The Power of Fervent Prayer

James 5:16 states, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”  In the last few weeks, we have seen our student’s hearts for prayer grow like mad.  A few months ago, we were approached by Campus America to commit to pray for 24 hours straight every other week.  Along with other campuses, we hoped to see 24/7 Prayer for revivals on college campuses happening in Wisconsin.  In a house nearby, God provided a room in one of our student leader’s basements that has a entrance from the outside separate from the rest of the house.  This room was transformed into a place that students could come and quietly meet with the Lord.  In October, our prayer team set up a schedule for students to pray in pairs for an hour for 24 hours straight.  The response was overwhelming.  At one point, 20 people were crammed into the prayer room worshipping and praying to our Almighty God.  Since the day went so well, the prayer team decided to have prayer for 24 hours once a week instead of every other week and again we saw God provide more people than we even needed for pray all day long!  So the prayer team decided that in November, they were going to have a prayer week during which there would be at least one person praying 24/7 for a whole week.  It was so cool to go to the prayer room during this week with my disciples and join others in prayer for revival on campus, to worship God and see others prayer requests and praises written all over the walls.  Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ said that “Through prayer, God has given us the privilege of being used by Him to help change the lives of men and nations.  God has made available to us a vast reservoir of power, wisdom, and grace beyond words to define, if only we are willing to believe Him and claim His promises.”  I’m so encouraged by how God is showing our students the importance of prayer and making it a priority in their lives.  I can’t wait to see what God does on campus in response to the 24/7 prayer of students!

Laboring for a Lifetime

This past weekend we had our men’s and women’s conferences in Minneapolis.  The purpose of this conference is to give students vision for how they are called by God to labor for a lifetime.  We had 16 women from UW-Stevens Point most of whom were Juniors and Seniors that are starting to make decisions about what they will do after college.  It was so cool to hear the voices of over 200 women worshipping God with all their heart.  Throughout the conference, Millie Welsh, our speaker for the weekend, talked four times on various topics.  The first night, she talked about surrendering your life to God including how and why we should.  Then in the morning she talked about hindrances to us surrendering our life to God.  Saturday night she talked about how we all are “sent ones” to wherever God leads us and on Sunday morning she talked about having an eternal perspective.  Two of the women that attended were my disciples and it was so cool to hear them talk about what they learned from the conference.  One of them told me that it was really cool to hear that she was a “sent one” to those that she worked with or to the women that come to the bible study she leads.  After college, she would be sent somewhere to do missions or get a job.  My other disciple, told me that she learned for the first time what it really looked like to surrender her life to God.  She always knew that she should surrender her life to God and wanted to but did not understand how to do that.  After hearing Millie talk, she has more knowledge about how to surrender to life and future to God.  She is excited to put to practice all that she learned and to see how God leads her as she continues to surrender to Him.

God uses us

Isn’t it amazing to think that God chooses to use us?  God is all-powerful, sovereign and infinite in wisdom.  He certainly does not need to use us but he chooses to anyway.  This week I got to hear two cool ways that God used me in other women’s lives in the past.  One of my disciples, Whitney, had the opportunity to give her testimony at our weekly meeting.  I may have told some of you Whitney’s story before because it is such a cool one.  Whitney grew up with divorced parents and an alcoholic mom.  When she came to college 2 years ago, she came with a lot of doubts and questions about God.  I’m so glad that God placed her in my life at this time.  I got to meet with her on a regular basis and help her work through these questions.  Then I was blessed to see her finally place her faith in Christ at TCX, our winter conference.  God has transformed her since into an amazing woman.  As she talked on stage, I couldn’t help but cry as I heard her story again.  God has worked so much in her life and he chose to use me it!  How cool!

