Dear friends and fellow-pilgrims,

Around this time last year I wrote to you that 2025 looked like it was going to be challenging and full of uncertainty. Halfway through the year, I wrote to you that the world seemed to be getting darker by the day. Well…all of that turned out to be true – 2025 has been full of challenges, a lot of uncertainty, and quite a bit of darkness.

BUT I also wrote that 2025 was a year to go deeper into Jesus, into the Deep Truths, and into Love, to “shine as lights in the world” (Phil 2.15) and to do that together. AND, we have. You’ve been a part of it! You’ve helped make it possible. Thank you. It is so, so encouraging.

My message then and still is that Jesus is our Light – he is the ground, goal, and reason. As he burns brightly and burns in us, then we are able to shine as those lights into the world wherever we find ourselves, no matter how dark it seems. This is our vocation as Christians, to shine, even to burn, with the Light of Christ.

We hold as our truth, message, and hope: The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn 1.5)

YES and Amen. Amen.

At Coracle, at the beginning of 2025 we said we would continue to lean in…and we have.

• We launched The Coracle Center of Formation for Action (thank you again to our donors who supported its launch!),  and we are excited to see how God is working and will continue to work through that place of ministry.
• This fall we’ve been forming a community on Sundays. We are deepening this, and excited that beginning Sunday, January 4, 2026,  we will have weekly gatherings on Sundays at The Coracle Center, from 5-7pm. More to come about this very soon, and an invitation to you to consider joining us.
• And we’ve kept up with our regular ministry offerings. We’re so grateful for all the ways you have joined us this year – for Space for God, for retreats, for conversations that matter, for prayer, for pilgrimage, for the Repentance Project, and more. Take a look at our ministry highlights from 2025 and celebrate this with us! God has been doing things. And thank you for making it possible with your prayers and financial support!

We’ve faced challenges this year and some changes, and we are excited that God is still using Coracle powerfully to reach around our country and even the globe to provide spaces for people to encounter Jesus with like-hearted fellow pilgrims. We are eager to continue on this journey together!

Next week I look forward to sharing with you where Coracle is headed in 2026. After a lot of discernment and many conversations, we are clear that we are to form an ecumenical community of people committed to contemplation, formation, and Kingdom Action, in several forms in Northern Virginia, at Corhaven, and online. And we are clear that, having launched The Coracle Center of Formation for Action, now we are to build it. Much more about that next week, I’m excited to tell you about it.

All of this is utterly consistent with what this ministry has always been about. From the beginning and to this day, Coracle exists to inspire and enable people to be the presence of God in the brokenness of the world through Spiritual Formation for Kingdom Action. Thanks be to God! Now, we are focused on incarnating that mission more deeply in community together, with all the resources God has given us.

We are hoping to raise $100,000 before the end of the year to propel us into this next season of ministry. Would you help us reach our goal?

If you’ve benefited from or want to make our ministries available to others, please take a quiet moment to pray about it, listen, and as led consider making a one-time gift or becoming one of our sustaining partners by setting up a recurring, monthly gift.

Thank you for your participation and your prayers! What we’re doing and trying to do seems important for this moment we’re living in, and we want to keep on doing it, boldly, and for many others. Thank you for making it possible.

We are so grateful to be…

On the Journey,

Bill

PS:  I love closing this letter each year with a little gift…of music, something that has been meaningful to me recently.  This time it’s “I Am Mountain” by Gungor. Give a good read of the lyrics here, they are soaring and profound.  This line—”momentary carbon stories”—wow!  Then, turn the volume up to 11, go full screen, and enjoy!  Oh my goodness…