Arise! Pray for our college and university students and campuses.We want our children to further their education to enable them to enter the career of their choice and to become productive citizens. While college is a great new journey for our youth, there is a lot of temptation on college campuses. We have seen the effects of shooting on campus where parents once believed their youth would be safe.
The movie “God’s Not Dead” depicts the struggle between a Christian student and an atheist professor. Let’s pray strategically for our college students. We know that college students are faced with a new environment, meeting new people from various backgrounds and higher levels of learning. Many of our young adults still may be impressionable as they are faced with a new freedom many have never experienced. As moms and dads, we need to arise to pray as college students need prayer just as our school-age children.
As we pray for colleges and universities, it is important for us to understand the seductive and evil influences that exist to attempt to capture the souls and minds of our youth. Therefore our prayers for them are essential as they begin to face many issues. We want them to be equipped with skills and education that will prepare them to make a successful living and to live productive lives. Yet they are still subject to the issues of the world. College statistics indicate that state college students engage in binge drinking (90%), are having sex, use drugs (80%), and have suicidal thoughts(18%). Yes. Arise college students need prayer.
Challenge:
- Name your college children and relatives and the college they attend. We will pray for and with you and the students.
- Pray for college students and adopt a college campus for which you will pray at least 10 minutes a day or three times a week.
- Join with other moms and dads with college students and pray together once a week or once a month
- Pray with your college students. Encourage them to pray.
Here are a few prayers for college students that you might want to use as you pray. These can easily be adjusted for use by you, by others who love them and want to lift up intercessory prayers for college students, and what the college students can pray as well for themselves.
Prayer Points for College Students:
1. Lord, I pray that you keep my child grounded in the Word and remember his/her training. Lord, I pray that he /she_____ has a hunger for truth and a curiosity about Your Word, followed by a love and understanding for it. (Psalm 119:97, 104).
2. Lord, I pray that ____ and college students will stand firm and follow you their entire lives. Let nothing, philosophy and new things they learn turn them away from You.
3. Lord for my child_____ or the student that does know you I pray that _______ will be led to salvation by the power of the Holy Ghost. I pray that an open door for the message of Christ will be proclaimed on the university and college campuses. For students who believe in You give them boldness to witness to Your love and glory. Open the hearts of students, faculty, and administrators so they can respond to the message.
4. Holy Spirit convicts believing students of sin and help them to abstain from it Empower them to walk in Your ways and to live lives that their unbelieving peers will see their good deed and give YOU glory. (1 Peter2:11-12)
We want transformation on our campuses and in the nation. Let us pray the following key points as we pray for colleges, universities and their students as follows:
1 Pray for a revelation of Jesus and righteousness among college administrators, faculty, and staff. Pray that all their vast knowledge will lead them to God rather than to arrogance and honor of humanistic philosophy.
- Pray for a harvest of Kingdom ministries in every vocation and field of study. Pray they learn to explain the good news of Jesus of various groups including the “hip-hop” community and others.
- Pray for religious freedom to talk about Christ flourish. Pray for students to courageously stand up for their faith rather than submit to university pressures. Pray for administrators to value religious freedom as much as they value academic freedom. Ask God to turn persecution into good for believers on campus.
- Pray for truth to rise to the top. Students are seeking truth and making truth claims. Pray for God to help students discern good from evil. Pray for light to expose darkness. Pray for the claims about Jesus to be seen as the ultimate truth and different from the myriad of other religious options on campus. Pray for speakers and teachers who can articulate and prove the authenticity of biblical teaching on the campus.
- Pray for God to stay the hand of the enemy and bind evil and violent spirits on the campus against stabbings, date rape, gun violence, and racism. Lord my Deliverer, deliver and protect students and faculty from evildoers and enemies.
Linda Fegins, The Prayer Leader ldfaygo@gmail.com copyright Sept.21,2016, 2017. The 1-4 prayer points of this article are from “How to Pray for God’s Movement on Campus” by Jeremy Story, president of Campus Renewal Ministries. Linda D. Fegins, “The Prayer Leader” serves as the prayer leader for her church home. Further, she serves as a prayer leader and teacher/trainer on the “Prayer Boot Camp” with the Global Missions Prayer Force and as a guest intercessor and volunteer for Girlfriends Pray a global prayer ministry. She served as Prayer Coordinator for over 13 years( later Director over the Prayer Ministry) for the Lydia Circle Christian Business and Professional Women. As part of the Lydia Circle, she has led over a dozen prayer boot camps, and has lead prayer services and workshops in the Bahamas and in South Africa and was on the prayer team of a medical missions trips to Jamaica.