The Johnson Intern Program began teaching Servant Leadership in the spring of 2006, and this past fall marked our fifth class to complete the course.  In addition to the eight interns, we invite members of the community to join us for a total class of about 18 members.  The course transforms us.  As a teacher, it renews me.  I know that participants in the class leave here with "new eyes" and an open heart.  I know that we all go forth and have a positive impact in our families and in our communities because of the course.
                In 2007 we began taking the interns on a journey to the Church of the Savior (COTS) in Washington, DC, which is where Servant Leadership took root in the United States.  Gordon and Mary Cosby began the church shortly after Gordon left the service after WWII.  He saw the effects of racism in the services and wanted to do things differently.  Dr. Cosby is still present at COTS and until last year served as senior pastor...and he is well into his 90's.
                One of our first classes of Servant Leadership presents a DVD of the missions of COTS.  Despite being quite dated, the film is almost startling as we watch this unusual church at work in inner city DC.  There is no sanctuary that sits beneath a towering steeple, and yet COTS has given sanctuary to thousands of destitute DC residents through their ministries - Columbia Road Health Services, Samaritan Inns, Christ House, the Sitar Arts Center, Jubilee Jobs, Jubilee Housing, and many more.  There is no part of a life that isn't touched by COTS, and yet all of this is accomplished by eight churches with no more than 50 members each.
                This year we met Dr. Janelle Getches.  I'd only known her from the video about this place, in which she tells the story of the devastation she felt when one of the homeless men she'd been treating died on the street from exposure.  She found an empty building, recruited her community to pray for resources, and quite soon, by most standards, Christ House was born...an inpatient facility for the homeless sick.  The story of how they came by the funding is a miracle, but miracles become a little less surprising in this place.
                Having gone back now three years, what strikes me is how little changes each year.  Oh, the neighborhood is gentrifying, but within the ministries of COTS I have seen the same faces, and many of those are the ones that were in the DVD, made nearly 18 years ago.  Despite the impact of the ministries that we see each year I realized this year that there is something I haven't seen...faces of burnout.
                Instead, those who work in the ministries of COTS seem peaceful and unhurried, despite the fact that they accomplish much more than the average non-profit.  And they remain, year after year, encountering the brokenness of the inner city without being broken by it.  Community and prayer enable this attitude.  The workers in every mission see themselves in community with each other and with their clients.  They build their work around spiritual practices. Many of those who serve live in intentional community, as our interns do. 
                The Church of the Savior recognizes the poverty of the wealthy as well as the poverty of the poor.  They minister to those who are anxious and isolated by their wealth, and they help us recognize that we are all addicted to something, be it to anxiety or business or to earning and acquiring.  In these small churches rich and poor come together around visions of a better way of being in the world...a way that is connected to God and to community, a way that enables what is true inside each of us to emerge. 
                Each year I watch the faces of our interns as they take it all in.  I've said that learning Servant Leadership is a lot like learning a new language and in DC I realize that the interns are at least conversational with this new way of seeing and being.  They recognize the power of what they've learned as they see it lived out.  They go home more committed to each other and to the spiritual practice they've developed.
                If you want to see the power of spiritual practice and intentional community, two of the four "legs" of the Johnson Intern Program, find Columbia Road on a map, and set your GPS to take you there.   It is a little like following the star to Bethlehem.

 

 Susan Gladin, Executive Director