Large Group Musings

Hey all!

Dennis here! For all you who may not know, I am your friendly neighborhood Large Group Coordinator, if your neighborhood is RPI. If your neighborhood is Sage College, that post is taken by Heather Allen. However, there is a little secret, which is that we work together, since the Large Groups are done with both schools attending. So we're sort of both your friendly neighborhood Large Group coordinators, whichever neighborhood you may be from.

That aside, in a display of terrible teamwork, I haven't talked to Heather about what I'm going to post here. It should be okay, as I don't think there has been many further developments since Basileia. But now she has plausible deniability if she wants it.

As a small side note, the spell checker on this blogamathingy is awful- so far it has been thrown by such obscure vocabulary as "okay" and "deniability". Well, deniability is a bit uncommon, but I wouldn't call it obscure. I won't fault it for highlighting "blogamathingy," though. I did just make that up.

So, Large Group! We discussed many an issue that was brought up at the discussion that we had at the end of last semester. Without the notes in front of me, I don't think I'll be able to definitively hit every issue that we talked about, but I should be able to address the main points. If you have further questions, feel free to email me at berrid@rpi.edu and I'll do my best to give you a proper response.

First things first. In the past, Large Group has been almost like church, with a format very similar to many Protestant services and nearly entirely Christian attendees. We've decided that this is not really the best way to do things. InterVarsity's vision is about engaging the campus as a whole. Church services on Fridays aren't really going to do that at RPI or Sage.

To that end, we're changing the format so that it doesn't feel like church. Chelsea Sweet, our Worship Coordinator, suggested a format that we're going to start trying in this coming semester. Large Group proper will be starting later, at 8:00PM. However, we'll be having worship starting at about 7:00PM and going until 7:45PM. People can attend both, or whichever one they would prefer. To make this work, we're going to have to be prompt about the start times, which is something that hasn't really been happening. This is your heads up that if you come late, you'll get to walk into a Large Group already in progress.

This format has the benefit of giving us a lot more flexibility as to what we do in worship as well as the rest of Large Group. Plus, now anyone who would like to attend who isn't Christian isn't forced to sit through a Christian worship service- that's rather a nasty thing to do to someone.

A main intent for our Large Groups this is semester is going to be making them open and attractive to people from any faith. This doesn't mean we're going pluralist- it's still going to be a Christian atmosphere. But it does mean that people who are Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or anything else should be able to come and join in the activities without feeling too much like an outsider. Their views will be heard and respected, just as Christians would expect their views to be heard and respected.

What are the Large Groups going to look like, then? We're looking at several different things that we could do- discussions similar to the AI discussion we had, small group discussions, games nights, movie discussions, and others that I'm having a hard time remembering right now. There should be a significant amount of variety from week to week. If you have an idea for a topic or a format, please let me know!

Another issue that we're trying to figure out is location. Sage 3510 has served us well, but it is a classroom far away from the places people live and hang out. We'd like someplace free of oppressive memories of tests and sleeping through classes, a bit closer to where people actually are. However, it's been difficult figuring out just where that might be. This means there will probably be a significant amount of moving around over the semester. I would appreciate suggestions about this, as well.

Those are, I think, the main issues. When I find out what I missed, there is always the ability for me to post again! Huzzah for the intarwebs!

Until then, keep on keepin' on, and send me suggestions!

-Dennis