College Union

We’re pretty good at praying in our campus ministry: we have prayer requests at our weekly worship, many of us pray before meals, we have prayer group each Tuesday night.  For goodness sake, this year, we even have a group of students who gather nightly at 10:30 to pray for the campus!  This is committed prayer.  What is so attractive to us about prayer?  Why do we spend so much time (or for some of us, so little time) praying?  Well, for one thing, prayer is a part of the life of Christian community.  It’s something that we can do when we’re together.  We do it because so many others throughout time have done it.  We do it because Jesus did it (Mk. 14:32, for one example—there are too many to list!).  We do it because Jesus told us to do it (Matt. 6:5-15).  But there are probably other reasons that we pray, too.  We pray because when we pray, we see things happen, right?  We pray because we know that God hears our prayers, and because he hears them, he answers (1 Jn. 5:14-15).  We pray because that’s the part that we can do and we leave God to do the part that only God can do.  Basically, we pray because it works!

But what happens after we pray?  Does anything?

The early church in the book of Acts is often used as a role model for today’s body of believers to emulate.  And sometimes we learn from their mistakes.  In Acts 12, we find that Peter has been arrested and imprisoned and that the church “prayed fervently to God for him” (Acts 12:5).  Well, guess what?  God heard their prayers and released Peter in a miraculous circumstance (read the rest of Acts 12 for the cool details).  If you were just released from prison, where would you go?  Well, Peter went to the place where he knew that the Christian believers would be (do we have any place like that?).  Apparently the church met at the house of John Mark’s mother, so Peter went there and knocked on the door to be let into the fellowship. At the door, he met Rhoda, the maid who was so excited to see him that she left him knocking at the door while she ran to tell the others that he was there!  Do you think that the people who had been praying ran to greet Peter at the door?  Surely they would, since they had been praying for his release so fervently.  Actually the opposite happened.  Instead of running excitedly to greet Peter, they dismissed Rhoda, certain that Peter couldn’t really be there!  Finally, they went to check, just in case, and lo and behold, there he was…standing, knocking at the front door.

How many times do we pray and ask God for something and then we find ourselves surprised when he actually answers our prayers?  We are often like the church in Jerusalem who prayed and prayed fervently for something and then are amazed when it actually happens!  Did they pray?  Sure they did.  Did they pray, believing that God would answer their prayers?  Doubtful.

As we continue to grow in ways that deepen our relationship with Christ, making us more like him, let us examine how we think about our prayers after we have prayed them.  Let our prayers be bold, God-inspired prayers, with a posture that waits expectantly for God’s answer!  Sometimes we find that God’s answer may not turn out exactly like we had planned.  We pray fervently for healing for our grandmother, and she still continues to suffer from cancer.  We ask God to reconcile our relationship with our father, but he still won’t answer our emails.  We pray for direction with what to do with our lives, but we just have silence.  But what happens with these kinds of prayers, prayed in an attitude of faith?  Prayers that are prayed in an attitude of faith become opportunities for God to expand our view.  Perhaps we are able to see the patient endurance that our grandmother shows through her faithful witness despite her suffering (and after all, don’t we read about suffering in Romans, James, and the Psalms—among others?).  Or, perhaps we learn what reconciliation looks like through relationship with our Heavenly Father, rather than our earthly one.  Or, perhaps we learn to listen to God and trust him, even when he appears silent.  These are the evidences of faithful prayer, the things that reveal themselves when we pray, knowing that God will answer.

So, as we pray, alone, in groups, in public, in private, may we remember that God is listening, and we shouldn’t be surprised when he answers our prayers.

Other stuff:

Practical Prayer Suggestions for Campus Ministry:

• Model an active prayer life in your ministry.
• Have a small group of students meet weekly to pray and write notes of encouragement to those for whom you prayed.
• Get a prayer group at your school’s facebook.com site.
• Enlist a group from a local church to pray for your campus ministry.
• Be creative about ways to pray:  pass around a prayer journal, make a prayer photo album, pray for people on their birthday, and integrate prayer into the life of the ministry.

Web-links:

www.everystudent.com:  this website is by Campus Crusade for Christ and has lots of information for people seeking God, how to read the Bible, how to pray, and much more.

www.renovare.org:  this website provides a balanced vision for incorporating the spiritual disciplines into your life and ministry.

My favorite books on the subject:

• Prayer:  Finding the Heart’s True Home.  Richard J. Foster—the author of Celebration of Discipline.  This book explores various kinds of prayer and identifies how prayer is a way of life, both alone and in groups.
• Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ.  Madame (Jeanne) Guyon.  This book from the 17^th century “mystic” is a spiritual classic about prayer.
• Too Busy Not to Pray.  Bill Hybels.  This easy to read book provides practical ideas to slow down and pray.

Ashlee Alley is Director of Discipleship and Coordinator of Campus Ministry at Southwestern College in Winfield, KS. Her email address is aalley@sckans.edu.

Categories: Nurturing the Soul of the College Student
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