Elizabeth O’Connor died Saturday, October 17, 1998. This article has some of Gordon Cosby’s reflections on her life (from Sojourners)

Sojourners: One committed lifetime

Elizabeth felt that every local congregation should be a seminary preparing its people for ministry, and she felt that one of the deepest challenges was that of teaching. She believed that the local congregation should spare no expense in preparing its core people to teach.

Elizabeth was also a writer, and in this area she was conscious of her responsibility. She didn’t think of it as just a call to write, but a call to interpret church and its meaning in terms that the uninitiated into the faith could understand. Many who have been alienated from the church began their journey home through her writings.

For Elizabeth, everything was geared to personal growth leading to outward work, all in the context of faith communities. Her books were deeply supportive of our missions, interpreting them for a larger public. She connected us with many important people who have helped us in our journey.

This is just the beginning of what Elizabeth gave to us. All of our reflections are important to get a rounded view of a remarkable life. It’s amazing what can happen in one committed lifetime. -Gordon Cosby

Every church should be a seminary. Absolutely. A means of formation in the ways and thoughts and assumptions “not of this world”. There is no other way to do this but to BE that community which has, receives, and ever waits for further CALLS.

I simply must make it a point and a opurpose to get to a Servant Leadership School training, and explore if there is to be any way to gorw such a community. Apparently, there IS (since we have a Church of the Saviour for the past 58 years).

The writings of Elizabeth O’Connor (and I have read each and every one of which I am aware) are miraculous narratives of such a “Community of Character” that so embodies the alternative people that many have been drawn to “see for themselves” through her writings (myself included), Since then, I have never been able to see a more truthful embodiment that simply identifies itself as “church”. But this is how they see themselves. Not as some sort of “specialized” monastic community unachievable in “real ife”, but an embodiment of that reality.