While many organizations have stagnated due to COVID-19 restrictions, an all-female Christian organization has continued to grow.

Delight Ministries is a national, female-centric and nondenominational Christian organization. Their Southeastern Chapter has held outdoor worship events throughout the spring semester.

Jai-li Colucci, sophomore nursing major and Delight worship/communication leader, shared that Delight has persevered even though COVID-19 has changed the way their organization operates.

“We have gone through all the necessary paperwork to get approved by the university to have meetings. We run a poll a few days before our meetings to get an estimate of how many girls we will have so we can make sure we have enough room to properly social distance,” Colucci said.

Emily Lambert, Delight book coordinator, explained that each weekly meeting covers different topics from scripture taken from Delight’s curriculum.

“We will either do an activity based on those topics or read through a series of questions from our books. We hang out with our members, grow in our faith and we love being as vulnerable as possible so that we can offer advice and ways to grow in our faith and with one another,” Lambert said.

Each meeting consists of worship followed by small group sessions using books published by Delight Ministries called Acts.

Avery Meyers, sophomore mass communication major and Delight worship leader, gave more details regarding how each meeting is structured and what this book contains.

“Within this book, there are stories that are relatable and then there are ‘questions and answers’ we discuss in our small groups. Towards the end, we all get together and reflect on what we’ve talked about,” Meyers said.

The all-female ministry has become a safe space for students to worship and discuss their faith and experiences.

Lambert elaborated that she joined Delight because she was in search of a group of friends who she could grow in her faith with.

“My experience with this ministry while in college has helped me to encounter the joy of community like never before. I have been pushed to grow and better myself each day because of Delight, and for that I am forever grateful,” Lambert explained.

Meyers expressed that she was skeptical to join the organization due to rough experiences with other churches throughout her life. However, she noted that once she joined Delight, she was happy to find that they were extremely welcoming.

“I didn’t feel pressured going to Delight, I actually wanted to go and talk about God, praise him and thank him with a community of women also in my shoes. It has been hard for me to meet friends in college, but Delight helped me in a tremendous way,” Meyers noted.

When looking for organizations to join her freshman year, Delight stood out to Colucci. She explained that her experience with Delight has been nothing but positive.

She said, “Delight has brought me so many new girl friends here at SLU, but has also kept me accountable in my faith. College is tough to balance, but I always attended Delight because I knew I would challenge my faith and I would be surrounded by many girls who wanted to grow their faith as well.”

Colucci encouraged female students to join Delight and emphasized that she has felt nothing but love from the girls in the organization.

“My advice would be to come with an open mind because you never know where God will lead you. I know I will always be able to count on each and every one of these girls,” she shared.