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Friday, September 06, 2002
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A relevant passage (for the previous blog) from the book I am reading "By Grace Transformed" by Gordon Cosby
We sense and feel keenly about the whole because we know that everything is interconnected. Any gift we have is seen as a gift to enhance the total family of humanity. We are here to move the totality toward the Shalom, the completion, the fulfillment, the coming into her or his own of every person who is living and has ever lived, and every person who will ever be born into the future.
In reality, we are not separate individuals, as we often feel ourselves to be. We are meshed, we are intertwined, we flow into and out of one another and all others. There is no way to fix the boundaries. The Christ who flows into us is simultaneously flowing into the billions of the world's people. Where do we end and they begin? Millions of cells in the human body make up the body's totality. All are working harmoniously on behalf of the whole, unless some of the cells become sick or cancerous. Each of us is part of God's total people, and we cannot separate ourselves from the totality.
Until awareness of this universal belonging dawns upon us we are a hindrance to the human family. It is a great day when the boundaries drop. We are part of others, and they are a part of us. We are constantly flowing into them. We cannot protect ourselves from their sickness and pain and brokenness. Nor can others protect themselves from ours. All become united. The common life of humanity is not an ideal, not something that would be just wonderful if we could but realize it. The universal quality of life happens to be a reality, and we utterly defeat ourselves when we violate that premise. We can live in the illusion of separateness, but it is an illusion.
(p.26 Chapter 3: Servant Leadership -- presented in 1989 at the opening of the Festival Center)
9:00:22 PM 
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Thursday, September 05, 2002
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by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson,
RCA general secretary
..."Membership does not come easy. It involves serious study and preparation. This church has always asked a lot of those who wish to join. A key conviction is that every person called into the body of Christ has a particular gift to offer that enables the church to carry out its mission." ..
10:32:25 PM
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Monday, September 02, 2002
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Call to Commitment, and just about anything written by the late Elizabeth O'Connor, are my absolute favorites. O'Connor was a beautiful writer. Her stories of the COS people so wonderfully communicated in an accurate way the "atmosphere" and spirit of the activity and community at COS, and surrounding many other communities I have since come into contact with who have had their lives touched by the continuing legacy of this community. I would love to get back again before Gordon is gone. He shows no signs of such, at least as of the last I heard, and I believe he is around 80, and still sharp as a tack, and some kind of preacher. I've met him on about 3 occasions, and he's such a wonderful, warm person, and I have so much to be thankful for that he and COS have had so much to do with.
I lost a hardback copy of Call to Commitment about 5 years ago when I moved from Cincinnati to Nashville. I had been involved in a group calling themselves "Servant Leadership School" (based on the one started by The Church of the Saviour in Washington DC) for about a year and a half when I got my present Web Development job. Of course, all of us were always talking about various things COS (Church of the Saviour) and I had lent my copy to somebody long before I knew I was to be moving. That person passed it on to another, until time had passed and I had moved and forgotten all about having lent it out. I just recently ordered a paperback copy for 8.95 from Pottter's House Books (along with the Gordon Cosby book quoted from in a blog that I quoted from on Sunday-----fill in the name later when I remember------)
Journey Inward, Journey Outward is the next book
9:21:10 AM
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Sunday, September 01, 2002
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Saturday, August 24, 2002
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"what we're talking about is much closer to the biblical conception of church than a model that doesn't confront the culture, doesn't present an alternative consciousness, and doesn't oppose the system. If you've got a group that calls itself church, Christian church, and doesn't oppose and confront the culture, I don't think you have a New Testament church no matter how much you respect the people. "
Here is what I consider the "kicker" in the COS model; it is what seems to make all the difference to me in how I "evaluate" that "difference" factor in a Church. If it 's not there, it's like the key ingredient is missing; it's the key meaning behind the "be not conformed to the world" and the "light in the darkness". It's "darkness" becuase the world seems "blind" to it; cannot see it.
I remember the first time I met Gordon Cosby. I took a group of young people from Keokuk, Iowa to Washington for a few days and took a tour, hosted by Jubilee Housing and Barbara Moore was our "tour guide". After their "ecumenical" Sunday morning service, Gordon sat and talked with us about the Church. I remember him saying that he had always heard growing up in the Church how "the world was in darkness", but "noone ever said what the darkness was". I knew what he meant. It was part of the language that had become detached from the real social and spirtual realities in which people live. The Church has to get right to the heeart of it, and actually identify and confront "darkness" and work on ways to bring "Light" to it; to bring the Kingdom to bear on it.
8:06:53 AM
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Friday, August 23, 2002
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From Vineyard's newsletter
Recently I sat down with Gordon to ask him some specific questions about the approach of The Church of the Saviour. Having gotten some lunch next door at the Potter’s House, we settled into a side room at the Festival Center, sipped coffee and, with the sounds of Washington, DC traffic rushing by, talked about God’s vision for the church.
8:51:44 PM
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from Church Planting and Other Heresies
Posted By: thethinker on Mon. July 8 , 2002 at 10:53:27 PM
Post Reply
It’s the story of Gordon Cosby.
Gordon was a chaplain in WWII, in fact he landed on the beaches of Normandy.
