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Rediscovering Essence - What I Learned from the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C.

by Mike Bishop

I grew up in an evangelical bubble. What I mean is that my primary influence as a Christian has been from evangelical churches and para-church organizations that have been children of a few, great evangelistic heroes - Billy Graham, Bill Bright (Campus Crusade), Loren Cunningham (YWAM), Chuck Smith (Calvary Chapel), and John Wimber (Vineyard). In many ways my Christianity has been built upon the foundation these men created through their respective ministries. Each has given the church at large an immeasurable gift which all believers should recognize as Jesus simply at work in his church. Graham gave us evangelism on a massive scale, Bright made evangelism accessible to everyone, Cunningham sent us to the whole world again in missions, and then Chuck Smith and John Wimber made all of this and more fit in the four walls of what we call 'church'. Of course there were many, many others that have played a role in making modern evangelicalism what it is today, but my faith has been uniquely influenced by these men. Their impact on the world and the church is staggering.

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But while these men were busy shaping the evangelical movement with big ideas, big budgets, big staffs, and big buildings, there was a simple, unknown Virginian helping to prophetically birth a church 50 years ahead of its time. Gordon Cosby was the son of a Baptist father and Presbyterian mother who grew up in Depression Era America. During WWII, Gordon became an Army Chaplain and had experiences that changed his life as a Christian, Pastor, and member of the body of Christ. When he returned from the war, he and a small band of seekers began to experiment with what it means to be 'the church' in Washington D.C. Recently I had the privilege of visiting the result of his life's work and investigate the phenomenon that is the Church of the Savior.

Actually, Church of the Savior (COS) no longer exists as an organizational entity. About 10 or 15 years ago, they recognized that the groups that had been birthed from the church's original core really constituted the 'essence' of COS. Therefore, there was no need to prop up another structure for simply nostalgic reasons. They just let it die. Now all that exists are unique 'mission groups' that each minister to a specific need critical to the underprivileged residents of the Adams Morgan neighborhood in DC. Within each of these groups is the genetic code that Gordon and his friends have been working out for the past 50 years. This code is really very simple. It's not a church structure, a church growth technique, or special model for 'doing church', but really a set of deep, deep values and commitments.

I had never heard of Gordon Cosby or COS before Todd Hunter mentioned them to me during one of our conversations. It was actually in the context of a discussion we were having on helping people in church find their 'call'. Now call has usually been exclusively associated with a calling into full-time ministry. If you had a 'call' on your life, you were going to be a preacher or a missionary. Nowadays in evangelical circles, calling into ministry can mean becoming part of a large church staff doing a myriad of different jobs. But mostly call has been associated with a career in 'professional ministry'. Todd and I were discussing the possibility that God calls each of us uniquely into a ministry that may for some be very much outside the church world. Someone may be 'called' to the engineering profession or to be a stay-at-home mom. Others may be called to become entrepreneurs and create businesses that bring justice and healing to the underprivileged in our society. Or some of us may just be called to spend a lot of our time interceding on behalf of those who have not yet tasted of God's grace and love in our communities. Are not these functions as important to God as one who commits their life to be a full-time church leader?

COS takes calling very seriously. One of their deep values is to be committed to the process of call. I say process, because we can never fully rest in one particular calling. God is always speaking to us, beckoning us to hear his voice and do what he says. What COS has ingrained into their corporate identity is a long-lasting patience with God's timing. God's ways take time, and you don't always see results in the ways you would expect. A calling never ends up looking like what you thought. In my short journey with the call to be a church planter, I can whole-heartedly relate!

But even before COS dealt with the issue of calling, they asked a very simple, profound, question - "What is church?" The scary thing is that I've been asking this same question for more than a year now. Gordon Cosby posed the question another way to us during our meeting, "What did Jesus intend his church to look like?" Or, "What is the essence of the church?" Now the intent of this question is not to recapture what the church in the Book of Acts looked like or something. No church can copy another's methods or structure and expect the same results. No, the question is - what did Jesus envision his church to look like? What is important to him? After all, he is the head of the church. He thought up the idea of gathering a group of disciples for mutual support in 'the Way'. So what was he really after?

