Campus Prayer Journey Press Release

Adults to intercede for students through ‘Campus Prayer Journeys’
By James Dotson

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (BP) – Many students gathered around school flagpoles for “See You at the Pole” prayer events should find the task even more effective thanks to a similar effort by their parents and others the night before.

During the Campus Prayer Journey, individuals will walk, ride or drive around school campuses – praying not only for the safety of students, but for God to work supernaturally in the lives of students to lead them to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

“This year we’re asking the question what can happen when we pray,” said Randy Brantley, founder of Campus Prayer Journey and a youth consultant for the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. “We’re trying to help people get a vision for what can happen when God’s people pray for the schools and for the students. … It’s the whole concept of praying down revival from heaven.”

“I think we’d like to see every school in a community being prayed for by parents, grandparents, and other adults from the local churches,” added Chad Childress, Children and Student Evangelism, Director for the North American Mission Board, which sponsors Campus Prayer Journey nationally.

The event began in 1998 in the wake of the school shootings in Jonesboro, Ark., according to Brantley. “Our office was just bombarded with calls from people wanting to know what they could do as a church to respond to this tragedy,” he said.

Prayer walks on campuses quickly emerged as an appropriate response. The walks were scheduled to provide prayer support for See You at the Pole, in which students gather around flagpoles before the beginning of the school day on the fourth Wednesday of each September.

“The idea was to encourage parents to become actively involved in going on campuses walking and praying for the salvation and safety of the students in the community,” Brantley said. “Our vision was if every Southern Baptist church would mobilize their congregation to pray for the schools their church is touching, we believed it was possible in one night’s time to pray for every school in the state.”

The concept caught on, and later the event was renamed Campus Prayer Journey -- to allow for other types of prayer encounters -- and promoted by the North American Mission Board. It is part of an overall campus evangelism strategy that includes the FiSH model for student-led Christian clubs on campuses and the commissioning of students as campus missionaries.

Campus Prayer Journey also has spawned several variations, including a community-wide rally in Raleigh, N.C., that drew 4,000 students and adults.

“They were hoping to have several hundred people show up and we wound up having several thousand,” Brantley said.

At Eastside Baptist Church in Mountain Home, Ark., adults committed to pray daily for one student in the youth group. They also divided up among all of the schools in the community for the prayer journey itself, and over the next two years were joined by five other area churches. “Each one of students is being prayed for every day by one person in our church, and Campus Prayer Journey gave us the tool to be able to that,” said youth minister Chris Jones. “It is just an awesome thing.”

Campus Prayer Journey guides are available by calling the national Campus Prayer Journey office at the North American Mission Board, (770) 410-6000, ext. 6324. Information is also available on the Internet at www.studentz.com/prayer.