ok "This is It" as MJ would have aptly put it. i'm really bad with dates and all that so i don't know when YAF began its first service on Saturday evenings and when it changed to be on Sundays. But i clearly remembered that back then it was a change that was really tough to swallow. It seemed like we were always drawing the short straw or getting the short end of the stick. We loved the freedom of a saturday fellowship and everyone gathered gayly back then with Big Ben as what would be known as an "honourary chairperson" today.
And who would have thought 4-5years later we'd go back to gathering on Saturdays; Another blow, another bitter pill to swallow. The Shortest Straw (as Metallica would have aptly put it)...again.
So anyways, i have to disagree with preacher jon, especially so when he remarked oh so jocularly - There isn't a BIG RED RESET button...THANK GOD! That thing only exists on Playstations when you're being thrashed in FIFA/Pro Evo or Street Fighter and are left scampering for it to prove you weren't beaten, just unlucky...yeah right.
A BIG RED RESET would really mean what was YAF for almost a decade was a HUGE mistake by the church, that they would have had it this way than what was. That's just wrong. I think PJ (no Duncan) didn't exactly choose his words aptly or he was just being mean. He WAS attending YAF back then didn't he? Where did he keep those happy memories? I remembered having lotsa fun travelling to church on saturdays with him ferried by his or my mum. Not that these are the most important but surely there are some things in YAF that you wouldn't trade for the world, like our brunches! ok i'm just being mean, no offence if you're reading this PJ, i just wanna poke at it.
but yeah it is NO RESET, there is NO MISTAKE. YAF has brought us all who stuck together through all these years to higher plains of fellowship and spiritual worship. Obviously we're not the best at what we do, we lack many aspects of fellowship acheivements, we're definitely not expanding as we can all tell and we're in total lack before God. But where else would we be if we didn't have YAF on sundays? What sorta activities would we engage ourselves in on Sundays without YAF? Who else would/should/could we be talking to? Would we find ourselves working even on Sundays? Or come to a point where we think it's ok to worship at home? We might just be worst off than when we started, wasting all those years of sunday schooling and parental encouragement to attend service.
I'm sure God had His purpose in keeping the 15 of us (you know who you are, if you're unsure, you're not. simple). A function that was fulfilled in each and everyone if we looked and searched hard enough. And even more so as a collective, group and fellowship. No, we absolutely do not, and i quote, "eat, sleep, wake up and play.", we're not like any play-house/montessori groups outside surely. I think not everyone has the aptitude or the stamina to go through 2 sermons or 3 if you're in PJ's class in a day, or 2 bible studies for that matter. Not that we can boast nor shout about it on a mountaintop but that's what our youthful vigour gives us, a lengthy period of sustained service on Sundays, and i'm damn proud of that and all of you!
It's once again a hard lesson of submission and adapting to change. It may just be difficut, for now, to reconcile the dichotomy of our thoughts and the action that's required of us. Maybe it's just me. Maybe all of you have moved on.
For now, i guess a chapter has shut on us. Hopefully, God willing, the new one will lead us to the climax that was CORRECTLY promised, i repeat - it was no mistake, by all that was said and done. So i guess This is It?
