i wrote the history up back a while ago...but never published it, til now. it was supposed to be on the website...but yeah i'm a lagger. (i did do some minor tweaks to the site tho.)
beginnings
It all started back in the summer of 97. A few recent Davis AACF alumni had found themselves back from college and without a strong fellowship environment. (Jana, Alex, and a couple others.) They had checked out some of the existing young adult groups, but didn’t really find anything meeting their needs. A fellowship environment with similar minded people who could understand what they were going through. As the case in many churches, they found that the existing career adult ministries didn’t offer the right fit that they were looking for as young adults. Many of the people they encountered had a different life mindset than what they had as young twenty-somethings. And so, a few of them decided to start meeting informally with Jerry, the youth pastor, for small Bible studies.
At first, a small handful were meeting together. (Still all from Davis.) They would meet every other week, sometimes a little randomly. Sometimes it would range from 3 people one week to 12 people another week. They would meet to study the Bible and talk about life. They also had a fellowship day outing to Angel Island. The very first ever Lumps WildCard. By that time in August, the group had grown to over a dozen. (Still all from Davis.)
During that summer there was a new crop of college grads who came back home seeking fellowship also. A few more from Davis. A bunch from Cal. (me) And also three guys from the East Coast. (Jimmy, Mike, and Dave) Recent transplants, seeking out fellowship. Many of these guys were praying for God to provide a church home and fellowship, at the exact same time that Lumps was about to become weekly and an official group at Sunset. So the time that Lumps officially started and was rebooted was in October 1998. Now, about 20 or so 20-somethings from a wide variety of college backgrounds. Most coming from a strong church and fellowship experience in college (mostly AACF and Intervarsity) and now seeking something of the same experience at the start of their adult lives.
We met in the church annex, a living room in a house adjoining the church. Slowly the group grew and grew until we had to move out of the annex into the baptismal room of the church. It’s utterly amazing how Lumps has grown from a handful of people which three years later now numbers at about 80. But what’s really interesting is not the mass of the group, but how all of these different people who have come together for the desire to fellowship and grow in Christ. It’s such an encouragement to meet other Pretty much from nothing, God has created a strong, regularly meeting community of believers from a variety of backgrounds and locations.
Lumps continues to grow and change to be a home and meeting place for 20-something believers. Different waves of folks in their roaring 20's (maybe about 5 distinct waves) have joined Lumps to seek out and experience following God in their post college lives.
the name story
So how in the world did we end up with a funky name like Lumps? What kind of acronym is that? It was our youth pastor Jerry, who can take credit for the quirky non-acronymal fellowship name, Lumps. He suggested it from a reference in Romans our senior pastor had given in a message. Strangely, that initial mention was about lumps of yeast, representing sin, to be exorcised in our lives. But, the idea of Lumps also had a dual meaning – like clay. Lumps of clay was later on adopted as the official identity definition because of it’s relevance as a life and growth metaphor for young adults at a crossroads. Seeking a foundation in life. Experiencing change and transformation. We look towards the shape that our lives would take as we live for God.
