The Collegiate Day of Prayer is over. Now what? What do we do until year? Why is it only once a year? Do we need to do it again? Should we do it more often?
One day events like the Collegiate Day of Prayer will always make people ask questions like these and our response to them is critical. What do we do now? Short version; we keep praying. Jesus instructed us to pray for His Kingdom to come “on earth as it is in heaven” and we want to see that happen. He also gave us the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18 to encourage us to “always pray and not give up.” (vs.1 NIV). Our goal is to see revival on every college campus; let’s pray in season and out of season until God answers our cry to Him.
So why does the CDOP focus on one day a year? One reason is that in our Nation’s history the church has set apart the last Thursday in February to pray for our our campuses. God answered
When we pray on the last Thursday in February we are both remembering what the Lord has done in the past and asking Him to do it again. You could think of it as being like Israel’s holidays and feasts in the Old Testament. Passover commemorated the Exodus from Egypt and pointed to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The CDOP gives us a similar marker. It helps us remember what God has done, and makes us look forward to the things that He will do.
The CDOP also encourages us to ask God for greater things. Stories of the revivals throughout history are great but they need to make us long for awakening in our day. That’s what we are praying for. We are praying for revival on our campuses right now. We are thankful for the ways the Lord has touched college campuses in the past but we want to see it happen again.
Our hope is that the people who pray on the Collegiate Day of Prayer will keep praying for their campuses long after it. We would love to see prayer meetings continue on every campus that participated in the CDOP, whether it is one large prayer meeting or multiple small meetings. The goal is to have believers asking God to move on their campuses, not just for one day but for the entire year.
We invite you to join us in making this day a catalyst for more prayer on campuses, let’s set aside the last Thursday in February as a day to offer united prayer for our campuses with believers of all ages and denominations. And let us individually set aside time every day to bring our campuses before the Lord. Together in prayer we can see God move mightily on our campuses again.
Jim Hester, Jr is on full time staff at the International House of Prayer of Kansas City (IHOPKC), he also works with Luke18 Project to mobilize prayer on College Campuses.