Commitment on the Potomac

Most congregations are about as easy to join as the Diners' Club. Not Washington's nondenominational Church of the Saviour. Before being accepted, prospective members must complete a two-year preparatory course in theology, covering everything from Bible study to Christian stewardship. Once admitted, they must promise to give 10% of their income (before taxes), devote at least 15 hours a week to church-sponsored activities, attend Sunday worship regularly, and spend some time each day in private meditation and the study of Scripture.

Unsurprisingly, the Church of the Saviour has never been much more than a mission-sized parish. It currently has only 80 members, with 100 more enrolled in preadmission classes. But what the church lacks in numbers, it more than makes up in zeal. The 20-year-old congregation carries on so many projects that Quaker Theologian Elton Trueblood calls it, with some justice, "one of the most dynamic religious movements in the U.S."

Cells & Restoration. The church's activities are organized around and carried out by hard-working "cells" that rarely number more than a dozen persons. Several such cells, for example, are responsible for maintaining The Potter's House, a Washington coffeehouse frequented by teen-agers and artists, that offers coffee and chocolate, conversation and--on Sundays--religious services designed for youths. Another group is the prime mover in an ecumenical organization called FLOC (For Love of Children). Formed two years ago, at the instigation of the Church of the Saviour, and composed of members from several District of Columbia churches, FLOC aims to rescue orphans and slum children of broken families from a prisonlike, government-run hostel called "Junior Village." With the approval of the Washington, D.C., welfare department, FLOC arranges to have the children boarded in foster homes (many have been taken in by church members), while it tries to get the families reunited and back on their feet.

The FLOC group works closely with the church's "Restoration Corps," which paints and redecorates the homes and apartments of Washington slum dwellers--absolutely free. The congregation also operates a 185-acre farm in Maryland, which conducts summer camps for deprived youngsters. In addition, some devout Church of the Saviour members undertake good-will projects of their own. Wally Wilson, an employee of the General Services Administration who is also a licensed barber, spends his annual vacation traveling through the South, giving free haircuts to poor children.

The founding pastor of the church and still ringmaster of its multitudinous activities is the Rev. Gordon Cosby, 49. Born in Virginia, the son of a Baptist deacon, Cosby was ordained a minister of his father's church after graduating from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. During World War II, as a chaplain to an infantry glider regiment that landed in Normandy with the 101st Airborne Division, Cosby began to think about the possibility of a new kind of ecumenical congregation based upon personal commitment rather than creed. While in Europe, he formed the experimental Airborne Christian Church, which was composed of soldiers from several faiths who organized in small groups, conducted their own prayer services even in the midst of the battle. The war over, Cosby borrowed money from friends to buy a dilapidated Washington rooming house that was the Church of the Saviour's first quarters; since 1950, the church's worship center has been a stately red brick Victorian mansion on Massachusetts Avenue.

Although no fundamentalist, Cosby preaches a Scripture-centered faith, and his dramatic sermons are rooted in the Southern evangelistic tradition. Unconcerned that his church has few members, he believes that the "costly grace" of Christian commitment "can be more readily sustained among a small group than in a large impersonal setting." Cosby also rejects activism for its own sake. "Just getting involved," he says, "is often a form of escape." The true Christian ministry, he believes, must be an "inward and outward" journey--meaning both spiritual pilgrimage toward God and dedication to the service of humanity for Christ's sake. "Reconciliation of man with God," says Cosby, "cannot exist outside the reconciliation of man with man."

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