Church of the Savior Revisted

Gordon Crosby, founding pastor of the Church of the Savior in northwest Washington D.C., gave his last sermon Sunday, according to an article in the Washington Post.

Gordon and Mary Crosby are not household names among most mainline Christians. Perhaps they should be. Church of the Savior has begun more (and more types of) community and neighborhood based missions and ministries than any other congregation of its size. They gather in small groups that meet in homes, neighborhood centers, and storefronts.

They never did reach their goal of becoming truly multi-cultural. Most of their members are of Euro-American ethnicity and most are over 40. In this they are like so many Midwestern mainline Protestant congregations with one notable exception. They have earned respect from those they served and were trusted enough to forever change some parts of the nation’s capital.

Still they kept trying to connect the gospel of Jesus to the every day lives of folk around them – particularly among the most vulnerable, “the least of these.” They have dared to confront the larger “powers and principalities” -- a labor of love that, while often very challenging, has born good fruit and a lot of joy.

Their anchor? A rich, personal and corporate spirituality that seeks deeper roots in Christ so that the on-going work of Jesus moves closer and closer into the center of otherwise ordinary lives. This core of quiet confidence in the face of intractable problems (poverty, ignorance, racism, violence, and political indifference) has enabled members of this unlikely congregation to take risks that the comfortable would seldom consider appropriate.

Gordon and Mary Crosby brought no more or less potential to their walk with Christ than any of us. They just did more with it than many and built not a personalized dynasty but launching place for the Body – of – Christ – in – motion.

More to the point, what are you and I doing and becoming today to advance the whole cause of Christ in a world that longs to be One Body . . . again?