God Is Moving Now! - Church Prayer Leaders Network

The Stirring of a College Campus Prayer Movement

By Justin Christopher

I still remember the discouraging responses I heard during my senior year of high school when I told Christian friends and their parents I was going to the University of Texas (UT). They warned me that it was a “liberal” party school where I—as a good Christian kid—was going to lose my faith. They spoke as though UT was a barren land where God was unable to bring His Kingdom and salvation.

At that same time, I was reading Dan Hayes’s book Fireseeds of Spiritual Awakening, which told stories of many historic revivals led by young people in spiritually dry nations, cities, and campuses. As a result, I arrived that fall on the University of Texas campus with an incredible hope that God was going to bring awakening to my campus, especially if we began to pray.

During the second week of my freshman year, every weekday at 7:00 a.m., two of my friends and I began praying for revival. The next week we found out that other believers had already been meeting and doing the same, so we joined forces. A group of 6 to 10 of us prayed together every day for the next four years. Through this united effort, a prayer movement at UT was born.

Now, 23 years later, the prayer movement is still growing as students meet weekly in prayer.

Since we started praying together, the percentage of students involved in Christian community at UT has more than doubled, from only 5.5 percent in 1991, to 12 percent today.

United in Prayer

God used the morning prayer group at UT to begin several prayer initiatives. We started a united prayer gathering on Friday afternoons, aiming to have one student leader representing each of the 30 campus ministries. These student leaders then began bringing together all of the campus ministries for concerts of prayer several times a year.

We developed a number of campus-wide prayer strategies. They included a 168-day prayer chain, complete with prayer guides written by students—an adopt-a-prof initiative to pray for UT’s 2,100 professors, and a “High-Five” initiative, aiming to get Christian students to pray daily for five of their unbelieving friends.

About the same time that the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and the 24/7 Prayer Movement in England were getting started (in 2000), we began uniting the Body of Christ on campus in 24-hour prayer (during the week leading up to Easter) for an event we called Resurrection Week. We erected a tent in the middle of campus and asked students to sign up to lead prayer and worship 24 hours a day for five days. The tent walls were lined with wooden boards on which students could write down prayers and Scriptures or sketch the visions God was giving them. We hoped these short bursts of 24-hour prayer would eventually give students a strong desire for a permanent place of 24-hour prayer—a Campus House of Prayer (CHOP).

In 2006, God answered our prayers. He gave us a building for a CHOP right across the street from campus. To this day, students from dozens of campus ministries and churches come together for prayer in that place 100 to 120 hours a week.

We love the fact that today our CHOP is shared by the entire Body of Christ at UT. Most hours are filled by students praying for the parts of campus God has called them to reach with the gospel. Our ministry’s headquarters (Campus Renewal) are in the same building as the CHOP, and it is a joy to be in my office and watch students from various campus ministries coming in and out of our building to pray every day.

United Prayer Resulting in United Mission

The unity we developed in prayer has led to increased unity in mission. In 1997, the college pastors at UT started praying together every week. As they grew in their love for one another, they developed an increased desire to work together to reach every student with the gospel.

We started mapping out the campus, listing various affinity groups, such as academic clubs, Greek houses, sports teams, ethnic groups, international student groups, social clubs, dorms, apartment complexes, majors, and departments. Then we charted who was reaching out to these groups and which groups on campus were not being reached with the gospel.

The college pastors generously connected their students, across ministry lines, with others who shared common affinity groups. Our dream became crystal clear. We wanted to see a day when every affinity group on campus had believers among them who were faithful to pray for them, serve them, and share the gospel with them.

Beyond UT

After launching our CHOP in 2006, we started hearing stories about prayer rooms and prayer tents popping up on campuses all over the country. Here are some of the campuses that we know have prayer rooms: Ohio State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Tennessee, University of Houston, University of Texas at Arlington, Kennesaw State University, Arizona State University, Florida State University, Southern Methodist University, Texas Tech University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and several of the schools in the University of California system. The list goes on and on.

It has become common for campus ministries to collaborate for several days of focused, united prayer by putting up tents in the middle of campus, where students can come to pray and to be prayed for. Prayer tents not only serve as a space for believers; they are also a place of ministry for the spiritually lost students walking across the campus. The spiritual atmosphere around a campus that is being prayed for 24 hours a day is radically different. The heavens are opened, and more students are aware of their spiritual need. Gospel conversations take place everywhere. Again, prayer leads to mission.

In the spring semester of 2007, Campus Renewal partnered with several other national campus ministries to pray for college campuses 24 hours a day for the entire semester. We started with a modest goal of getting 18 campuses to do a week of 24-hour prayer, back to back, from Martin Luther King Day to Memorial Day. Instead of only enlisting 18 campuses, we were wonderfully surprised to have 72 campuses participate. Most weeks there were several campuses praying 24 hours a day!

