Found another story about the Church of the Savour in Christian Centrury (2001)
A typical “tour of the ministries of mercy , spread out across the Adams Morgan neighborhood and into the D.C. area:
I walked the streets of Adams-Morgan with Ray McGovern, who works with the Servant Leadership school. It was as if we were visiting stations of the cross–places of human suffering that had been transformed through this church’s work. Columbia Road Health Services is a clinic for the district’s most vulnerable residents; Christ House, a 34-bed medical recovery facility for the homeless; Kairos House, home to 37 chronically ill indigents; Good Shepherd Ministries, a beehive of education and recreation programs for children. Samaritan Inn provides crucial transitional living to help the homeless rebuild their lives and is staffed by yearlong volunteer “inkeepers.” Jubilee Housing provides 284 apartments. Jubilee Jobs seeks employment for the poor. The 34 apartments of Sarah’s Circle are for elderly people with limited means. McGovern says he found deep commitment and support. “You start to volunteer in these places and it just sweeps you away. You don’t want to do anything else.”
And a nod to the underlying “Call to Commitment” that characterizes these people.
The radical difference between this and conventional churches is something Cosby calls “integrity of membership.” When a person chooses membership, he or she commits to divide energy between the “inward” and “outward” journeys. This results in a balance between the time one spends cultivating one’s own relationship with God (the inward journey) and doing God’s work in the world (the outward journey). While visitors are always welcome to attend liturgical services and to volunteer, there is no room for half-heartedness if one chooses membership.
“Membership is not for everyone,” says Bankson. “This will always be a small movement. This kind of commitment will transform your life–but you have to be willing to have that life transformed.”
