Whenever my wife, Tonya, and I come to serve on-team at Ffald y Brenin, we get to witness the amazing love and work of Jesus. But we also get to witness a community, a team of people, who hold sacred space for others to experience Jesus. Here, Jesus loves us directly, but he also loves us through others who hold the space, who delicately invite us into his presence.
That sacred practice of holding space is something Jesus modelled for us. At the Last Supper, he gathered his disciples, his community, to take part in the Passover meal.
Through the meal together, Jesus held space for what had come before and for what was about to come: He held space for celebration, for honouring God’s provision to the people of Israel. And he held space for fear and grief, for acknowledging the betrayal and suffering to come.
During the meal, Jesus also offered his community a cup, a container, of the wine that represented his blood. “This cup,” Jesus said, “is the new covenant.” The cup held something beautiful and painful—through his impending violent death, Jesus would offer forgiveness and establish a new relationship between God and his children.
That holding of something—space, meaning, relationship—was something that Jesus demonstrated throughout his ministry.
“Come to me,” he said, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” In that beautiful invitation, Jesus wasn’t inviting us to a holiday, but instead, he was inviting us to a way of life. It was an invitation to a place of safety, a held-space where we could bring our entire selves and rest in his love, forgiveness, and provision.
The Samaritan woman from John’s Gospel experienced that held-space when she met Jesus at a well. There, Jesus invited her into safety, into deep conversation, into an opportunity to bring her entire self—all her pain, heartache, and sin. And from that space, Jesus offered her Living Water—he offered his Spirit to dwell within her and flow from her.
Jesus invites us into that space. And he invites us to nurture that space for others.
The practice of holding space is a sacred calling—a calling that invites others to come to Jesus with their true selves. And in that calling, we neither run away from the pain of others, nor are we consumed by it. We lovingly, and simply, hold the space for people to meet the One who knows it all, and loves us all.
It is that holding of the sacred space that guests experience at Ffald y Brenin. Here, we get to come to a beautiful landscape, a quiet place, a vibrant land that has known Celtic saints and the passionate voices of past revival.
But look closely, and here we will see the delicate touch of servants around the periphery. Servants who ‘tend and keep’ the space for us to meet with Jesus—servants who ‘tend and keep’ much like the first humans did in the Garden.
Here, we find people who welcome us, who bless us, and who invite us to bring everything—our joy, pain, triumphs, and grief—bring our true selves that life has sometimes tried to dishonor.
Here, we find people who spiritually hold the space—people who pray over the guests, pray in the rooms before guests arrive, pray around the boundaries of the property, pray in leading the daily rhythm of prayer.
And here, we find people who also physically hold the space:
Look closely, and you might see the housekeeping team, gliding in on change-over days and making the rooms sparkle with invitation.
Look closely, and you might see the gardening team, nurturing the earth and coaxing creation into mesmerising beauty.
Or you might see someone with the gentle heart of a servant who ingeniously maintains the buildings and grounds.
Or you could see people who are carriers of hospitality—welcoming guests with the spirit of a homecoming, displaying flowers in the rooms, and nurturing the bookshop options.
Or you could see many others, people overseeing the necessary things—operations, bookings, finances, communications, nighttime coverage—all while not hesitating to kneel down and light fires for late guests on cold nights.
Most of all, look closely around the periphery, and you will see a group of people with immense skills, and yet, people who remain intentionally on the periphery—people who hold space for Jesus to meet intimately with those who come.
It is, after all, Jesus who holds the power to provide true rest, to heal, to offer new direction, to save.
Tonya and I are blessed by the Body of Christ that serves at Ffald y Brenin—in all its different parts, its different gifts, yearning to love one another well, yearning to grow deeper in their own walks with Christ. It is a body that individually has good days and bad, and through them, is a Community that welcomes others into community with Jesus and with other guests.
We need people around the boundaries—people who will let us be ourselves, and who will encourage us to sit at the knee of the One who offers us the better way.
From the sacred space, Jesus can fill our cup. And then we can go home, and go out, and hold the sacred space for others.