Clarion University is a school without a history of ministry among Greeks. In fact, the Greek system itself has had a questionable existence. The fraternity and sorority house rights were revoked—meaning they could no longer organize in official houses—because of conduct issues in the past. A year and a half ago, a woman transferred from Geneva—a Christian college in Western PA—to Clarion. She had no interest in getting involved in the Greek system and in fact would not have even thought about involvement if she hadn’t had a roommate that wanted company and a pledge week event. When Lindsey was unexpectedly approached with an invitation to pledge a sorority, she was caught off guard and was ready to say no. As she thought about it and her call as a Christian woman to reach out to those around her, she saw an opportunity to serve an underserved community on campus. So she accepted the invitation, pledged, and has been a member of Zeta Tau Alpha for the last two years.

She began her ministry spending an entire year trying to pioneer on a large scale among all the sororities and fraternities on campus. Despite Lindsey’s passion for caring for Greek men and women and her desire to see cultural and spiritual change among them, she found herself busy, frustrated, and not seeing much fruit. So we stepped back, spoke with people who have gone before us in Greek ministry, and decided to start small with house ministry among the Zetas. We also started talking about Greek ministry with other Greek students who had been involved in the regular undergrad chapter. Since we had seen some conflict in the chapter because of prejudice towards Greek culture, ministry within the Greek system was an attractive idea.

One year later, Lindsay is ready to graduate and, unfortunately has not seen a new leader come up behind her in her own house. However, her desire to see ministry begin in the Greek system has rubbed off on others and has resulted in two fraternities with budding leaders, one of them having just started a GIG in the last two weeks with nine men interested and attending, albeit inconsistently so far. I thank God for sending Lindsey to Clarion and for calling her into the Greek community. Because of her obedience, we are seeing leaders developed in a couple different houses and partnership develop between the Greeks and the undergrad chapter (as well as reconciliation between them). I also, and especially, thank God for helping us to recognize where He’s already been at work and for inviting us to step out in faith and start serving and leading, growing in relationship with Him as we do so.

The Greek IV story was shared by Todd Harris Author Website: http:// Author Email: Contact Author Author Bio: Todd Harris is a campus staff worker with InterVarsity at Clarion University. More Stories by Todd Harris

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This post is tagged Leadership, Reconciliation, Sorority