• I see a people who combine eschatology with social action; the transcendent lordship of Jesus with the suffering servant Messiah.

• I see a people of crown and cross, of courageous action and unselfish love.

• I see a people who know in daily experience both the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

• I see a people who understand God's everlasting rule, not only imminent on the horizon, but already coming to birth in our midst.

• I see a people I tell you ... I see a people

• I see a rural pastor from Texas embracing an urban priest from New Jersey and together praying for the peace of the world. I see a people.

• I see evangelists and social activists weeping together over the spiritually lost and the plight of the poor. I see a people.

• I see contemplatives and pentecostals together offering up a sacrifice of praise. I see a people.

• I see unschooled laborers and sophisticated theologians together confessing, "worthy is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world."

• I see a people ... I see a people

Friends, today Jesus Christ—our ever living Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend—is gathering to himself an incendiary fellowship of the Spirit:
. . . of every race and nation . . .
. . . of every age and gender . . .
. . . of every class and category . . .
. . . an all-inclusive community of loving people who are blending hearts and hands and minds and voices declaring, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."