More than 50,000 man hours; that’s what I assume to be the approximate amount of time that went into club week, not including visitation. By now, most have recovered from sleep loss, clubs are resuming a normal life and people’s minds are shifting toward seeing families over break. But before we move on too quickly, I think that any event we give that much of ourselves to is worthy of some further examination.
Let me begin by saying what an opportunity club week is. What an opportunity to show Christ, get to know new people and help freshmen and transfers connect to peers. Great things can happen during this week, and they do, but it seems to me that there are elements of our induction process that are hard to reconcile with our faith. These can be summarized into three phrases we use during the week.
1) “They (new members) need to earn this.”
2) “We need to be tough on them (new members) during the week.”
3) “Their (new members’) unity will come through adversity.”
Did you notice anything similar between each of these? They, them and their. Our focus is on others, but not in a good way. There is this myth on campus that the ideal model for a club week is for “us” as members to create difficulty for “them” as new members, with the end goal being unity. There is great value in overcoming hardship through support of others and reliance on God, but a serious difference exists between that and what we currently do. Too often, our maxims are just a nice way of saying, “be a jerk for a week.”
Instead, let us look to the only perfect model we have, which comes from Christ. Speaking to the disciples in John 13:14, Jesus said, “Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” And what has Jesus done for us? Has he made us earn our entry into the Kingdom? Has he been harsh with us except in condemning our sin? And has he left us on our own in this life to rely on ourselves for strength? Or has he freely forgiven and welcomed us, treated us with unconditional love and finally given his own life to save us in our times of need? (Note that washing the disciples’ feet was not different in tone from the rest of his ministry).
Jesus’ example is centered on humility and the lifting up of others. Recent changes in our handbook have attempted to create this, but no real change is going to occur until our hearts and minds are aligned with Christ’s. Now we do have moments that accomplish this, but it is high time we stop needing to justify our actions and mindset with “the goal of unity” and simply follow Christ’s commands. While I don’t exactly know what this looks like, I believe it can be done and I am eager to hear your ideas on how to do it.
