For National Invitation Week, we wanted to do something bold. Our students have been asked to lead GIGs; but throughout the semester, I’ve noticed that students have been reluctant to ask their friends if they want to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. When we began to talk about why, many of the students admitted that they didn’t want to ostracize their friends or alienate themselves from their house. The more we talked the more I started to understand a deeper issue that exists among the Christian community here at UGA.

In the south, specifically in a small Georgia town, everybody is Christian. When somebody asks you what religion you are, they are questioning which Christian Church you attend. It’s rare that you will find somebody that doesn’t know who Jesus is; following him is therefore socially acceptable. When people here say they lead a bible study, even their non-believing friends applaud their belief. It’s almost become cool. As we’ve tried to be in the world, to relate to our friends, we have blended in too well. It seems as Christians we have begun to live for our brothers and sister’s praise and adoration, instead of finding our worth in the Lord’s eyes. As National Invitation Week approached us, I tried to think of ways that we could be bold for Christ, but also do something that made us rely on the LORD and not on other’s opinions.

It’s pretty cool to lead bible study for non-believers; however, it’s really not cool to ask somebody how much they are willing to pay for sex, especially if you are the one person in your house currently not sleeping with anybody. We decided as a chapter, in order to step out in faith, we were going to host the Sex Bed proxe station, and use the questions about how much you are willing to pay for sex to lead into an opportunity to raise awareness about child sex slavery and ultimately share the gospel with strangers.

While this has been hard for many students, those who have chosen to join us in this endeavor have had the opportunity to see God reward their faithfulness. One of the students even said that he now saw every opportunity to share his faith with his friends. Another woman got the chance to share the gospel with one of her sisters that she has been looking for an opportunity to share Christ with.

All the students who have taken part so far have experienced both challenging conversations and also personal growth. It’s easy to do cool things for God, but when we are willing to get out of the boat and follow Jesus when it’s hard, we learn to trust in his faithfulness, and not our own strength. This week Greek InterVarsity at UGA has had the opportunity to experience Christ’s strength made perfect in our weakness.

This year, however, I was not looking forward to the start of school. I was excited to see my students, but I was tired from the year before. We have a lot of students coming to our in-house ministries, but a very small percentage attending our events! And I was tired of trying to get students at events, being told no, and most of all feeling like an event planner!

So I came back to campus a bit fearful and anxious of the year ahead.

Due to the fact that women must be at recruitment two weeks early and fraternity men drag their heals as they back to school, we couldn’t find a time for a back to school retreat. Fearful of another event to have to recruit students to, I decided that we would start with a praise and worship night.

Partnering with Colton, a Junior from Sigma Epsilon Phi, we hosted a worship night on Herdy Field. A week before the evening I asked our partners to help by praying during the 24 hours before the event. During those 24 hours I felt God give me peace about the event. Emails came all throughout the day about how our partners were lifting Greek InterVarsity up in prayer.

Later that night as I walked onto Herdy field I began to get nervous. Was this going to be another event that nobody to came to? Do I really have to offer free food to get students to show up? But as my brain starting spinning into worry mode I felt embrace from all the prayers throughout the day.

As Colton began to play more and more students joined us. A new freshmen even wandered into the mix. While there were a few a hiccups (the guitarist played a couple songs we didn’t have words to and one of our leaders lit the grass on fire), the majority of our night was amazing. As we lifted our voices up in praise we were united as one body. For the first time, Greek InterVarsity praised the Lord as one movement!

Today I left a group of students who were passing out fliers for Greek InterVarsity. For the first time the students are unified and ready for the new year. They are excited about what God is going to do, not just in their fraternity/sorority, but excited about how they are going to transform the entire Greek System.

God, through a powerful night of worship, unified students in a way that will transform the UGA Greek System.

