The UMC has something called the Young Adult Fellowship, and at our church, over the years, we've gotten into the habit of using the acronyms YAF for short. At the time I joined this particular church, the name was pretty much written in stone, with very little hopes of changing into an alternative label. The unfortunate thing about YAF is that it is a label for a certain demographic, one that we no longer fit into. We are all career professionals who no longer use college or graduate school as a time marker for where we are in life. We don't identify with activities, ideologies, and structures that have been pre-shaped for the college-age. But because it is so much quicker to say the one-syllable "YAF", we've not bothered too much to find a name neutral in age, race, ethnicity, career/occupation, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and marital status. It's not that we wish to have a carte blanche; we simply want something large and general enough to encompass the diversity of who we are, and to label ourselves as YAF seems so restrictive and prescriptive.
I've been mulling over a few names, but none have seriously taken root. Will report later.
So, a handful of us have decided to meet every Friday night for small group discussion. It's not easy to gather a group of folks together on a Friday night, but we are committed. We dine, whine, and talk. Just Friday past, while still figuring out what we wanted to take up as a first topic, we launched int a conversation involving politics, faith, religion, Lot's wife, Hagar, prayer, spiritual gifts, talents, abusive relationships, upcoming elections, and a host of other topics. Just going by Friday night's discussion, I'm sure the small group will be interesting.
After much deliberation, we decided to take up the Effective Stewardship Curriculum recently produced by the Acton Institute. More on this later.
I'm hopeful that this will be a great experience -- challenging, fulfilling, etc, etc.
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