That semester of united prayer led to further collaboration and the rebirth of the Collegiate Day of Prayer. Leaders from many of the well-known campus ministries labored together to restore an annual day of prayer for college campuses. Since 2010, thousands of students on hundreds of campuses have been gathering on the last Thursday of February to cry out for repentance and revival among college students. In 2014, there were united prayer gatherings on 1,573 campuses in 844 different cities, in all 50 states, and in 30 different countries. The Collegiate Day of Prayer serves as a catalytic event that stirs more and more students to pray each year.

The Future of Our United Movement

There is perhaps more prayer on and for college campuses than ever before. In the fall of 2014 Campus Renewal launched a simplified prayer strategy, asking college students to make a four-part commitment to pray for their campuses. College students are asked to:

personally pray for revival and awakening on their campuses daily
corporately pray for revival and awakening on their campuses weekly
fast for revival and awakening on their campuses monthly (first Fridays)
unite the Body of Christ on their campus for an event to pray for revival and awakening on their campus once a semester.

For students who join the movement, we’re providing a daily and weekly prayer guide for personal and corporate prayer. We also connect them with one another through social media and biweekly video conferences.

With this kind of prayer taking place all over the country, we’re hopeful that God will once again bring revival and awakening to our college campuses. He has done it before, but it has been far too long. We pray that we could see His great fame in our day:

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2).

JUSTIN CHRISTOPHER is the national campus director for Campus Renewal, and the author of the book Campus Renewal: A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. He gives leadership to the Campus House of Prayer and the missional community movement at the University of Texas.

RESET Movement

By Nick Hall

“Since my youth, God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds” (Ps. 71:17).

God moves and His people pray—and when we pray, God moves.

As a freshman in college, God was after my life. On many sleepless nights, I’d find my way to a small chapel near my dorm. I would unscrew all the light bulbs until only those shining on the cross were left. In those long nights of prayer, God birthed in me an aching desire to see my peers reached with the gospel.

Since then, I’ve seen prayer multiplied on campuses across the nation. As this prayer movement has grown, God’s presence has been magnified on campuses. Since PULSE launched in 2006, we have seen more than 400,000 students in the United States publicly respond to the gospel. Prayer unites and ignites hearts around Jesus. It transforms our lives.

We believe something even bigger is stirring: God is laying groundwork for spiritual awakening. This is why we have united with others to launch RESET. With a passion for every person to know Jesus personally, and a vision for the Church to work together to proclaim Jesus, the RESET Movement is building toward an historic event in 2016 and praying for spiritual revival to sweep this nation.

RESET is uniting a generation around Jesus to bring hope and make history. I’m praying and believing God for the largest Jesus gathering in American history on the National Mall in Washington, D.C, in July 2016. Why? Because it’s time to come together around the gospel. It’s time for our nation to turn to Jesus.

God loves audacious prayers because they force our dependence on Him. As we press on toward 2016, our eyes are fixed on Jesus. We know the task is impossible for us, but nothing is impossible for our God! We can’t force God to act, but we can respond to His movement. We must continue praying and putting feet to our prayers—appealing to the attributes we know are true of the great I AM:

He is near to those who call on Him (Ps. 145:18).
His eyes are looking for those fully committed to Him (2 Chron. 16:9).
He is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love (Ex. 34:6).
His arm is not too short to save (Isa. 59:1).
It’s not His will that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).
He responds to repentance and is able to heal our land (2 Chron. 7:14).
When we unite as one under God, the world sees Jesus (John 17:20–26).
When we lift up Jesus, He will draw all people to Himself (John 12:32).

Already, many churches and ministries have made RESET their own, adopting the prayer for revival and mission to share the gospel. Because RESET is a movement, it exists apart from any single church or ministry. We’re asking God to awaken this nation! We pray the words of Isaiah: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down. . . !” (64:1).

Prayer is the spark of revival, starting in our own lives and spreading like wildfire. Isaiah described God’s coming down as “when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil” (Isa. 64:2). As I continue to see God stir hearts around the nation, I’m convinced that now is the time. Now is the time to pray. Now is the time to give. Now is the time to go.

When we turn to Jesus, we experience a supernatural RESET. As the reset button on your computer corrects past errors and gets the system working again, Jesus alone heals, forgives, and saves. If God can RESET our lives, I’m convinced that He can RESET our communities, culture, and nation. Here are six prayers for RESET in 2016:

that God will call and raise up leaders to carry the RESET Movement
that God will stir the burden for unity and spiritual awakening in believers
that God will ignite prayer among the next generation toward the proclamation of the gospel
that God will grant wisdom, favor, and grace in planning for this massive gathering in July 2016
that God will give victory in the midst of spiritual warfare. It’s happening, and it will continue through 2016.
that each person who gathers for RESET will be commissioned to live fully for Jesus.

Now is the time for a supernatural RESET. God has done it before, and I’m asking, “Lord, would You do it again?”

NICK HALL is founder and chief communicator of PULSE. You can learn about RESET at resetmovement.com.