The hope is that through this unique atmosphere, some of the typical barriers that hind Greeks from encountering and experiencing God can be removed. This year was slightly different than last year because the speaker not only fielded questions, but also presented the message of Jesus  and asked if there was anyone who would like to receive Christ’s message and follow Him. Before I share the conclusion of this invitation, I have to back up a bit.

Matt  is a member of Phi Delta Theta and has been a leader within the Greek InterVarsity chapter for a little over a year.  Matt has a huge heart and desire to see his brothers in his house to experience God.  As you might  know, starting a House Ministry is not always easy and can even be somewhat risky.  When Matt started extending invitations for a house bible study to his brothers he was met with hesitation and skepticism. Outwardly,  it seemed there was no spiritual interest in his house. However, it is here that Matt’s story takes an unexpected turn.  In preparing for Pub Theology Matt was encouraged to invite some of his brothers to check out the event, with the thought being “who wouldn’t want to hear a great band and ask about some of life’s biggest questions”.  One brother responded to Matt’s invitation and decided to attended the event.

Now, back to the invitation.  After discussing some insightful questions and having some productive discussions, the speaker explained why the types of questions we’ve been talking about are so important.  They are important because the hope is that these questions will point us to the truth – that God does exist and that He came in the flesh in the person of Jesus.  After presenting the Good News that Jesus is offering, the speaker asked any who wanted to follow Jesus to indicate their intent by standing up.  Eight people stood.  Among them, was Matt’s Phi Delt brother.  Wow.

Stories like this are why I work for Greek InterVarsity and why this ministry is so important. One never knows who God is pursuing or who is merely waiting for someone to ask them to “come and see”.  Matt has been extremely encouraged through this experience and through having his brother tell him that he should start a Bible study in his chapter.  No place is outside God’s grace and nothing is irredeemable.  May this story encourage you as much as it did Matt.

During the Spring semester, I was encouraged to go to a Greek Conference in Charlotte. This weekend was so powerful for me personally. Things in life were starting to make sense and I was starting to understand that we are not in control, but that by putting trust and faith in God’s grace we will feel His love. It was such an amazing event to get together with other Greeks and worship the Lord. I saw that If we keep our hearts open, God will do wonderful work inside us.  I pray that students that are open and seeking the love of Jesus can have similar opportunities to mine in my years at Clemson.

This past summer my brother, who had just finished his freshman year at Clemson and in my fraternity, suffered a fatal wakeboarding accident. This has easily been the toughest thing I have ever had to face and I pray that others do not have to, but I have found a great deal of peace in knowing that God has a plan for us all. My brother’s gifts are still evident on earth. I thank God for blessing us with 19 wonderful years with such a wonderful person. We will never know the whole plan that is ahead of us, but I am so thankful for the opportunities that God has placed in front of me. Without the understanding and life altering events that Dusty and Greek IV helped provide, I could very easily be super frustrated and rebellious against God. Instead, I know God has his hand on me and I trust that he will raise us up in the end.

The DePauw Missions Challenge was a five-month, twenty person endeavor to pray that God would raise up missionaries, strengthen our persecuted brothers and sisters, save the unreached around the world, give us as individuals a passion for missions, and bring the international students to Christ through revival. Though we largely prayed individually and not all remembered to pray consistently, I do believe that God opened doors and answered prayers. Below is a summary I wrote in an e-mail at the Challenge’s conclusion.

God has opened many doors in the past five months. Bibles have been given to international students in their own language (at least two in Vietnamese, 12+ in Chinese, and others are in the works). A young Chinese believer was baptized at Cornerstone. DePauw Intervarsity was featured in the New York Times, an article that’s led to multiple gospel discussions. Two students have expressed interest in long-term medical missions. 5+ international students came to church for the first time in their life. The interfaith curry night grew to 30 people, many of whom heard the gospel for the first time (we hope to have a larger one in April). Many seeds were planted, and many tears shed. The other stories–prayers that affected the unreached and our persecuted brothers and sisters–we won’t likely hear until heaven. But God is good, and we’re blessed through our obedience.