The other way that I was reminded of how God chooses to use us was actually a surprise to me.  This week was also our TCX rally during which we gave our leaders vision for influencing students to come to TCX.  At this meeting, a girl named Sam talked about how she had accepted Christ at that same TCX as Whitney and how God used many other people in her life at TCX to make that happen.  At the end of  that TCX, we had a celebration time with our campus to share what God had done that week.  I shared during that meeting how Whitney had given me a notebook page full of questions that I helped her find answers for.  Little did I know that Sam was sitting and listening to me thinking about how she had all these thoughts and questions but did not know what to do about them.  After hearing me share about how I had helped Whitney, she realized that there were people there that cared about her and wanted to help her find answers to her questions too.  Thus she sought people out to get those answers and then she too placed her faith in Christ.  When I shared Whitney’s story that night at TCX, I was simply sharing it to rejoice in what God had done but God used it in a big way in Sam’s life without me even knowing it.  We are so blessed to have God use us to accomplish His work in other people’s lives…sometimes without us even knowing.

Creating Spiritual Movements Everywhere…

Campus Crusade for Christ’s Vision Statement is “Helping create spiritual movements everywhere so that everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus Christ.”  In order for us to see this vision fulfilled, we need to be starting spiritual movements on all campuses. This last week, I got to see the beginning of a new spiritual movement on another campus!  Although I work primarily on the UWSP campus, my team works in Central Wisconsin which currently includes the campuses of UWSP, Midstate Technical College, Northern Technical College, and UW-Marathon County.  UW-Marathon County is a two year college only 30 minutes away from Steven’s Point and many of it’s students go on to attend UWSP.  The environment on a 2 year campus is very different as most students live at home with their parents and only come to campus when they have class.  Also, students are at most there for 2 years so new leaders have to be constantly found and trained.  We have been working on this campus for only a few years but it has been really cool to what God has done already.  On Tuesday, I was asked to go up to UW-Marathon County and give the talk at their weekly meeting.  I spent the afternoon getting to know the campus, talking to students and sharing the gospel with a few guys that go to school there.  That evening, I went to my first CRU meeting other than at UW-Stevens Point.  It had many differences but yet in essence was the same.  Instead of 400 students, they had 31.  Instead of a full band complete with drums and electric guitar, they had just a guitar and two voices to lead the crowd.  Instead of students flooding in as soon as the doors where opened to pump-up music, students wandered in one at a time to a quiet room.  But even without the fancy effects and huge crowd, I still felt the same loving, accepting community of Christ followers.  These students truly loved God and wanted to see their small and atypical university reached for Christ.  They worshipped with all their hearts, dived into the Bible together with me, and were excited to see friends they had been praying for show up to the meeting.  It was so cool to be a part of their community and an honor to get to share with them my thoughts on James 1.  Please pray for their leaders that they would continue to see the need to reach out to their classmates and for the ministry there to flourish despite the obstacles.  It may look different but God is at work on this campus!

Connecting Students Worldwide

This last weekend at Fall Getaway, our fall retreat, we introduced the opportunity of summer project to students.  Summer project is an opportunity for students to spend their summer with a group of students from around the region growing in their faith, being taught to share their faith and then going out to create spiritual movements at strategic places around the nation and the world.  In our region we partner with campuses in France, Uruguay, the Middle East, East Asia, Australia and Ghana.  When our campus director told students about how God is sending us all somewhere this summer and could be sending them on a summer project, he showed this video.

This song is from the World Cup which brought nations of the world together like never before.  He said, “Whenever I hear this song, something kingdom goes off in me.”  We are called to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Summer project is a way for students to go to other nations to help God’s kingdom expand and have their hearts grow for the lost of every tribe, tongue and nation. This song became a theme song of our fall retreat very quickly.  At the end of the weekend, as students celebrated together how God had worked in their lives that weekend, they randomly began to hum this song as they saw that God had been expanding his kingdom on campus that weekend.  When I was on summer project in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I saw for the first time how God is the God of all nations.  Pray that God would increase many students desire to see his kingdom expanded and that many would seek God as to whether or not they should go on summer project this summer to see lives changed around the world.