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Delight Leadership Guide Bringing Delight to your campus!
THE BASICSWhat is Delight?
Delight: A College Women’s Community that grows together, serves together, learns together, and does life together while chasing the heart of God.⁃ Grow Together: We are intentional about learning from one another through testimonies and experiences while discovering our own personal relationships with Christ.
⁃ Serve Together: What’s on the heart of Delight is what’s on the heart of God. ⁃ Learn Together: Each week we dive into the word and discover more of God’s Heart. ⁃ Life Together: Whether its Saturday night dinners, coffee dates, birthday parties, or Friday morning bible study we are involved in each others life every day of the week. Relationships formed in Delight are for a lifetime.
Delight Theme Verses "Delight yourself in the lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4
“May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is.” – Ephesians 3:18
How Delight Began Delight started at Belmont University in Nashville Tennessee during the fall of 2012. Three sophomore girls felt led to start a simple bible study geared towards freshmen women in hopes of helping them Nind meaningful community during their Nirst year of college. Fast forward a year and Delight grew into a thriving women's community with 80+ girls connected through their desire to Nind deeper relationships with Christ.
THE FORMATI. Weekly Bible Study
Each week you will want to Nind a regular time for Delight to meet for the bible study portion. This time is the backbone of Delight and is where you will truly get to know your girls and Nind out about who they are in Christ. We suggest trying to Nind a time where the majority of your campus has time-‐off. For instance at Belmont we chose our Convocation hour when no campus classes were held. We picked Friday mornings at 10 am and this worked for most of our girls. There were certainly exceptions but you won't ever Nind a time that works for absolutely everyone so don't stress about it. Once you pick a time stick with it and the girls will begin to work it into their weekly schedules.
The next important aspect of the weekly bible study is location. Location, location, location is everything! You will want to Nind somewhere that is a central meeting place on campus. You know your campus better than we do so it's really up to you to pick a place. At Belmont we Nirst met in the prayer chapel which happens to be smack dab in the center of everything. It was not a space we could reserve so we ran the risk of having the space occupied when we showed up but thankfully that rarely happened. Eventually it just came to be known that friday mornings at 10am was reserved for Delight. The prayer chapel is basically just an empty room so everyone sat on the Nloor and we packed the place out. We now have outgrown that space and are moving into our University Ministries Lounge which is a room we now reserve. We suggest at Nirst looking into the prayer chapel on your campus, a coffee shop, university ministry spaces, the library, or even just an open space in your student union. You can start anywhere and if you Nind that it doesn't work for your community then you can always Nind someplace else.
The Delight study guides will be the book you will use for the weekly bible study. We suggest that every girl in Delight has her own personal copy so she can read the story for each week, look over the verses and questions, and take notes. You can order the books in bulk directly from us for your entire group or have each girl individually buy them on our website's store. Prior to each Delight instruct the girls to read one of the chapters and also to be prepared to discuss when they come to Delight that week. You as leaders will want to be well prepared as well having read the questions, key verses, and the story. You might want to start each Delight by summarizing the story for girls who might not have read and then go ahead and dive into the questions. Encourage the girls to share their favorite parts, what they got out of the story, and to answer the questions aloud. Delight should be very conversation based with an open and inviting environment so the girls will feel free to share. This time should basically lead itself. Just be prepared to Nill in any lulls and stimulate discussion when need be. Eventually you will Nind your own rhythm and these times will Nlow naturally as you all continue to get to know one another.
II. CommunityDelight is Nirst and foremost a community. A community spends time together, has meals together, and experiences life together. So this is exactly what we try to do! We suggest having any sort of community event once a month. This could be anything from cooking dinner at your apartment, holiday themed get togethers, breakfast at a local coffee shop, or a movie night. Basically you just want to give the girls an opportunity for everyone to get together and simply hang out once a month. Make it fun! Make it simple! Make it relaxed! You don't have to do anything too extravagant. Just provide a place to meet and the community should happen on its own.
Community Building Ideas:1. Cook dinner for the girls at your apartment/house. (We suggest pasta bake! Easy to make in bulk)2. Pancake Breakfast on a Saturday morning. (Provide the pancake mix and have the girls bring toppings)3. Movie Night! (Wear your sweats and have a girls night in.)4. Bachelor/Bachelorette party: Ask the girls over to watch The Bachelor or any other favorite TV show.5. Holiday Parties: Halloween, Christmas, Valentines6. Coffee Shop Hang out: Plan to meet at a local coffee shop one morning to chat over your favorite hot drink. 7. Craft Night!8. Celebrate each others birthdays and other life moments!
III. ServiceThis is a HUGE part of Delight. Mark 10:45 says "For even the son of man came not to be served but to serve." We as women of God want to love God by loving his people. We have always said that whatever is on the heart of God we want to be on the heart of Delight as well. Service on each campus and within each community will look different but try and Nind ways for your group to serve together. When you get out and serve the kingdom a whole new level of depth will be added to your community. We suggest having a service opportunity once a month.
Service Ideas1. Homeless Ministry: (Bring sandwiches/lemonade/hot chocolate and be sure to bring boys too)
2. Support your favorite non proNit: Raise money or give of your time in support3. Car Washes: We used our car wash money to support girls going on mission trips4. Children's Ministry: Find a place where groups can come and love on kids5. Women's Ministry: Find an organization that serves women in particular6. Nursing Home: (Bring Nlowers or cookies to a nursing home and visit rooms)7. Soup Kitchen/Food Pantry
IV. WorshipWe have found through Delight that worshiping with only women brings a whole new level of comfort and freedom within the presence of the Lord. At Belmont we implemented a once a month worshipservice. We worshiped together one wednesday night a month starting at around nine and lasting until girls needed to leave. We used girls within Delight to lead worship which made things extremely organic and quite honestly, beautiful. Thankfully we were fortunate enough to have worship leaders within our community but we understand that everyone won't. The worship aspect of Delight will look different for each community. Whether you do one worship night a semester, once a month like us, or attend a worship service together as a group, just try and incorporate some sort of community corporate worship.