As with calling, I think it's important to realize that we can never fully rest in one definition of what church is. The question has many different answers for many varied places and times. As a matter of fact, Cosby offered this word of advice to us young church planters. "Your job is to keep asking that question as long as you live." Because - and this is critical - "We grow by asking the right questions not by getting answers." Put that in your postmodern pipe and smoke it.

So here we are, Christians in a highly individualistic society, where pop culture is king and absolute truth is rejected, where your spirituality is something to be tinkered with like a model train or some other hobby, where (as some people are suggesting) Oprah is taking Billy Graham's place as America's spiritual guide. This is a culture where pornography is what keeps e-business afloat, where your friends from high school show up at your 10 year reunion with their 3rd husbands, and 13 year old girls get their sexual ethics from Britney Spears. It's a culture that is absolutely driven by consumerism and greed, with no apologies, but also one whose guilt concerning the destruction of our environment grows every day. In this culture, we Christians are increasingly becoming marginalized, pigeon-holed, labeled, and blamed. Our once most admirable office of 'Pastor' is now generally looked upon with disdain and distrust. Our organizations and churches are seen as greedy, shallow, divisive, and un-loving. Many Americans are realizing that they would rather be at the beach on their only day off than in some building listening to some guy talking about a God they don't know surrounded by people they don't like.

You may be thinking, "Wow, that sounds really terrible. Mike must be really pessimistic." Actually, I think all this is wonderful news. This is precisely the moment when we give up trying to do God's work for him and when he shows up. But it doesn't mean that our work will be easy. Individualism will make it extremely difficult for authentic Christian community to grow. There has been much talk in church circles about our culture's desire for 'true community'. I think there is a longing out there in response to the loneliness greed and success-at-all-cost brings. But true Christian community is not just the warm fuzzies everyone is looking for. Gordon Cosby talked about that "the community we are seeking requires deep, deep commitment to Jesus and each other." This all-out allegiance to Jesus is not simply being willing to hang out with your church buddies on Sundays and at BBQ's. It involves stuff like common disciplines, radical sharing, a willingness to submit to each other, and a passionate mutual love for Jesus and one another. This is not the kind of community you will find at the ELKS Lodge.

So how do we convince our friends and neighbors to take part in this kind of community? For that matter, how do we convince the people already in our churches that this kind of community is important - that it's necessary for a healthy relationship with God? Cosby mentioned that church planters have the planting process backwards. Traditionally, it is thought that the first year is the hardest - working other jobs to pay the bills, trying to gather people, finding a place to meet, dealing with people problems, etc. Then it gets easier when all that is taken care of. But, when the focus is developing 'essence' and getting people to make the commitments necessary for authentic community, the first years are much easier. Everyone is fired up and filled with the Spirit of love and sacrifice. It gets hard later on when the love starts growing cold. What will be there to sustain that love and bond? A program? A common ministry focus? A strong leader type? A compelling vision?

Cosby gave a talk to a group of megachurch pastors once entitled, "Vision, the Destroyer of Essence". Ouch. These guys were so caught up in their great visions and plans that they were losing the essence of church. Vision is what we do - we have great plans for God. Essence is far more related to being instead of doing. Which brings up Cosby's next point (actually his only real point) which is to talk about discipline.

Now, he qualified this part of the discussion because people always have a hard time with the word discipline. It's difficult because it conflicts with our freedom. But in fact (as Richard Foster and others have been showing me) true freedom is really found in discipline. He quoted our Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 'Cost of Discipleship', "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." The purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to open ourselves in a orderly way to God's grace. And that means a long, slow, painful death to every flesh-way we know. So what do these disciplines look like to a faith community? He suggested a few guidelines. One, that they apply to life. We need to break from the culture and learn how to be "in, but not of." Most of us need to be 'less of'. One example is the Sabbath rest and recapturing that as part of the way we live. Not in a legalistic way of course, but again as a discipline to open ourselves to rest and grace. Secondly, we need disciplines that deepen the community and create intimacy. Our society fears closeness. We need to have time to spare in our gatherings so this closeness is fostered. Finally, we need to be with the poor.

