The weekend started off with a retreat of silence. We gave students a Bible, a psalm to read and 2 hours to be alone with God. Because of the fast-paced nature of Greek life, this was a first-time opportunity for most them. After that we split everyone into teams for competitions. Through competitions like relay races, popping balloons and racing to pull tissues out of a kleenex box, the students built connections with people from other houses on campus. Each team had time to study the Bible together and discuss the challenges of living out faith in a fraternity/sorority. They were so glad to talk with other Greeks struggling with the same issues. By the end of the weekend, 17 committed to meeting one-on-one with God daily and a third of them recommitted to their faith in Jesus. Check out the highlight video here.

One of Allie’s (name changed) sorority sisters dragged her along to Greek Getaway this year and even paid the registration fee for her. Though hesitant to sign up, Allie had a great experience and is excited to renew her Christian faith. She is now regularly attending Greek IV events and wants to lead the Bible study in her sorority. Greek Getaway was a defining moment in her faith journey!

During Happy Hour (our weekly prayer meeting) a few weeks ago, as we were praying towards our Greek IV vision of seeing our Greek system renewed, the thought popped in my head to plan a similar outreach dinner with friends from Greek IV. I presented the idea to the group right when we finished praying and things kind of took off from there.

The goal of the event was to create a comfortable atmosphere for spiritual conversations to take place. We wanted to make it a place where our friends who are seeking Jesus could feel free to ask questions. We also wanted House Ministry Leaders to be excited about evangelism and reaching out to individuals in their houses.

So I sent an email to all the House Ministry Leaders who were at the Happy Hour when we talked about it, encouraging them to set aside their Saturday evening and pray for 1 or 2 people they could personally invite to the dinner who might be searching for Jesus, or would benefit by getting better connected to the Greek IV community. As with anything, about half of the people we invited couldn’t come, but we had 7 non-christians come! We all ate dinner together and then left the night open for whatever people wanted to do. Some people played cards, some people roasted marshmallows around the fire pit and others just hung out and talked. There seemed to be just the right amount of Greek IVers there to keep conversations going and to make sure that all our guests felt welcomed.

I brought my plege kid, *Jose because I know that he really wants to investigate Jesus right now. While we were driving to dinner, I mentioned that it would be a great chance for him to ask people about their faith journeys, so that’s what he did. He was able to hear several people’s testimonies and help start some great conversations around the campfire.

I also brought my other plegde kid, *Andy, along with 2 of his friends from another school. We’ve had some spiritual conversations in the past and he has come to our seeker discussion group at the house. Although we didn’t have any deep conversations that night, he told me afterward that he really enjoyed the evening and the people he met.

We intentionally invited a few people from fraternities and sororities new to Greek IV. They were able to talk with a few Greek IV leaders for a while and I think they really enjoyed getting better connected to the Greek IV community.

One House Ministry Leader, Ric brought a friend from his fraternity who seemed to be really engaged with the conversation around the fire pit about a broad range of spiritual topics. As we were driving home, he said something to Ric about wanting to get more involved in the house Bible study.

It was an awesome night. We were encouraged by what God did that night and know God is doing more than what we see. We are planning to have another dinner event like this before the school year ends. I pray that this is something God will continue to use to inspire us to be reaching out to our brothers and sisters as a witnessing community.