As I write this, we are in the midst of the Christmas kettle season. Kettlemania comes every year in The Salvation Army. If you're heavily involved in this ministry, chances are by Christmas Eve you're ready to crawl into bed and not emerge until New Year's Eve. But when your corps officer or kettle co-ordinator is chasing you around with a sign-up sheet, don't try to hide. There are many good reasons why volunteering your time on the kettles is important―even necessary―for the Army to fulfil its mission. But what is the theology behind manning the kettles?

I'm serious. Should we not have a theological framework that undergirds every act of Christian service we engage in? Given the sheer amount of hours we put into standing on kettles, it is necessary to think theologically about what exactly the kettle ministry accomplishes. Are kettles merely about fundraising? Are they about evangelism? There are people who use this ministry as a way to tell others about the Saviour. Most would agree that if done correctly, they accomplish the joint aims of both fundraising and evangelism. I would add something further: standing on the kettles is an act of prophetic witness.

If you do not see the connection, think about it for a moment. Prophetic ministry is not how it's sometimes portrayed on television, with preachers predicting that the faithful are going to come into large sums of money if they only believe. True prophecy, if we look to the Scriptures, are when godly men and women stand between God and the people and proclaim, “Thus says the Lord.” A prophet calls on the leaders of the nation to remember the poor and disenfranchised; a prophet summons the people to repentance. If done correctly, I think the kettle ministry accomplishes this beautifully.

Our presence in the shopping malls and marketplaces, the modern day temples of consumerism, remind the relatively wealthy of our nation that some of the resources they have been blessed with should be set aside for the poor. Asking liquor store patrons to fill our red bubble with their spare change serves as a warning as to what can happen when the occasional social drink becomes a raging addiction. “Remember those who cannot resist this temptation” our presence in the liquor store says. Throwing fundraising dinners and banquets for politicians and business leaders may at times seem shallow and numbing. But our gentle insistence that they surrender some of their capital so that it can be redistributed in a more equitable way necessitates that we dialogue with them. Keeping the powerful centres of our nation connected with the impoverished margins and sharing the love of Christ with both is the main witness of The Salvation Army. The kettles can be a means to engage in prophetic witness, if we think of them in this way.

So this month when you're standing on the kettles, be polite and gracious. But don't feel that you are the recipient of mere charity or that you are a nuisance to the general public and really shouldn't be there. You are engaging in prophetic witness. Your presence is important. Now ring that bell a little harder, will you?

Lieutenant Robert Jeffery is the corps officer of Spryfield Community Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Married to Hannah, they have two children.