2024 Detailed Year-end Review
John 17
Jesus prayed it, the Father blesses it,
and the Holy Spirit is fanning it into flame.
What an unprecedented year for J17 Ministries
as we transitioned into a new season!
Here are 17 highlights as we look back at 2024:
1) A Vision-casting gathering early in 2024 featuring guest speaker Olivier Fleury from Geneva, Switzerland, who previewed JC2033, the largest celebration in human history that will take place on the 2000th anniversary of the Resurrection in 2033. Only John 17 unity turns that vision into a reality. The year began on a high note and accelerated from there!
2) The “Stewarding through Political Polarization” workshop for pastors and leaders that was sponsored by our twelve-year-old Pastor Partnership. The highlight for many was the 75 or so participants standing on each side of the sanctuary based on political preferences, making eye contact with someone from the other side, and asking/sharing how each landed where they were.
3) Dave’s opportunity to publicly share his “overcoming lifelong depression” testimony in multiple congregations, as well as, other settings locally and beyond, while partnering with a newer Tucson ministry (Bless This Brain) which exists to ensure that no Christian faces a mental health challenge alone.
4) God gave us a sense that He was beginning to change the landscape of our ministry in exciting ways during the first half of the year. By the summertime, this shift had blossomed into what we refer to as “season two” of J17. We are excited to share more about the beauty in this transition soon!
5) Abiding in Christ, listening for Jesus’ direction in both big and small ways, and experiencing “you can’t make this stuff up” supernatural guidance, over and over again.
6) In a human body, if the parts are healthy and connected to the head, the head’s guidance automatically creates mutual submission between the parts and unity throughout the body. We experienced that in countless ways, including staff transitions, what to say “yes” to and what to say “no” to, and how to prioritize the seemingly endless possibilities.
7) Discovering a group of people around the nation leaning into Jesus’ John 17 prayer at levels we’d never seen before, and catapulting forward in growth, vision, and excitement.
8) Several others in Tucson are now building relationships with this group nationally, and the mutual learning, encouragement, and support are cheating the learning curve so that we all benefit from what God has been teaching others, rather than each of us starting from scratch. We are better together.
9) Celebrating six years of ministry partnership with Administrator Karen Henley, and affirming God’s call to move her into new areas of ministry through her home congregation.
10) Significantly strengthened partnerships with other key cities, such as: Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Appleton, Wisconsin.
11) Significantly strengthened partnerships with key pastoral leaders and evangelists in Pakistan’s unity movement, and with a variety of city gospel movement leaders around the US and JC2033 Ambassadors around the world.
12) Continued growth and maturation in our John 17 Weekends and Prayer Summits.
13) Welcoming a new staff member, Lexi King, who brings needed skill and fresh insights to our staff team.
14) Seeing God cast new vision and raise up new leadership teams in all of our most visible programs and partnerships: John 17 Weekends, Prayer Summits, Tucson Ministry Alliance, Pastor Partnership, and the Tucson area Retreat Center exploratory team.
15) An eighteen month exploratory journey to find a space that could be developed into a retreat center appears to have reached an absolutely stunning conclusion, far greater than anything any of us had dreamt of. As always, God’s timing is perfect.
16) Gaining clarity at an ever-accelerating pace on how God is calling us broader and deeper into John 17, and our specific assignments in that as a ministry, including: operating significantly and simultaneously at local, national, and international levels.
17) More clarity on going broader and deeper into John 17: developing both deeper and newer significant partnerships with congregations and nonprofit ministries in Tucson and beyond; invitations into significant reconciliation work both within and between ministries so that we don’t settle for either isolation, competition, or division.
It has been quite a year!