Saint John Church is known for its young adult ministry, Jack’s Yacs (Saint John’s Young Adult Community). When I arrived as pastor in September,2022, young adult outreach was defunct. It disappeared during the long Covid shut down and it had not yet been resurrected, despite a few attempts.

At a weekend last October, we had young adult volunteers in the back of the church, seeking names and contact information and we began to offer social, spiritual and service events. Today we have a thriving young adult ministry.

Visitors to Saint John’s often comment that we have many young adults at our Sunday Masses. I am very pleased that many Center City young adults attend Mass at Saint John’s. Most of our young adults will move away from Center City after finishing school or when they marry or change jobs. Saint John’s is preparing practicing Catholics for parishes across the USA and around the world. Even if our young adults don’t stay in Center City, they will enrich the Church wherever they settle.

Next weekend, September 9-10, we will have a second collection for our young adult outreach and we will invite young adults to give us contact information so that they can be invited to future events.

It is also worth noting that our 70 or so weddings each year are a young adult outreach. All couples marrying at Saint John’s are invited to all young adult events.

I believe that we also should have a targeted outreach to our older parishioners. Perhaps we can create an older adults group, maybe call it “Saint John’s Golden Eagles” (the eagle is the symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, the author of the fourth gospel). I am planning a meeting for our older adult parishioners tentatively for October 29, after the 10:30 AM Mass. More about this in future bulletin columns.