It’s the week before classes, and all through the FSU campus you’ll see girls in different stages of finery walking or running to sorority houses in full make up, clothes meant to impress, and battery operated fans. This is panhellenic sorority recruitment on our campus. About 2,000 of the approximately 3,500 female freshmen at least sign up for recruitment. By the end of the week, about 1,500 to 1,800 receive bids to pledge a sorority.

The recruitment process goes through several rounds (4 or 5) of each of the potential new members showing their fitness in terms of GPA, ability to pay dues, interest in the chapter, connection with existing members of the sorority, leadership skills, etc. If you drive through campus during recruitment, you’ll see potential new members lining up in front of houses to move through this process. All in all, it’s a pretty elaborate and impressive process.

I have always thought it interesting to compare this recruitment to the recruitment that happens with churches and campus ministries. Not many lines form in front of churches on Sunday mornings with people in their “Sunday best” trying to prove that they are a good fit. Not many people are found crying someplace on campus because they were determined not to be a fit with the Lutherans, and so they had to go with their second choice, the Presbyterians. It’s just a different scene.

Campus ministries open their doors, go out on campus with tables and literature about what they believe, they set up pickup games on Landis green to start relationships, they give away water and sno-cones and pizza. They can practically beg people to come to an event, and then will consider bribery to get people to come back. It’s just a different scene. 

I think there is a lot to be impressed with when it comes to sorority recruitment. I think there’s a lot to be impressed with from those organizations in general. I even think the church could learn a few things from them. But it’s a different scene. What makes it a different scene is that you can come to the Gospel without proving yourself to anyone. In fact, if you are trying to prove your worthiness, we’ll probably look at you a little weird. In this scene, it’s all grace. In this scene, the Samaritan and the outsider and the repentant Pharisee and the sinner all have a place. In this scene. It’s something different.

Maybe you’ve never even thought about being in a sorority or fraternity. Maybe you’re actually a little judgy and prejudiced against them (you should probably repent of that). But that “different scene” surrounds us all. That scene where we try to make much of ourselves so that others will accept us and let us in – that is all around us in our jobs, our majors, and even in our families. So it’s worthwhile to remind yourself every now and again that your primary identity, no matter what “house” you’ve been sorted into, is in the “different scene” of Jesus Christ and His Church. And in remembering that, maybe you treat the world a little differently.