Willis Weatherford is the Campus Minister at Washington & Lee. Out of courtesy for the students in this story, their names have been changed.
God has been at work over the past year in the Greek organizations of Washington & Lee. This is a big deal, because our campus is around 80% Greek affiliated. Let me tell you about it.
James started his third year in Law School at Washington & Lee in Fall 2022 – the same semester I started work here as Campus Minister. He had been a member of the KA fraternity in a different state and was a Christian, and the first time we met, he shared that he felt like he should have done more to live out his faith in undergrad. He knew God called him to more in the Bible. He was building relationships with KA undergraduates at Washington & Lee, and was considering trying to start a Bible Study with them. Would I help?
James started his Bible Study, and it took off. Every week he’d discuss a passage with anywhere from two to fifteen guys. James already had credibility as a member of KA, and they respected his resolute dedication to Jesus and to them, especially in the midst of Law School. He even recruited younger guys to lead the Bible study after he graduated.
One of the guys in this Bible Study, Mark, was a Phi Delt, and James talked to him about starting a Bible Study with them. Mark was excited about the idea, and pulled together a few other Christian men in Phi Delt to talk with me about how to do it. I was impressed with their leadership capacity and boldness.
A first year student Bill, who joined Fiji, connected with a couple older students Steve and Andy, who had wanted to start a Bible study for years. Bill arranged a meeting with me, and they decided to launch a Bible Study in their own house.
Around this time, I heard that another student, Carter, had started a Bible study a year ago in his Fraternity, Phi Psi. A few weeks later I learned that one of our RUF servant team members started a Bible Study in the Chi Psi house a few weeks before.
That’s when it really hit me: “Oh! This is the Holy Spirit. He’s doing this.” And that’s when I began to ask the truly important question: “How can we ride this wave, and cooperate with what the Holy Spirit seems to be doing?”
After speaking with mentors, praying, and discarding a few bad ideas, I put together a bare bones Bible Study Leaders’ Training Course. As I prepared and recruited for this course, more students spoke up saying they had been wanting to start a Bible Study, students from Lambda and Pike fraternities, and Kappa, Theta, and Pi Phi sororities. Other student leaders hoped to start Bible studies on the swimming and track teams. In all, nineteen students came at 8am on three consecutive Thursdays last spring. It was electrifying.
Sitting there in that room, digging into God’s word and seeing their passion, I got a tiny taste of what it means to ride the wave of the Spirit, to enjoy being a part of something I didn’t start and couldn’t sustain, that hadn’t been part of my “master plan”. Because it was part of the master’s plan, and because he loves me and gives me what I don’t deserve, I get to see it unfolding semester by semester.
This Fall, a year later, we pray to see the baby Bible studies that started late last spring continue and grow. We’re praying that God brings a small group into every Greek organization on campus by 2026. And we pray that God continues giving us eyes to see what He’s doing here. It’s bigger than RUF. These aren’t “RUF Small Groups”. While some of them are led by RUF students, and most of them are influenced by the RUF Philosophy of Ministry, nobody will show up to them thinking of them as something RUF does. What an encouragement – that God’s work here is simply too big to be contained within our own ministry structures and programs!
Pray for God’s kingdom to go forth in the hearts of students at Washington & Lee and on every corner of campus, especially through small groups. Pray that we as RUF continue learning to serve Jesus and others as he has served us. And pray that God will give his people eyes to see what he’s doing and praise his name for it.