Sorority Recruitment. Words can’t describe the process in which impressionable college women find a sorority that aligns with their values where they can build lifelong friendships with other women to concentrate their efforts to better their communities through service and philanthropy opportunities. Once these women find the sorority that they want to join, they are then making a lifelong commitment to membership. It’s not just finding an organization so that one can wear letters across their chest, but a commitment to live out the values of their organization every day; so that when others look at them they realize that there is something different about them. These sorority women carry themselves with poise, confidence, class, and character to change their sphere of influence for the better.

I am in the midst of sorority recruitment and helping women find the sorority in which they can get connected to and change their lives forever for the better. In preparation and training for this process, a recruitment specialist informed us that “People don’t join sororities, people join people.” This is an idea that when women go through recruitment, they don’t join a chapter because of their colors or motto or philanthropy even, but because at some point through recruitment they connected with someone from that chapter. A woman from the sorority reached out, made a connection, and that was the moment that they saw themselves in that chapter with those particular group of women. It was a person, who took the time to get to know who they were and had that moment of “oh my gosh, me too!”

This got me thinking about how we as the church body can take a nod from sorority women. People don’t join churches, they join people. At some point a church member decided to go to that church because they connected with a current member who listened and cared about who they were as a person and may have even had that moment of “oh my gosh, me too!” They made a commitment of membership to that church or ministry not because of the lights on stage or the coffee service in the hospitality room, but because they joined the people of that church. They found people that they could connect with, serve with, and just do life together. How are we as the church reaching out to the people who attend every week to really connect on a deeper level, so that when they walk away they know without a doubt where they want to invest their time and resources?

Sorority women know what’s up. They know that a deeper connection, strong bonds of sisterhood, shared values are going to help a new member decide where they want to spend their time and invite them to make a commitment of membership. Do we carry ourselves in a way that people look at us and say there is something different about these people and how they live out their values? We should try this next Sunday and see if we start seeing people join our churches because they are feeling connected and want to make a commitment, and be proud to be a new member of our church.