By Abigail Gan | Reporter
Cedar Park junior and Phi Kappa Chi chaplain Jacob Duffer said last semester, he sat down with the previous chaplain to talk about how they could reach campus with the gospel.
“We both came up with this idea of unifying Greek life for the purpose of spreading God’s name, God’s word, the gospel,” Duffer said.
Duffer said over winter break, he reached out to all the Greek life chaplains to initiate the conversation about an all-Greek worship night, receiving overwhelming support in return.
“We have all of these great Christian leaders across Greek life,” Duffer said. “And if we were able to get all of those people together, unified under the name of Christ, the way that we love each other, the way that we treat each other, the way that Christ unites us beyond just Greek letters — that would be a message to campus and a message to the unbeliever. This is what it’s like to be a Christian.”
Houston junior and Alpha Tau Omega member Luke Lackey said he was one of the first people to jump on Duffer’s idea. He said 1 Corinthians 12:12 and Luke 15:4 have guided them in the planning process.
“[1 Corinthians 12:12] says, ‘Just as a body of water has many parts, but all its many parts for one body, so does with Christ’ — so we’re all part of one body and we’re united through that,” Lackey said. “Luke 15:4 says, ‘Suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the last sheep until he finds it?’ So I think those two are great pictures of what we’re looking for … We’re all one body. We’re all one group. And we’re looking to be united as fraternities and sororities under the name of Jesus.”
Duffer said the night will be full of worship, people sharing their testimonies and the gospel.
“Our hope is that we’re able to draw people from within our [organizations] who don’t know Christ, within our [organizations] who do know Christ and people all over campus to be unified under the name of Christ,” Duffer said. “Greek letters don’t matter at the end of the day — like, those last four years. Whatever we divide ourselves over, those don’t matter. They all fall away when we’re under the name of Christ.”
Because sororities and fraternities can often be divided over things like recruitment or All-University Sing, Lackey echoed that the goal of the worship night is to foster unity.
“Our hope is to unite the brothers and sisters under Greek life under the name of Jesus, and draw each other closer to him,” Lackey said. “I think it’s just a great picture of getting to bring everyone under one banner of Jesus Christ.”
Lackey said the conversation among chaplains of different sororities and fraternities has been cool and something they can continue to use well beyond the worship night.
“We’re all in this together, and we have things that can mutually help each other and create those connections for future pairings,” Lackey said. “Learning from each other, building off each other is one thing personally for me that I’ve appreciated — getting those connections with other chaplains.”
The Greek-led worship service will be held from 9 to 10 p.m. Tuesday on Fountain Mall, and all are welcome to join.
