Hundreds of students are gathered together in a darkened room with loud music. This isn’t some wildly successful party, though. This is church.

The INN is the mid-week large group meeting of University Ministries (UMin), a ministry of University Presbyterian Church (UPC).

About 300 students regularly attend the Tuesday night meetings for worship, prayer, teaching and fellowship.

“I like the staff, the music and the way that The INN accepts and is geared toward people who might not be very familiar with Christianity,” said senior Josh Kennedy. “All of the staff have an amazing love for university students, so I feel like The INN has a sweet vision for what ministry should look like.”

Ryan Church, senior director of University Ministries, said that one of his goals is to have sermons given that are applicable to what students are dealing with.

For example, The INN just finished a series on sex, dating and romance. The church, though, is much more than the Tuesday night meeting.

“I’m way more interested in how any students are coming to small-group fellowship, who are involved in studying the Bible and sharing their lives,” said Church.

Students attending The INN have similar feelings.

“One thing that can sometimes be overwhelming is the amount of people at The INN,” said senior Chad Jerde. “However, participating in some of the weekly events has helped make The INN a little smaller.”

The INN has six full-time staff and five year-long interns, but it also has students involved in leadership, who, Church said, really make things happen.

“We reach out primarily through students who are involved,” said Church. “We have a student leadership team made up of 60 students, and they do things like lead our freshman outreach and our efforts in the Greek system.”

Outreach to the Greek system is one of the hallmarks of The INN, but there are students from nearly all circumstances who come.

“I really love the people there,” said sophomore Kimber Loudon. “So many different people show up: Dorm kids, Greeks, Christian housers, SPU and SUers, and random people I knew way back when. They all come together on Tuesday nights.”

But just because everyone is in the same place, doesn’t mean cliques don’t exist within the group.

“Although everyone is together [on Tuesdays], I still think The INN has a long way to go as far as uniting the community goes,” Loudon added.

Church said that The INN and UPC as a whole is invested in the interests of the University of Washington and of its neighborhood.

Personally, Church has a strong connection to the UW. He graduated in 1998 with a degree in communication and journalism, is a Husky football season-ticket holder and is the chapter adviser for the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity.

“I love this campus, and I have since I started in ’94,” he said. “I love that I get to stay connected now in another way.”

While The INN’s Tuesday night meeting is its largest and most visible, it is not necessarily the main focus of the staff.

“Small group discipleship, missions and the student leadership team are the things we’re really focused on,” Church said.

For The INN, the mission field begins right outside the doors of UPC, but there are many other places students get involved. During spring break, 72 students spent the week in the Dominican Republic serving and ministering to people there.

UMin also has a program called world deputation, during which, according to UMin’s Web site, students “venture all over the world for cross-cultural experiences with the purpose of spreading the gospel and stretching their understanding of the world.”

This summer, UMin is sending 35 students all over the world during the summer to such places as Turkey, Ireland and Bethlehem, in the West Bank.

As for the student leadership team, Church said that it is they who lead the charge, with him and the rest of the staff supporting.

“By mentoring other students and leading certain activities through The INN, I have a sense of responsibility and am challenged to make myself more like Christ,” said Kennedy. “[Tuesday night] is also a sweet time to sit, sing, pray, reflect and take a break during my week.”

Jerde agreed.

“For me, the biggest thing I get out of The INN is just a time to lay aside the stress of school and worship God,” he said.

For Church, those are encouraging words.

“We see ourselves as a very relational ministry,” he said. “Relational in the sense that people want to come here because they can connect to God and have relationship that way, and in that people are connected to each other.”

And that is why UMin and The INN do what they do.

“The goal is really captured in one word, and that’s ‘invitation,’” Church said. “It starts with relationship with Jesus, community, outreach to the world — starting with our own neighborhood — and an invitation to intimacy; to real relationship.”

Reach features editor Randy Ferreiro at features@dailyuw.com.