Delight holds their meetings at Butler’s Center for Faith and Vocation, which is located on Sunset Boulevard. Photo courtesy of the CFV’s website. 

MORGAN SKERIES | NEWS REPORTER | mskeries@butler.edu

An all-women’s religious group, Delight, is new to Butler University, and members said the club is much different than other religious groups on campus.

The group is a college ministry seeking to build a community that reaches beyond a bible study or a typical Christian organization, junior Emily Croak, director of community events for Delight, said.

The group is made up of mostly Christian women, but the club is non-denominational.

Croak said the group is different than other religious groups on campus because it is more focused on building a community and making connections.

“It’s very personal,” Croak said. “We want to make sure girls are comfortable going to everyone in Delight. It’s one big community. Everyone is supporting each other.”

The organization is only women because Delight encourages females in the ministry to be vulnerable and the way that girls talk to each other is different than if there were a mix of guys and girls, Croak said.

Sophomore Sophie Fleetwood, team director and marketing major, said she agrees the atmosphere of an all women’s group is much different than if men were included.

“When you get a group of girls together there is something about just having it be all be girls where walls can come down,” Fleetwood said. “It’s not that boys make girls uncomfortable, it’s just that when you’re with other girls you can relate to more things. We focus in on issues that girls deal with, because girls deal with different things than guys do.”

Fleetwood said she found out about Delight after her friend at Stanford brought it up. She then went to Delight’s website and filled out an application to bring Delight to campus.

After talking to the Delight headquarters in Nashville, Fleetwood connected with Croak who was also trying to bring Delight to campus, and set out to make a team by talking to the Center for Faith and Vocation.

Daniel Meyers, director of the CFV, said the center sometimes gets asked to weigh in or get involved in the process.

“In this case I was looped in toward the end of the process,” Meyers said. “The CFV didn’t have a lot to do, but once I was able to connect with them, I could let them know some of the ways the CFV can be supportive in the process, like raising their visibility. I tell them the next steps to take and they’re off and running. ”

Sophomore Sydney Shelton, service event coordinator for Delight, said the name Delight is based off a verse in the Bible from Psalms 37:4-5: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of the heart.”

Shelton said she likes Delight because the club establishes deeper relationships with the girls.

“Yes, we only meet once a week,” Shelton said. “But we encourage everyone to go beyond that and to hang out outside of meetings. You need people around you who are going to support you.”

The club also has a book, called “Delight”, available to its members to buy, which is written by college women.

“They discuss topics that are really relevant to our lives in the book,” Shelton said. “No other club that I’m aware of does that.”

One of the first topics they talked about was vulnerability and how it is important to be open and honest, Shelton said. Shelton loves the environment at the meetings and says it is a positive, open place where they can be themselves.

“It’s okay to not be okay; no one has it all together,” Shelton said. “Everyone just loves each other and wants the best for each other. It’s really a God-filled environment.”

The religious group meets weekly at the CFV but has many community events to build friendships outside of meetings.

Such community events include movie nights, s’mores, Friendsgiving and Christmas parties, which are open to everyone and is an easy way to find out more information about the group before joining, Croak said.

The group meets every Tuesday at 8 p.m.