Sally continued to attend Greek IV sporadically and she began to get to know one of our guy leaders, Sam.  Sam lives a very sacrificial life style, both with his time and money.  He serves the Lord through Greek IV, his church and volunteering with those less fortunate in our town.  Every Sunday, Sam takes the same homeless man to Church and then the two enjoy a bite to eat.  One day, I called Sally, and asked her again about where did God fit into her life.  She told said that it was funny I asked because the day before she had gone to church with Sam.  Sally was surprised when Sam picked her up and then drove down to the tent city to pick up his homeless friend.  She was even more surprised that Sam treated the man like his friend and wasn’t afraid to share his life or wealth with the man.  When she asked him why he was so willing to give to this man, he told her because Jesus had done the same for him . She was honestly surprised, and asked him what Sam had ever done wrong that was really that bad. He began to talk about things that she did all the time.  On the phone, Sally was shocked.  She couldn’t understand why Sam’s faith caused him to act differently.  She started to talk about all the older students whose lives were different and she said she wanted to have that type of faith.

Sally is loved by our community, and that love has begun to share the gospel with her.  It is exciting to see Sally inspired to have a relationship with Jesus. Equally exciting, is seeing a new community reaching out as a community.

On our first day, we looked at vision. We asked God to give us a theme to work towards our vision throughout the year. God gave all of us the idea of being a more unified movement, as we continue to reach out to the Greek System. It was amazing to watch the students listen to God, and than to begin planning the year on a vision that they owned and that God had given them!

Throughout camp, the leaders grew closer together, and more unified as they thought about their mission to the Greek System at UGA.

While they were growing more unified with each other, they were also developing cross ethnic relationships with students from other campuses; specifically the schools from Georgia! They were able and willing to enter into relationships with people who were different, which helped them to be unified with the big body of Christ that is trying to reach campuses across the southeast, and students of every nation!

Our leadership team also had a small conflict during camp. When we came together to deal with the conflict, God grew our team together, bonding us with more than just a shared mission, but with a deep love and trust for one another!

At the end of camp, we anointed each of the student leaders to go back to campus. As I put the oil on each of their foreheads, I got excited about their generation. The past two years, have been me leading the students towards a vision God had given me, but that night I realized that God was giving them the reins and the vision! They we’re becoming world changers ready and excited to impact UGA’s Greek System!

Even though we struggle with personal invitations, God has continued to grow our chapter. This year we actually have ten graduating seniors! At the beginning of the semester one of the Kappa Alpha Theta Seniors, Kathleen and I were looking at the calendar for a night that we could celebrate the growth of our chapter and the seniors. Due to busyness, we actually had to have the event in mid March.  We wanted to have something special, since these seniors helped us found Greek InervVarsity at Georgia. So we planned a night of good food and a speaker to talk about life after college.

As a surprise to all the seniors, including Kathleen, I also planned an additional thank you to the students, where I highlighted how they had each grown in their relationship with the Lord and their contributions to Greek InterVarsity. The surprise included a special present for Greek InterVarsity!

The night before the event, while I was buying the groceries, I get a text from Kathleen that says she’s invited an additional 11 students from different houses, because she thinks that they need to hear about life after college from a Christian perspective. In the middle of the grocer store, I started trying to calculate, how much additional food I needed to buy, where was I going to get more presents, and could I randomly thank women and men who had never met for their contribution to Greek InterVarsity? In a moment of panic put back my groceries and ran home.

As I’m sharing my tale of woe to my roommate, she asks, “Haven’t you been praying that God would help teach the students how to be invitational?” God had answered my prayers; Kathleen had seen a need for her friends to know about Jesus and how to handle life after college in a way that honored him. She wasn’t worried about the details or how things would work out because she trusted that if the Lord wanted them there, then he would make sure there was enough food. Kathleen was teaching me that to be truly invitational, was trust that the Lord would provide for all those that we had invited.

Our party was a success! Not all the pieces came together, there weren’t enough senior gifts, we ran out of side dish, and the Chocolate Molten Lava Cake erupted before we served it, creating a chocolate mess! However, it was great night, because we got to meet two new friends and as a community God gave us the opportunity to love one another and extend that love to our new friends.