Lipscomb women have two unique opportunities to cultivate community and vulnerability through Delight and Zion Bible studies.
Originally started by two Belmont University students five years ago, Delight Ministries holds meetings at over 70 universities in the United States, now including Lipscomb.
Junior Hailey Gilliland felt called to start a Delight group at Lipscomb after falling in love with the devotionals herself.
“I just remember reading the devos and feeling like they were so real and relatable,” Gilliland said. “A lot of people feel like there’s things they can and can’t say on campus and Delight is just one of those things that opens the doors to share struggles with each other.”
Senior Erin King, a leader for Delight, said she is excited about the way the group will impact women at Lipscomb.
“We want to be unified under the fact that we’re all broken and we’re all struggling with different things,” King said.
Beyond weekly reading from a devotional book, the Delight program offers ideas about building community in other ways. Delight participants will have opportunities to work on service projects together, spend time with a prayer pal on “Delight Dates” and meet up for events.
“The goal is to create community…not a social event or something surface-level, but something that goes a lot deeper than that that’s founded on Christ,” King said.
Besides Delight, Lipscomb upperclassmen host Zion, a Bible study for freshman women.
Junior McKamie Walker said Zion helped her feel comfortable at Lipscomb during her freshman year. She and several friends wanted to re-start the group this year to help younger students in the same way.
“It was really just a place where all of us came and found community,” Walker said. “We wanted to recreate that space to allow God to [work] and search through the Word together.”
Each week, Zion leaders will answer questions from freshmen, mentoring them and relating their experience to the Bible.
“We had all the girls write out different questions, either about their faith, friends, Lipscomb or anything else,” Walker said. “Each week we’ll draw one out, dive into the Bible and discuss it together.”
Walker said she hoped the group could help freshmen feel at home, even far away from home.
“When I was a freshman, I found one of my best friends through [Zion]…we want it to create a community for girls who feel lonely.”
Zion meets on Mondays at 8p.m. in the Quad between Beaman Library and McFarland. Delight meets on Thursdays at 8p.m.in Doris Swang Chapel in Ezell.