministry Formation: Our focus is upon engaging with a variety of mission and ministry opportunities and contexts to apply learning in practice. Though it is a learning environment, the opportunities for mission and ministry are in real settings and will be a key element of training.

Dispersed Cadet training

In 2020, Australia moved to a dispersed mode of Cadet training. What may have started as a response to a worldwide pandemic has been embraced as a model to provide agile training and better represent The Salvation Army across Australia. While field-based experiential learning has always been highly important in Cadet training, under the dispersed model it is even more strongly integrated from the start.

Officer Formation Stream

The Eva Burrows College Officer Formation Team is responsible for training and developing Cadets, Lieutenants and Auxiliary Lieutenants. The training model is holistic, individualised, flexible, and academically sound.

Visit the Officer Formation website.

Officer Formation for Cadets, Lieutenants and Auxiliary Lieutenants is based on stages. Stage I is the application and preliminary stage, Stage II is the foundational formation and development stage, and Stage III is the ongoing formation and development stage.

Stages of Formation