The DePauw Missions Challenge was a blessing. I hope that events like this continue at DePauw and other universities, as they have since America’s founding (Read about the Haystack Prayer Meeting). In the end I am most comforted by God’s command and promise in Psalm 46:10.  Our God will be true to his word.

Greek at NW – Rebecca from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Greek at New Hampshire – Johnny and Ross from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

During my first semester of college, I came to believe in that message, and it changed my life. The next semester, I decided to pledge Sigma Chi. Throughout the next year, I got to know my fraternity brothers and much of the rest of the Greek system. They were great people, having a general knowledge about God, but many did not know they were missing out on a real relationship with God. In so many ways, they were exactly like I used to be. In light of this, God broke my heart for my brothers.

My sophomore year, my InterVarsity staff told me about Greek InterVarsity and Greek Conference. For months I tried to get my brothers and other Greeks on campus to come with me to check out Greek Conference. When February rolled around, I was still the only one registered from Louisville, so I packed my bags and headed to Indianapolis alone. While there, I had a phenomenal weekend of meeting other Greek Christians and hearing tons of encouraging stories.

I headed back to Louisville excited about improving Greek ministry. However, it was hard to get moving on all these great ideas when I seemed to be the only one who cared about them. I prayed for God to raise up Christian leaders to help out with the ministry. The next year, Fall 2010, God answered my prayers. A girl in Kappa Delta, Robin, approached me about the Greek Bible study she heard I was involved in. Fresh off a year of spiritual growth capped off by a trip mission trip to Africa, Robin was eager to share her newfound faith with her sisters and the rest of the Greek system.

Although we had no Greek IV chapter at U of L, Robin was excited about the possibilities of ministry in her sorority and the rest of the Greek community. We talked about how we could reach all Greeks with the gospel message, while still being faithful within our own houses. We knew getting students to Greek Conference would be key in launching Greek-wide ministry on campus. Later that year, when Greek Conference rolled around, I didn’t go alone this time. Eight other Greeks from Louisville attended, largely because of Robin’s recruiting efforts. In addition, my sister, who attends Western Kentucky University, recruited ten students to attend from her school, where no students had ever attended GC! God had taken two campuses with virtually no ministry and sparked movements on both of them!

Today, God continues to move in amazing ways in Louisville’s Greek community. Last year’s semi-fruitful all Greek Bible study has turned into two amazing house Bible studies in KD and Sigma Chi, where students can open up and discuss big questions with their fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. Non-Christians have been hungry to pursue a true relationship with God, while leaders in other organizations have stepped up and are eager to start Bible studies in their houses! We continue to pray for our Greek system and can’t wait to see God move even more at U of L!

I came to my first Greek InterVarsity gathering, having no clue what to expect. I only came because my Big Sister in my sorority encouraged me to go with her right after I became a new member. I’d never been to any kind of “faith club” before but I was used to having religion everyday at a private school. However, all it took was that one meeting, and God opened up my eyes to a whole new approach to faith. Here were all these people, college people, social Greek people, from all different stages of faith coming together to talk about struggles and triumphs, some like me who grew up in the Church and others who had never been a part of a faith before. This one meeting changed everything for me.

Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by role models of faith; people like Taylor, Christa, and Caitlin. People who demonstrated their relationships with God; a relationship that I could also have. Next thing you know, I was applying to be on the planning team for our meetings, offering to start a worship band and lead worship, joined a discipleship group, and was even asked to emcee our Monday night gatherings. It was a whirlwind of growth opportunities that God had placed before me, but He wasn’t done yet. Then I came to Greek Conference, thinking to myself, “these people are a little crazy because they’re so loud about their faith.” Maybe that’s just because I’d always been to afraid to be loud about my faith or lack of it.