I went into this trip with a huge awareness of my lack of heart for the poor so I was prepared. But then he threw me a curve ball. To be with the poor is not the same as trying to help the poor. To be with means you are actually trying to understand them. You are developing relationship. This is a much deeper discipline than just meeting what you think their needs are. To COS, this even means getting involved politically in behalf of the poor.

This brings me to our first afternoon session. We spent that time visiting two of the mission groups started under the COS umbrella. The first was their housing project called Jubilee Housing. This program was started 28 years ago when they purchased an existing apartment building from a slum-lord. Totally funded by private donations, they now have 238 low-income apartments in 5 buildings. The purpose of the buildings is to provide low-cost, clean housing to neighborhood folks who would normally live in slum conditions (or homeless). Sister organizations, Jubilee Jobs and Columbia Road Heath Care provide the obvious practical means for quality of life improvement. The second ministry we visited was called Samaritan Inns. It was created to get addicts off the streets and provide an avenue towards total life transformation. Incredibly, 96% of addicts that begin in their 28-day AA-style program and continue to live in their long term housing for another 2 years stay off drugs. And not only that, but they get jobs, find permanent housing, and many get reunited with lost family members.

Now, if you're a good evangelical like me, you're probably wondering, "When do these people get saved?" Or, if you're like me you're asking, "What about discipleship to Jesus - how is this accomplished?" Just when you thought there was enough tensions that we as followers of Jesus have to live with, on this trip I discovered a new one. It is the tension between the spiritual and the practical. What COS is dealing with is the reality of this present worlds' problems of the poor and the outcasts. Yes, these people have a spiritual problem (as we do), but they also have an intensely practical one. Imagine for a second the 'spiritual journey' of a crack addict turned Christian. Of course, there are the miraculous stories of those being transformed overnight, but for most it is years and years of recovery, healing, transformation. And much of the transformation usually happens before they come to grips with their sin and need for a Savior. But is the Holy Spirit any less involved then? Is not the Spirit calling all of us to 'die to our old ways'? Even if it's drug or alcohol addiction?

This was one of the biggest lessons that COS taught me. Here's a group of people that are deeply 'Christian' - sold out to our mission to make disciples. But yet they have been committed to one poor neighborhood in DC for 50 YEARS. That commitment has led them to make deep sacrifices of time, energy, and money - all outside of what us evangelicals would traditionally classify as 'church'. For me, this point was driven home during that first afternoon when we were talking with one of our hosts. Someone asked her a question about how they deal with having to hire professional social workers to provide some support to their ministries. Obviously, not all of them are totally committed to the original values of the church. She said that they try not to hire outside unless it's absolutely necessary because of that issue. She quoted Cosby as saying, "I would much rather have someone working in a mission group who is called than one who is qualified." Immediately I remembered sitting around in church meetings saying those same words...about worship leaders and nursery workers!!! What a box-breaker! These people came to the same conclusions about calling, but relating to life and death issues - dealing with people that Jesus loves dearly, but happen to have no home, no money, and a wrecked life.

So what does all this mean? I still don't have 'a heart for the poor'. Maybe the truth is that no one does. But Jesus does and we are saying that we will go where he leads us. But, here's the fact - we have a journey inwards and a journey outwards. Our calling to the poor (or whatever calling we receive to minister the kingdom of God) comes from Jesus - along the inward road. This is what we must begin seeking in earnest.

We had a brief time of silence after the first day of the conference to reflect on how we felt concerning the days events. Afterwards, Todd Hunter described a similar box-breaking feeling like I talked about above, but he said something else that I think is really important. This thing that we're on is a quest. I've talked about 'journey', but a journey is really something you go on like a vacation. You go, you experience, you come home - maybe changed a little. My trip to DC was a journey. A quest is something you are chosen to go on - you don't choose when. You go without knowing if you ever will come back. Frankly, 2 years ago when all this stuff about missional communities and kingdom living started coming to light I had no idea it would turn into this. I'm not talking just about ministry to the poor or learning how do church in a changing culture. I'm talking about the total redefinition of what 'church' really is. About re-asking the question, "What is church?"