V. Honor Buddies“Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other.”
Romans 12:10
Honor buddies was something we implemented as our group began to grow. We wanted a way for thegirls to still be able to connect one-‐on-‐one within the larger group and thus honor buddies came into being. Basically the idea is for two Delight girls to be randomly paired up and spend two weeks getting to know one another by "outdoing each other in honor." For example a lot of our girls would meet up for a coffee date, go out to lunch, send each other encouraging text messages, and just basically get to know each other. It was really amazing to watch who was paired up with who each week and to see how friendships grew from honor buddies.The way we paired people up was when each girl came to bible study we would have them write their name and phone number on a slip of paper. We gather the slips and randomly draw two at a time. We then give the girls their new honor buddies slip of paper so they already have a way of getting in touch with each other. We draw new honor buddies every other week because that gives everyone enough time to get with their honor buddies during their busy schedules.We strongly suggest that you implement this in your Delight! It is most of our Delight girls favorite part about Delight! Make it work for your girls however you need to.
STEPS FOR GETTING STARTED1. Pray! First and foremost spend some quality time with the Lord asking him if Delight is something for
you. Ask him for the strength and the time to invest in your peers. This journey won't always be easy especially during the craziness of college life. We want you to feel like this is something you were called to do! Delight takes passion, a lot of passion, and those with that passion will make excellent Delight leaders! Delight will change your life in ways you never expect if you choose to embark on this journey. We cannot wait to see how!
2. Co-‐Leaders! Delight is something you can't do alone and won't want to do alone. After praying and feeling reassured that starting and leading a Delight on your campus is right for you we encourage you to Nind several co-‐leaders. Start by looking at your good friends. Are there girls in your life who will also make great Delight leaders? Next think outside of your friend group and look for girls that can meet other niches and roles that maybe you can't. Delight is meant to be diverse and draw all types of women. We suggest having three to four girls on board before starting your Delight. These girls will be people you will spend a lot of quality time with and will probably become some of your closest friends if they are not already. Once you have your leaders plan a leader date and spend some time together talking about your dreams and expectations and praying for the future of Delight on your campus. Encourage them to go to Delight.com to print out this leadership guide and Nind other tools as well!
3. Find the perfect time and location like discussed earlier and lock it down! Then set the date for your
Nirst Delight bible study! Order your books!
4. Begin spreading the word! Invite your friends and even invite friends of friends. Post about it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! Any time your on campus and talking to someone new or old invite them to come, even if you think they won't want to come. We have found that our best advertising weapon has simply been word of mouth. Never stop talking about Delight even when you've already begun and have a solid group of girls coming. Encourage the girls already coming to tell and invite their friends. Delight never has to stop growing and never should! We also have provided for download, along with the leadership guide, campus posters and note cards that you can print out and hang up around campus to spread the word about the Nirst Delight meeting.
5. Week 1: HERE WE GO! This week will probably be pretty laid back and casual.We suggest not going over content from the book until the second week. This might be the week that you pass out the books if you ordered them ahead of time or you might inform the girls about the online store so they can go and buy their copies later. (If you do go the second route you might want to let them know in advance to do this because of shipping time.) Take this time to inform them about what Delight is and what things will be coming up in and through Delight. Suggest they check out Delight.com to learn more about the story behind Delight and to read the Delight blog. Also just get to know one another and introduce yourself as leaders. Play one of those silly ice breaker games if you have to! We also think it's best if you save honor buddies for week two. Maybe have some light refreshments and leave some time at the end just for socializing and community! Before everyone leaves make sure you get everyones information including phone numbers and email addressees so you have a way to keep in contact. Email the Delight Girls afterwards and let us know how everything went!
6. Week 2 and Beyond: Come prepared after reading Delight Chapter 1 and get ready to go! Spend some time prior to bible study looking over the key verses and questions and jot down some notes to help you in case discussion is lacking that morning. Before you begin pray with your other Delight leaders that the Lord will use the stories in the Delight book to touch these girls lives and start a movement on you campus. Start your time together by selecting honor buddies, follow up with a greeting and announcements, open up your time in prayer, and then dig into those stories and the word. From that point forward make time for these girls. Be available to go on coffee dates, go out to dinner, and hang out with them like they are your friends. This is the way you will make the girls feel connected and involved because they are actually friends with the leader. Help connect them to other girls and point them in the direction of local churches and other ministries that they might want to plug in to. Be their big sister on campus! Never let any girl slip through the cracks unnoticed and unloved.
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This sums up our best advice for helping you to start your own Delight.When your unsure about something Nirst pray about it and then trust your gut. We believe in you as leaders for Delight wholeheartedly! God will do incredible things on your campus in and through you. Just trust his plan and humbly acknowledge that he
has it all under control. We are so happy to be along on this crazy journey with you!Dream big and be conNident in the path that God has begun for you! We cannot wait to hear your stories.
Feel free to email us with any questions or comments! Delightcollegeministries@gmail.com
MUCH LOVE xoxo
The Delight Girls
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