IT was an organisation founded in the streets of Victorian London to assist the destitute and poor. Now the Salvation Army is marching into the 21st Century with the launch of an app which encourages members to volunteer for the charity’s frontline work.

A new website has also been set up for The Whole World Mobilising initiative, which aims to promote the church and charity’s projects to tackle issues such as homelessness, modern slavery and poverty.

Participants are encouraged to create a profile on the website or app to connect to others and take selfies and tweet pictures to share their activities.

The project was launched by world leader of the Salvation Army General André Cox, who came to Glasgow yesterday to mark the organisation’s work in Scotland.

Speaking ahead of the visit, he told the Sunday Herald it aimed to remind members not to just “sit passively in church pews on a Sunday” but go out and make a difference in the world.

He said: “Our roots are Victorian, but we live in the realities of today’s world and increasingly around the globe technology is there and can be used.

“It will be a very interactive website – we are not saying you need to do this or to make sure everyone is out marching on the streets, but there are so many different ways in which we can be relevant to communities.

“We are a significant army and if they are all volunteering and working in communities, then that has a tremendous impact in the world.”

The roots of the Salvation Army can be traced back to 1865 with the work of evangelist William Booth, who wanted to help the poor and destitute in the east end of London and preach the gospel to them. The Christian Mission was set up in 1869, which subsequently changed its name to The Salvation Army in 1878. A year later, the first Scottish base of operations was established in Anderston, Glasgow.

Today it there are around 1.5 million members in 128 countries. In Scotland, it has 74 churches in Scotland and just over 3,000 members.

Cox, who is based in Switzerland, acknowledged that, like many other Christian churches, there had been a general decline in membership in recent years in European countries.

He said: “I guess 40 or 50 years ago [in the UK] we would have had a membership maybe even four times as much as it is today.

“However in the UK it seems to have plateaued out a little bit.”

He added: “In one or two places in Europe, after many years of decline, the tide is slowly turning and we are in some places beginning to see young people again responding to the call for full-time ministry as officers in the Salvation Army.”

Yesterday Cox visited a number of projects in Glasgow, including centres for people experiencing homelessness and a day care centre for older people.

He said the fact that people were still in need of help in modern Britain was “extremely worrying”, and expressed particular concern over the number of children living in poverty.

“People may wonder if an organisation that was founded in Victorian times is still relevant today," he said. "But I think that if William Booth came back he would be amazed that things aren’t better than they are. We have got work to do.”