Gordon Cosby, 95, pioneer in missional thinking

Gordon Cosby, the founder of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., and a pioneering Christian activist whose ministry foreshadowed both the missional and emergent church movements, died March 20 at 95.

Cosby died at Christ House, which provides medical care to Washington’s homeless—one of several ministries initiated by the Church of the Saviour, a church which Cosby and his wife, Mary, started with seven other members in 1947.

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, Cosby grew up attending Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church there, and at age 15 met his wife when her father, Ernest Campbell, became the church’s pastor. The same year, he began preaching to a black congregation in a one-room church outside of town, and four years later he enrolled at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.