The University of Pennsylvania ran the front page headline recently that read, “All Prayer, All the Time.” They were describing the 24-hour-a-day prayer tent that had been set up in the middle of campus. This is amazing because the school was the first secular college campus in America. Inside the tent students from different ministries and churches gathered to pray around the clock for a week and a half with different groups of students.
The night I arrived to check out the prayer tent two self-proclaimed atheists had joined us to pray after seeing the tent as they walked across campus. Another student miraculously was spared from killing himself after an encounter with God and Christians in the prayer tent. On the walls of the tent were hundreds of prayers and praises to God, both written and in picture form, from various students.
Network is hosting a gathering this summer in California.
And this movement of God is not just occurring at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year Campus Renewal Ministries, Campus Church Network, the 24-7 Prayer Network and Burning Hearts Ministries worked together to form the Campus Transformation Network. Through this network about seventy American campuses and one hundred Chinese campuses hosted 24-hour-a-day prayer rooms on their campuses. More campuses continue to join the effort. During the school year (August through May), you can take a look at any day and see which campuses have been praying and see a complete list of participating campuses by going to http://www.campustransformation.com/.
From 20 January 2006 through mid-May 2006 every hour of every day was filled with students fervently praying for revival and awakening on America’s colleges and universities. It was a constant stream of prayer with as many as ten campuses hosting prayer rooms on any given day.University of California, Berkeley (Berkley, California, USA), known for its prominent role in the free love movement in the 1960s, hosted a prayer room twice this past school semester. The first time they intended to fill up one day. There was so much interest that when they finished the first day they extended it to two days. Later in the semester they set up the prayer room again and went nonstop for forty days.
At the University of Texas (Austin, Texas, USA), ministry and church leaders have been meeting to pray once a week for about eight years. Next year they plan to launch a permanent 24-hour-a-day prayer room on the campus. In the past two years they have cooperatively planted over eighty new authentic faith communities on campus. They presently have a goal to plant a small group of praying, outward focused and indigenous students in every club, college and residence on or near campus.
God is also doing miraculous things at Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, USA), one of the largest campuses in the United States. Students there recently rented an apartment close to campus just for prayer. Students from different ministries and churches were there from morning to night to pray for awakening and revival at the university and throughout the nation.
God Is Moving Among College Students
The Campus Transformations Network hosted three conference calls this past school semester. Students from campuses across the nation seemed to be coming out of the woodworks with fervent hearts to see their entire campuses transformed. Each of the nearly seventy students on the call represented many more students on their campuses and many of these students are leading cooperative efforts between the ministries and churches involved with their campus to mobilize massive prayer. Due to the increasing number of students who are praying and hosting prayer rooms, the Campus Transformation Network is hosting a gathering this summer in California where key student leaders will meet and pray.
God is indeed accelerating his move among America’s college students. And this renewed desire for awakening on universities is not limited to traditional, college-based ministries or churches. Many other ministries and denominations, from the Southern Baptists to Moms In Touch, have phoned me to share that God was stirring their hearts to pray for America’s universities. Many prognosticators like George Otis, Lou Engle, Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce have predicted a coming revival on America’s universities.
Dr. J. Edwin Orr, a prominent revival historian and scholar, was asked near the end of his life how he would sum up all of his study on revival. Dr. Orr replied, “When God is about to move mightily, he always sets his people to praying.”
In America’s past God has used college students to spark revival. These revivals were always started by faithful youth uniting together in fervent prayer. The Student Volunteer Movement, which began in the late 1800s, alone sent out twenty thousand students into the mission field; sixty thousand more prayerfully and financially supported those who were sent.
Could it be that God is on the verge of doing this again? Whether it happens tomorrow or ten years from now it is evident that God is actively rejuvenating his servants on college campuses. Will you join the chorus God is orchestrating to pray for revival and awakening on America’s campuses?