During his tenure as a chaplain his unit saw 400% turnover of men. In other words the average life span for anyone Gordon talked to was very short.
It was this extreme environment that drove Gordon to some practical conclusions about ministry.
It was impossible for him to get around to see all the men – most of whom would die very, very soon.
But it was imperative that these men receive ministry.
To make a long story short, Gordon came to the conclusion that truly every believer is a priest and can and should minister to others.
The fact that these men couldn’t gather together on Sunday morning forced Gordon Cosby to see in a new way that truly – every believer is a priest. Every believer is called to minister.
So, as he made his rounds, he found Christian men and encouraged and appointed them to minister to the men around them.
“Where two or more are gathered – Christ is present”
Much to his surprise, Gordon Cosby made it through WWII alive.
When he came home to the US the experience he had had in Europe changed his view of ministry forever.
Gordon founded the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC over 50 years ago with 8 other people.
I had the privilege of meeting with him last summer.
I saw, first hand, what can happen after 50 years of believing that every Christian is called to ministry.
I saw what it looks like when new christians are challenged to find a mission to be a part of.
What it looks like when a woman receives a call from God to set up a hospital for the homeless has no funds to do it and miraculously several million dollars gets donated to the Church – coincidentally the exact amount this woman and her friends had prayed for.
There is now a hospital for the homeless in one of the poorest areas of Wash DC.
I saw a local expression of the Church that has never grown to more than 150 people, but has turned Washington DC upside down.
What does all this have to do with church planting?
Well, Church of the Savior calls "church plants" MISSIONS. Wow, what if every "church" you know of had maintained that identity! What if every Church in America spent 20% on self and 80% on the world! What if we weren't in the real estate business....imagine a church.
8:47:09 PM
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"The story of The Enterprise Foundation starts with a little church in Washington, D.C., that wanted to do something about housing for the poor. It is the story of an unassuming man who would revolutionize the way America thinks about urban neighborhoods and the people who live there. And it is the story of how a leap of faith eventually would change the lives of hundreds of thousands of low-income people across the country. In addition to being a successful real estate developer, Jim Rouse was a man of enormous skill and endless compassion. When he learned of a mission group from the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., and their success in turning an abandoned storefront into the Potter's House coffee house, it opened a new chapter in his life."
8:02:20 PM
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In a big old house on embassy row in Washington, D.C., you'll find the Church of the Saviour, a small Presbyterian church that has been written up in many magazines and several books.
They wouldn't claim to be perfect, but they sure do a lot of things right. So far, they've split off eight new congregations in order to remain small. And aspiring members must wait up to two years before acceptance--including 55 weeks of classes! Before Constantine, converts often had quite a wait before they could join a church, but in this era, Church of the Saviour stands out like a plaid pig.
Their secret of success is that nobody can join without also joining one of their mission groups (of about four to eight people). Even the minister, Gordon Cosby, belongs to one.
Each group has a double focus. First, it has a task. Groups form when someone feels led to undertake a mission (like starting a counseling hotline) or shoulder a responsibility (like maintaining the church facility). He or she issues a call for other members to join in the new task; if enough respond, the group begins. That's the outward focus.
Second, the group meets once a week to compare notes. Everyone keeps a spiritual journal. They share their personal progress and problems, and support each other. That's the inward focus.
Laminating the inward and outward is very, very smart. It enables them to avoid extremes: the hollowness of a works-oriented group and the self-centered introspection of a talk group.
Now, any healthy church will eventually help its members find a ministry and achieve inner growth. But Church of the Saviour, by requiring you to find a fellowship-ministry upon joining, has got it down to a fine art. If a layman is someone not in ministry, then it's fair to say they have no laymen.
(By the way, what does your church require of its members? Anything at all? Or is it content to have many who are just spectators? Think about it.)
7:53:08 PM
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The Lay Ministry Revolution - His Church at Work
Gordon Cosby, pastor of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., puts it this way: "The primary task of the professional minister is training nonprofessional ministers for their ministry."
7:20:26 PM
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Thursday, August 22, 2002
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A Ministry of The Church of the Saviour, Washington, D.C.
Ministry of Money is a loving, prophetic Christian ministry which encourages all persons to become free from their attachment to cultural values regarding money and to live out joyfully God's call for their lives and resources.
8:04:31 AM
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from Cutting Edge (Vineyard), Fall 2001 - The Journey Inward, Outward, and Forward: The Radical Vision of The Church of the Saviour
7:52:30 AM
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An article from faithatwork magazine about the life and death of Elizabeth O'connor, the extraordinary writer whose gift of writing captured as no other could the flavor and depth of the experiences of The Church of the Saviour for 50 years.
7:45:38 AM
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A 1997 Sojourner's magazine article about the ministries of Gordon and Mary Cosby of The Church of the Saviour in Washington DC.
7:41:44 AM
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Stories about COS and the Gordon/Mary Cosby are popping up everywhere, thanks to Google's search engine, and the constributions of people on the Net who have run across this church or run across people who have run across this church......it seems to be "contagious". Maybe I need to start a category for COS. (later- Now I have. Church of the Saviour category is here It seems tobe on my mind for the past couple of days.
6:39:23 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Dale Lature.
Last update: 9/29/2002; 10:22:39 AM.
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Some COS Links
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