Thursday, March 18, 2004
more from CoS...
"We grow by asking the right questions not by getting answers."
~Gordon Cosby
CHURCH OF THE SAVIOR
Washington, DC
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Christianity as it should be...
An excerpt from "Journey Inward, Journey Outward", by Elizabeth O'Connor of The Church of the Savior, Washington D.C., 1968.
(CoS can also be found at their place of birth, Potter's House Books)
In a class in our School of Christian Living, Gordon Crosby was speaking on the subject of Christian vocation. He said in summarizing that the primary task and promary mission of the Christian is to call forth the gifts of others. "We are not sent into the world in order to make people good. We are not sent to encourage them to do their duty. The reason people have resisted the Gospel is that we have gone out to make people feel good, to help them do their duty, to impose new burdens on them, rather than calling forth the gift which is the essence of the person himself." He then said that we are to let others know that God is for them and that they can "be." "They can be what in their deepest hearts they know that they were intended to be, they can do what they were meant to do. As Christians, we are heralds of these good tidings."
How do we do this? "We begin," Gordon said, "by exercising our own gifts. The person who is having the time of his life doing what he is doing has a way of calling forth the deeps of another. Such a person is Good News. He is not saying the good news. He is the good news. He is the embodyment of the freedom of the new humanity. The person who exercises his own gift in freedom can allow the Holy Spirit to do in others what He wants to do."
A great book. It's amazing what you can find at Library book sales. She refers a lot to Jungian Analytical Psychology, which has some incredible insights into knowing ourselves and others, hence the name of the book.
Here's some more reading about The Church of the Savior, if you're up to it-
Rediscovering Essence
What I Learned from the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C.
by Mike Bishop
