Awakening on Campuses

God Is Stirring Prayer!

My parents recently moved from their house of more than 50 years into a senior living situation. In the process of downsizing and cleaning out their home in preparation for the move, I came across a lockbox under my dad’s desk. It was filled with letters, many of them dated more than 40 years ago. I brought it upstairs to the den where he was resting and asked him about the letters.

“Oh, those are from college students I worked with at the community college many years ago. A lot of kids came to Christ during that time. They kept in touch with us over the years. I was always going to do something with those letters, but I guess I never did.”

I vaguely remembered a story about one of the students who is still—more than 40 years later—involved in full-time campus ministry as a metro director with Navigators. I asked him to refresh my memory.

“Well, I thought he should attend a student leadership conference in Chicago because I saw potential in him,” my dad recalled, “but he couldn’t afford it. Back then I was a dad with a young family. I had been saving for a long time to buy some golf clubs. But instead I gave him that money to pay for his trip. It was out of that conference that he decided to go into ministry.”

A simple exchange of golf clubs for a lifetime investment in a student—who went on to invest in the lives of countless other students.

This Next Generation

In this issue you will read about how, throughout history, God has called and poured His Spirit into the lives of students and the next generation in ways that have changed nations. David Smithers details how God has used young people in past revivals because of their childlike faith and humble hearts. He challenges us to cultivate that same tender heart—the heart of a young person—and be willing to pray with that kind of simple faith.

Justin Christopher and Jeremy Story have both dedicated themselves to ministering on college campuses through Campus Renewal. They write about ways God is stirring campuses across our nation.

This is a prime time for the older generation to come alongside the younger generation to support them and pray that God might once again use them to stir up a national movement of prayer. The Collegiate Day of Prayer is February 26. Put it on your calendar and take time to pray for a campus near you.

I don’t have a lockbox of letters from students, but God has given me the opportunity to come alongside this next generation by helping to coordinate prayer for a ministry called PULSE. In a sidebar in this issue you will read about the desire of Nick Hall and PULSE to call students to “the largest Jesus gathering in American history” on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in July 2016.

Will you join me in lifting up this generation in prayer—that they might passionately pursue Jesus and go all out in seeking spiritual awakening for our nation? In fact, if you are willing to pray with me specifically about the D.C. gathering in 2016, please email me at editor@prayerconnect.net. Let’s fill up a lockbox with prayers on their behalf!

CAROL MADISON is editor of Prayer Connect.

(C) 2015 Prayer Connect magazine