Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight... and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).
To Friends near and far,
Many of us arrived at this year’s gathering parched and searching for the water of life. It was as if a holy mist of undeniable infinity fell upon us like dew. We saw it fall on ourselves and others, as the heavenly bread that is not to be stored away but shared, as the manna from heaven that nourishes us right where we are. This nourishment is found in the ground of our very being.
There has been refreshment in our love for one another, in both the acceptance and the challenges to grow. This has been a homecoming. We have witnessed each other’s compassion and truth-bearing. In witnessing the sincere faith of others, our own knowledge has been changed, and we have come to new light through one another. We have been grateful for shared song and for time to meet each other in the eternal. We have been grateful for the depth and the moments of lightness and fun under the cover of God’s love. God calls us home, every one of us.
“Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!” The Spirit is big enough to move ancient doors and small enough to enter into the smallest crack in each of our hearts. We need each other to show us the way, to name what is going on amongst us. This is how we support one another to be faithful.
We brought with us our griefs and our sorrows. We raised them to God and to each other and found a renewed joy. We have shared the great expanse of love in our lives. Even as grief does strange things to us, it gives us new sight. It is important that we share the difficulties and intensity of our communion as well as the joys.
We pray: Dear Lord, You find us broken, us and our world. Over and over, You take us apart, take down our walls, strip us back to our souls. The Lord calls us to come to a place of weakness, fragility, dependence. Dear Christ, we need You. We need You to hold, bless, and renew our pieces, hold them in the light, baptize us in the water and the blood. As we are baptized by the blood, it stains us and leaves us changed. You wait for us to yield. Rebuild us with bricks blessed in Your grace and Your love. In Your care is a place of greater safety, a place of solid ground, a place of melting love and new birth. Your hand over us is palpable. You wait to heal us, to kiss each of our wounds, to give us life. You give us Your wounds to tend, and though it hurts, there is a cleansing and purifying work in it. We heard a vision of the wounds covered in healing tears and remembered that Jesus has done it all, bore it all on the cross, bears it still. Life is worth the living just because He lives.
Song has continued to break out among us, songs of joy, songs of gospel love, God’s songs for us and ours for Him.
God has been pouring out new gifts among us: gifts that stretch us, gifts that come as needs, gifts that turn us again into little children. We have been challenged to receive these gifts in faith, in that same name of power in which the apostles healed and blessed, laid on hands, spoke new tongues, raised the dead, and cast out devils. The Lord worked mightily in the days of old, and He wants to work this work in us, to teach us a new song. We are learning the power of prayer and preparation in the Spirit, just as powerful as public ministry.
What has happened here is not going to stay put. What we have been given to see and do cannot help but overflow. We have been strengthened and uplifted by the gifts of others here, and reminded of the depths of our own gifts. Gifts are given for a community and for the sake of the world, as the need arises and the Lord leads. Our gifts announce God’s continuing presence in the world. May our eyes be fixed on the Giver more than the gifts.
Though we gather in stillness, our hearts and communities can be far from still. In waiting worship, it is harder to lie to ourselves. Discovering our differences from each other can be startling. That discomfort is a way the Spirit works in our lives. Our stillness and waiting can feel like stagnation, yet as we step forward together in the challenges, love has not and will not fail us.
We have experienced a real, living movement of the Spirit, a presence deeper, older, and more precious than our meetinghouses. We come from many places and for many reasons, yet we share a feeling of the deep springs we have known here. We have been transformed, and we send out more than thirty living epistles.
We are asked: how are we going to live our lives differently?
Jordans Young Adult Friends Gathering 2026