shone forth. This opened up a relational space, filled by the Spirit, into which friends were invited to come and connect as family—a powerful moment. I don’t suppose it’s easy to stand before a couple hundred folks and have things go south, but “faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest” (Eugene Peterson).4 In other words, the aspects and circumstances of life that we would rather play hooky from—the toils and tribulations and conflicts and doubts—are all