Mail me comments, suggestions, warnings, flames, whatever These nine were bound together by a covenant written by Gordon's brother, Peter Cosby, and printed on a small blue card that each member was to sign and carry. Included were such high and lofty statements as, "I unreservedly and with abandon commit my life and destiny to Christ, promising to give him a practical priority in all the affairs of life." Through the years only a rare person ever questioned his or her capacity to fulfill the covenant. On the back of the card, however, were printed the disciplines that translated into specific and concrete terms the community's understanding of what what covenant meant. Over these more prosaic, more explicit statements there was to be a falling away of would-be members who felt some of the sayings to be too hard.
The founding members, often petitioned to change them, could never bring themselves to do it. They had hammered out those disciplines in order to become the kind of community they envisioned. The disciplines also embodied their understanding of the nature of the church. They had included a discipline of praying because they understood the church of Jesus Christ to be a praying people. They had covenanted to meditate on Scripture every day because the church is a people informed and instructed by the word of God. They had agreed to give proportionately beginning at ten percent of their gross income because this was essential if they were to have a thrust into the world that would be exciting to them as well as to others. It early became evident that to reduce any one discipline was to reduce them all, for each individual struggled at a different point. One person who had difficulty with a set time of prayer would find the tithing concept quite acceptable, while another found the prayer discipline easy but the parting with money an unspeakable hardship.
The small fellowship was very early confronted with temptation from within their company. Their incomes were all meager. Elizabeth-Anne made $20 a month. Frank Cresswell was an intern doctor holding his young family together on $120 a month. Gordon was working part-time for a small Baptist church so that he would be free to spend the rest of his time with the new church. All were hampered financially-except for one member who, substantially employed, lent an air of financial respectability. He was the one who questioned the concept of "corporate disciplines" and "corporate responsibility. " It was then that the little group began to be aware of the costliness of its call. They had to examine at a new level their definition of church as a voluntary community with a clearly defined life style. They talked for hours and hours, confronted and questioned their own motivations and convictions, and named aloud their fears of destroying the delicate fabric of the fellowship in the name of building it. There was no short cut through the painful work of coming face to face with the knowledge that treasured friends whose call and commitment led them by a different path would have to be allowed to leave.
Perhaps the experience of those weeks instructed the little community to write into its constitution the principle of annual recommitment. They agreed that during the third week of each October, having reflected on the commitment they had previously made, they would, if they could, again sign the membership book. Then, on Sunday they would stand and say together the covenant beginning, "I come today to renew my commitment to this local expression of the church ..."
October came to be known as the month of "recommitment blues," a term that gives some hint of the work going on in our lives. Gordon Cosby was to say that this concept, perhaps more than any other, was the one destined to be the most helpful in retaining integrity of membership. It was, and still is, a time for raising into fuller consciousness the high call of God in Christ, and our commitment to live out that call in one particular segment of his church. We had structured into our lives a period of self-examination against the backdrop of the covenant we had made and the disciplines we had pledged ourselves to keep. Sometimes, when October came we were made aware that we had become lukewarm, were in the process of drifting away, and were in need of help.
Occasionally a person discovered that she or he really "Wanted out" but was fearful of abandoning the community or of being abandoned by the community. However, moving out of membership at recommitment time rarely meant moving out of the church. Often a person has taken this step and then rejoined after an interval that can be very long or very short. Rather than a sign of defection, withdrawal from the membership is often a sign of health-a time when a person takes the distance needed for seeing again the choices that exist for renewing old covenants or making new ones. At the same time, the principle of annual recommitment offers recurring assurance that the members, in freedom, have bound themselves together under a covenant that not only describes who they are but also will help them in their journeying to where they want to be.
The community's first purchase was an old rooming house complete with housekeeper and several roomers who stayed on and were caught up in the contagious exuberance of the new occupants. The previous residents helped with the painting and cast their lot with the odd but captivating band of newcomers. The question then was: Would there be money enough to buy the paint to carry on the next day's work? That question still comes up as paint is needed for the restoration of apartments in the inner city. We know now that the community being born then was always to smell slightly of turpentine and have paint on its shoes. For more reasons than one, one of its missions bears the appropriate name of Jubilee Housing.
In those days we were blissfully ignorant of the houses for which we were to be the agents of transformation. Only a few years went by before the first quarters were obviously inadequate, and we acquired a twenty-three-room house and began again to scrub, scrape and paint. This old Victorian mansion still remains the headquarters and place of worship for the whole community. The corporate indebtedness was huge. We were then about thirty-two persons, probably twenty of whom were employed, and we owed about one hundred thousand dollars. Our distinction at that time was that we probably had the highest per capita indebtedness of any church in the country.
The work of renovation on the new building was scarcely completed when the group further increased its indebtedness by the purchase of 176 acres of land in the country. The membership had grown to thirty-six, and there were another fifty or sixty persons taking classes. Again there was a farmhouse to restore and the Lodge of the Carpenter to build. The large living room, kitchen, and dining room made it possible for eighteen persons to make day-long retreat. As we became more involved in the outward journey, it became more essential to give equal attention to the inward journey, and we began to think about weekend retreats that would give us more time in the silence. finally, we built behind the Lodge overnight facilities for eighteen retreatants. Each room has a single bed, a washbasin, a desk, two chairs, and a lamp. All the windows look out on woodland.
As we grew in our understanding of silence, we gave more emphasis to the contemplative life. When we become too busy, Dayspring is always there as a reminder that there is no true creativity apart from contemplation.
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