It's fun work to be a young adult missioner, because the young adult mission is simple: build something fun and relational and faithful with young adults. There are young adults in our congregations, young adults in the larger Fredericksburg community, young adults who have been hurt or excluded from the church and the work is to find them, help them find each other, and build a community among them. It's not entirely starting from scratch, but it is doing something new, and it and it takes an imagination.
The work of building community and building new community means being open to outcomes in a way that they don't always teach us how to do in pastor-school. Over the last year I've met some really cool folks that are excited to do something new and it's felt a little bit like assembling pieces to a puzzle, the picture of which we do not know yet. Our young adult bible study has a crew of interesting personalities and talents-- one person is involved in the start of a new LGBTQ+ community center in town and invited me to serve on the advisory board. Another person is an accomplished musician and is planning to host a house show at The House in August. And another is a prolific digital artist. He's done some digital art of The House, he's made us a sticker design (and we ordered 1000 [!!]), and he's been generous with his time and talent and done some artwork for other churches, including Christ Lutheran for our 75th anniversary celebration.
A new young adult community doesn't live or die by maintaining a slate of pre-existing programs, and so long as it is faithful, there is no particular shape or style that it has to be. Making space for folks to be who they are, to offer the gifts they want to offer, and to figure out how it all fits together is the work, and it's the mission we have with young adults. And without much of a hunch about how it'll all come together, I hope it'll keep us all on the edge of our seats, too, to see what kind of good, new thing God does in our midst.