Re-forming church life

A friend of mine has recently retired from an significant parish ministry. Here is his blog describing the model for his work, which he discovered years ago from a church in Washington, D.C.
linnposts.com

In 1946 Gordon and Mary Cosby founded the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., a community of faith that changed the world. Yesterday Gordon died. He was, I believe, the most visionary American church leader of the 20th century. The great Quaker thinker, Robert Greenleaf, once wrote that nothing great happens without there first being a great dream. Gordon proved that was true.

The Church of the Savior, especially its Wellspring Ministry, changed my life. I say that because they taught me things I never learned in seminary that sent me in a direction in ministry I would have never otherwise gone. Here are some of them that explain why I describe the day I joined Wellspring Ministry in 1973 as the moment I got "saved" from traditional church.

- that commitment is the key to power, not the size of a group. A small group of committed members is always stronger than a larger group with half the members
uncommitted.

- that uncommitted members of a group have a debilitating effect on the committed members, and in the process damage their ability to fulfill their mission.

- that the real measure of a church is not what it does when it gathers, but what it does when it scatters.

- that every Christian is called both to discipleship and to ministry

- that the goal of the Christian life is to have the time of your life doing what you feel called to do for God.

- that success for clergy is not the extent to which they have the support of their church members, but the extent to which they are equipping their members for
ministry.

- that when you don't know your call to ministry you are susceptible to being jealousy of those who do.

- that Emil Brunner was right when he said the church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning.

- that people don't have a spiritual gift, they are a spiritual gift.

- that taking risks nurtures discipleship instead of endangering it.

- that covenant is the foundation for real community.

- that following call is the only standard of success that matters.

- that ordained ministry is not about personal advancement.