Major Jason Sabourin once had a church member tell him after a service, “I’ve been to a lot of churches that have sizzle, but there’s no steak. You do. You’re the only ones that really get your hands dirty.”

“I would never disparage other denominations,” says Major Sabourin, “but from my own experience, the fact that The Salvation Army positions itself on the front lines means we’re more than just sizzle.”

The Start of a Journey

Major Sabourin did not come from a religious family but when he was a young man, he met Tammy, whose parents were Salvation Army officers.

“We were dating, and I began to attend church for ‘brownie points’ with her parents,” Major Sabourin laughs now.

But, at first, he was bored.

“There wasn’t a lot of reading material at that Salvation Army church then, worse than even a doctor’s office.”

But there were Bibles aplenty, so to pass the time, Major Sabourin started to read them.

“Reading Scripture piqued my curiosity and interest,” he says.

And Major Sabourin listened to the sermons that Tammy’s father would preach.

In spite of himself, he learned about faith and soon came to know God.

“The funny thing was, I was a bus driver and while I was on my route, I’d start to think about these great ideas for sermons while I was driving my bus! Then I’d think to myself, But I don’t even believe in this nonsense. It was all kind of strange.”

As time went on, now married, both Jason and Tammy realized that something was missing from their lives.

A new Salvation Army church plant had opened in Ajax, Ont., so they began to attend Hope Church on a regular basis, and Major Sabourin’s journey of faith started at that point.

"Something More"

“I really enjoyed the services, the sermons and the teaching,” Major Sabourin says. And the more he went to the church, the more he found out about The Salvation Army.

“I got a hold of the official histories. I may be the only person who has ever read them all the way through!” Major Sabourin laughs now. “They were really intriguing. Seeing the movement and where General Booth came from, seeing the efforts that were being done in the name of Christ, was amazing. So, the histories got me excited and I thought to myself, Yeah, that’s something I want to be a part of.

“Because I wasn’t looking for a social club, I wasn’t looking for another place just to hang out. I already had a community. I was looking for purpose,” he says.

“And so, I got to this point where I couldn’t deny I was feeling this call to something more.”

Where It All Started

Without realizing that each of them had come to the same conclusion, Jason and Tammy both decided to explore a call to a deeper commitment with their church.

“One night, I came home and Tammy said to me, not knowing I had been feeling this way, ‘I’m kind of feeling a call to officership.’ Her faith had come around, as had mine.”

The couple made the decision to attend the College for Officer Training in Winnipeg, and they became officers two years later. After stints at various corps, they were asked to return to Hope Church and Community Services in Ajax, the place where it all began for them. They’ve been there ever since.

“Being part of the community and growing with everybody here at the congregation has just been great,” Major Sabourin says. “We’ve been here now for 11 years, and we hope to be here a while longer to finish what we started.”

A Part of Something

“The Salvation Army supported my further education, which I’m grateful for,” says Major Sabourin. “And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This was the path that seemed to have been laid out for me by God.

“In my position as a corps officer at Hope Church, I have conversations with city councillors, federal and provincial politicians, and wealthy donors, but at the same time, I deal with people who call the streets their home,” he continues. “The Salvation Army gives you that perspective of being able to make a difference in people’s lives at every level, to just sit and listen to somebody else’s story. The Salvation Army positions a person to have that kind of influence.

“I don’t want to just sit in a pew on a Sunday and sing hymns and then go and live my life,” Major Sabourin concludes. “I wanted to be part of something. And The Salvation Army is what I wanted to be part of.”

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