Thursday night dinner and forum are the main focus of the week at the Wesley Foundation. Dinner is at 6 and it’s a bargain — free!– and a great break from either the dining hall or cooking for yourself. Local churches generously provide home-cooked meals for us and students also take turns helping to cook and clean up. After dinner we share announcements about upcoming events, and then move into the living room for forum.

Forum starts at 7 pm and lasts for an hour. It is usually a discussion focusing on a faith-related topic. We also have guest speakers from a variety of different backgrounds. We end forum by sharing joys and concerns and praying together. Feel free to drop in any time during the evening, if you can’t make it at dinnertime, or stop by at the beginning of forum.

Here’s what’s going on for the spring 2012 semester:

• 1/19 – Jacqui Chiminello and Natalie Roper lead us in a fun and fact-finding game tonight.  Come on out on your own or with friends and get to know some great Wesley folks.
• 1/26 – Contrasting Christian views on Pacifism.  Aaron Stiles leads our conversation tonight, so it’s sure to be enlightening and fun.  Whether you have a strong opinion or just want to hear some new ideas, come join the conversation.
• 2/2 – University of Richmond professor Doug Hicks and UVA’s own Chuck Matthews are teaming up tonight to discuss:  “Romney, Gingrich, Obama, et al.: Faith and the Presidential Election”
• 2/9 – UVA professor of religious studies Martien Halverson-Taylor is our guest tonight for forum:  “Lost in Translation:  Translations of the Bible and Why They Matter”
• 2/16 – Lacey Williams leads forum tonight:
  With society’s focus on the Millennium Development Goals and the popularity of short-term mission trips both within the US and abroad, the impacts on the communities where service projects occur are often overlooked. So, with guidance from Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett’s book When Helping Hurts we will look at some of the challenges of inter-cultural service efforts and ways that Christians can be part of poverty alleviation while minimizing the negative effects of their actions.
• 2/23 – It’s a date!  Who is dating at school?  What counts as a date?  Does God care about dating?
• 3/1 – Food and Faith:  Our guest tonight is from Shalom Farms and will help us consider how food and faith intersect in our lives.  This will be a good preview of our retreat next month, so come check it out.
• 3/8 – No forum tonight – Happy Spring Break!
• 3/15 – Meet our District Superintendent, Board, and Support Council members as we celebrate the past year in ministry.  This is a great night to find out more about how Wesley relates to the larger church and how you can get more involved.
• 3/22 – TBA
• 3/29 – “They that watch for the morning”:  Insomnia as Epiphany and Vision.  We welcome UVA English professor Lisa Russ Spaar tonight, as part of our annual McDonald Lecture.  We will be looking at her poetry book, Blue Venus, and each student will receive a copy to keep. Here’s her teaser for the talk:  The Biblical Job (“When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone?  And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day”) may be the Patron Saint of insomniacs.  And who has not spent at least one miserable night of sleeplessness?  But is there another way to view insomnia?  As it flirts with the veils between sleep and waking, might the experience open up new ways of seeing and being in the world?  We’ll  consider these questions while looking at several poems about insomnia across culture and time, including poems by Lisa Russ Spaar.

• 4/5 – Maundy Thursday worship service
• 4/12 – TBA
• 4/19 – TBA
• 4/26 – Our annual Grad Roast.  Picnic dinner in one of the UVA gardens, followed by a great send-off for our graduates.
• 5/3 – Dinner Only – Good luck on exams!
• 5/10 – Dinner Only – Good luck on exams!