Growing up in the church meant growing up with religion, and going to private school meant religion classes and mandatory worship meetings, but no one ever taught me how to have a faith. It was the time in my life I felt most separate from God even though He was all around me. But then last year I learned about faith, MY faith. God reached out to me at Greek Conference, specifically through every verse of every worship song last year. I could hear in those words “take me as you find me…”, “consume me from the inside out…” – they were about me! That is to say, the lyrics were exactly what I was asking God for and He was responding with everlasting unconditional love that I’d always known was there but had a hard time believing in since my parents divorce. But now I knew God as a father that would never leave me and never stop loving me. All of these realizations hit me sitting there at the conference.

After Greek Conference, I really connected to my discipleship group, I began reading the Bible more often, I applied to be on the leadership team for our Greek InterVarsity chapter, and now here I am – the girl who used to whisper about God when in public just last year, is now testifying like one of those crazy people – unafraid to say “yes I have a faith! And let me tell you about it!” This is not to say that it’s easy to have faith. Because it’s definitely not. I struggle and fall all the time but have amazing sisters who are always there and my JMU Greek InterVarsity community supports me as well. More importantly, I have God there to catch me every time I come back to Him. That’s what God has taught me. To trust in Him, in our relationship, in my faith that I now have. So even though it was a little crazy, a little scary, and a little overwhelming, I was open to what God put before me. I listened to it, took a risk in responding to it and it changed my life.

This story was originally shared live at Greek Conference Charlotte 2011.

I met Kevin [name is changed], a senior in one of largest fraternities on campus, at a football tailgate last year.  From head to toe, wearing a visor, expensive sunglasses with the strap to hang them around your neck, a button down shirt, khakis, some nice shoes, and a couple of beers in hand, Kevin looked like your typical fraternity guy.  After speaking with him for a while, I invited him out to lunch the following week where we sat down to talk about the purpose and vision for Greek IV.  Upon finishing our meal and conversation, Kevin emphatically said, “Where do I sign up?! This sounds great!”  Without much delay, Kevin and I began to meet regularly to look at Scripture and talk about what it would look like to follow Jesus in the midst of Greek Life.

Now while looking at Scripture on a regular basis may have been a new thing to Kevin, Christianity was not. You see Kevin already claimed to be a Christian. He grew up going to church, his granddad was a Methodist preacher, and he had accepted Jesus at a young age.  On paper, Kevin looked like a solid Christian, but in reality he was living in a very unchristian way succumbing to all the temptations of the college Greek system.  In many ways, Kevin represents your typical, Southern Greek student: Christian in name, but partying all the same.

However, this semester all of that began to change. One night after a small outreach event, I offered to give Kevin a ride back to his car. During our short trip around the block, he began to open up about his struggles with faith in fraternity life. In a somewhat despondent tone, he said,  “You know, I say I’m a Christian, but I’m not a good example. I still get drunk on a nightly basis. Give me a pill and I’ll take it. Crush it up and I’ll snort it.” He even confessed that he had come out to some Greek IV gatherings the previous semester extremely high. Yet right before he finished he said, “I’m done though. I’m tired of being burnt out, and I’m ready to give it up to God.”

I responded by asking him if there was ever a time he had prayed for forgiveness and assurance of grace to which he desperately responded, “I’ve probably prayed that prayer a hundred times.” I continued by explaining that forgiveness is only the starting point, but that a true follower of Jesus is marked by trusting and devoting yourself to Him above all else. “Has there ever been a time where you’ve prayed for Jesus to take all of your life NOT just the part you’re shameful of?” I asked. “No,” he responded with anticipation in his voice. “Do you want to do it right now?” I asked, and with little hesitation Kevin looked over at me and said, “Yeah, let’s do that.” While sitting in my car beside a parking deck on campus, Kevin prayed for Jesus to take not just part of his life but all of it!

Kevin may dress the same, go to the same parties, and hang out with his same fraternity brothers, but the difference is unavoidable. Everyone wants to know the reason behind the change, and Kevin is letting them know. From typical fraternity guy who claims to know Jesus to radical fraternity guy who lives like Him, Kevin is living proof of Greek InterVarsity’s vision to see Lives Transformed.

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!