Last year in March, Kayla McClurg ended her postings on inwardoutward.org with these words: “Keep digging for your own life’s truth. It’s closer than you might think, in every falling, getting up moment.” And so we have.
Kayla’s death has prompted a critical look at our life together as Church of the Saviour. The CoS Council, representing the member churches, is the locus of that discussion. Who we are and how we are related continues to evolve. How we are related to the many nonprofit enterprises which grew out of Church of the Saviour is another question. There is no formal tie because they are separate nonprofits, but frequently their leadership is nourished by one of the CoS churches. We are discovering what that means as we continue “digging for our own life’s truth.”
At this point, we are entering a new collaborative phase as a decentralized church with no single location. Phase 1 (1946-76) was a single church gathered around Gordon and Mary Cosby. When Church of the Saviour got too big (at 120 core members), Phase 2 (1976-96) gave birth to many sister churches within the CoS family. Phase 3 (1996-2017) included incorporation of the (now 8) churches, selling the headquarters building at 2025 Mass. Avenue, the deaths of Gordon and Mary, claiming our separate identities and deepening our roots at Dayspring, the 200-acre retreat farm that grounds our journey inward. The Council became our legal agent in 2006, when the structure of Church of the Saviour shifted from individual members to small churches gathered around our common ownership of Dayspring.
As we enter Phase 4, we have invited each CoS community to introduce its call and charisma in this column. After that, this column will feature the separate missions which have grown out of Church of the Saviour. We hope you’ll join us on the journey.
