Forms of Communication Employed by the Salvation Army : To Cater for One’s Complete Wellbeing - Research

The protestant reformation gave birth, to a plethora of Christian movements of which voluminous amounts emerged as organisations which possessed their pious heritage retained within the reformers teachings. The study examined the modes of communiqué utilised by the Salvation Army to provide for the exhaustive wellbeing of mankind and in addition, to establish the communication techniques employed by the Salvation Army from the time of inception up until the establishment as an organisation. The aim of the paper was to expound the heterogeneous forms of communication utilised by the Salvation Army so as to accommodate for the spiritual and physical wellbeing of humankind. Klopper's Theory of Optimisation of Human Communication (TOHC), the theoretical framework for this study. Various forms of communication will be used within cultures to ensure survival and to maintain one's culture. This paper was a desktop research paper. Klopper's (TOHC) was validated throughout this study in reference to the establishment of the above mentioned Christian religious groups. Maslow's Theory based on the Hierarchy of Needs (1954), affirms that there is progression from the fulfilment of physical needs, safety needs, social needs to the fulfilment of self-actualisation needs in the life of an individual and ultimately going to a level known as selftranscendence. Religion plays a significant role at the levels of safety, socialisation and self-actualisation, and self-transcendence. The author elicited how basic modes of communication were utilised in the movement stage and how these forms of communication were broadened when the above mention Christian religious groups became an organisation. Since the inception of the organisation their focus remained on the spiritual and physical wellbeing of society. The author compared statistics of the Salvation Army between 2003 and 2015. The paper output the need for Christian communication to be incorporated as a field of study within the Communication's Department of Higher Education institutions.