PRAYER DEFIES ALL ODDS

 

About 120 believers came together in the days before Pentecost (Acts 1:15), and both their local society (Jerusalem) and larger imperial society (Rome) were hostile to their beliefs. As an embryonic spiritual movement, they faced astronomical odds against their growth and survival. Yet today, nearly 3 billion people, more than a third of the world’s population, identify as Christian.

            

History is full of examples of God’s people defying the odds. Nineteenth-century missionaries in Asia and Africa often spent years on the mission field but saw only a handful of converts from their efforts, yet today hundreds of millions of believers and hundreds of thousands of churches are vibrant influences in the cultures of those continents. 

 

Backs Against the Wall

In 1795, Lyman Beecher observed the alarming decline of faith on college campuses like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—places where the church was “almost extinct.” Gambling and sexual immorality were common, Enlightenment skeptics were honored as authoritative, most students were atheists, and the number of genuine believers could be counted on one hand. Committed Christians were so unpopular that they often met in secret.[1]

            

Sociological studies and skeptics would have predicted the continuing decline or even extinction of Christianity in such times, but often when things look hopeless, God has authored history-changing awakenings instead. In almost every case, He has done so by first prompting His people to embrace dependence, surrender their hearts and agendas, and pray. 

           

That’s an encouraging truth in times like today, when Christians again feel like our backs are against the wall. One study anticipates that at least 35 million youth raised in Christian homes will leave the faith in the next 30 years.[2]Many believers are discouraged by the secularization of our culture, the hostility directed at Christians and the church, and the perception that faith is unfounded and irrelevant in today’s world. The odds against us look overwhelming—exactly the conditions in which God historically has inspired great awakenings.

 

Seek God’s Face

If we ever needed prayer, it’s now. No situation is too big for God, but He insists on working through His people to accomplish His work in this world. We get to participate in the Holy Spirit’s work, but it doesn’t happen automatically. We connect with Him in worship, faith, surrender, dependence, and prayer. In response to the faith of those who love Him, He moves in miraculous ways.

           

After Solomon had built the temple in Jerusalem, God spoke to him about how His people should respond in crisis situations: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). In other words, it doesn’t matter how desperate the times seem. He is the answer!

            

For God to work on campuses, the Christian community—students, parents, youth leaders, church leadership, and Christian educators—must commit to sacrificial prayer. J. Edwin Orr, a 20th-century scholar who researched the spiritual state of college campuses in the late 1700s, called it “extraordinary prayer”—the kind that gets people up at 6 a.m. or makes them willing to skip lunch to meet with other believers to intercede for students.[3]

            

That kind of prayer doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It is cultivated in a climate of worship and surrender, when those who desperately seek God’s intervention lay themselves at His feet and acknowledge their complete dependence on Him. In faith, we seek Him daily, even constantly, for Him to pour out His Spirit on a generation. 

           

According to Orr, that’s what happened at Harvard, Bowdoin, Brown, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, and Andover colleges. New societies were formed to resist the ungodly influences on those campuses. Small groups of believers committed themselves to mutual watchfulness, ardent prayer, frequent fellowship, mutual counsel, and friendly accountability. They met regularly in private and cultivated a climate of praise, surrender, and dependence.[4]

            

Dramatic results ensued. Several campuses reported the conversion of a third to a half of their students.[5] In an era of apparent decline, the trajectory of Christian history radically changed directions.

            

Refuse the temptation to lose heart when you observe today’s culture or read today’s headlines. God’s people have been down this road before, and He has never abandoned us to despair. Just the opposite, in fact. When His people have turned their focus from the mountains in front of them to the mountain-mover at work within them, good things—miraculous things—have happened. 

 

The task in front of us is great, but God is infinitely greater. With our eyes fixed on Him—His presence, power, and love—this moment in time is truly a season of opportunity. 

 

Your Next Steps 

We encourage you to keep a notebook or journal of ideas, action steps, and resources that will help you advance your youth ministry. You can use the following questions and suggestions for brainstorming and developing your goals and plans. 

 

• From reading Acts 1-2, what specifically do you believe God wants you to pray for your students, for the campuses around you, and for this generation? 

 

• Describe what you believe God wants to do on your local campus.

 

• Plan an evening of “extraordinary prayer”—a prayer meeting—with your adult youth leaders and/or committed students to pray for the campuses where your students attend. Break into groups of three and pray by name for principals, teachers, coaches, and students they know.  

 

Resources

• J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame: A History of Evangelical Awakenings in Collegiate Communities (Wheaton, IL: International Awakening Press, 1994).
 

 

[1] J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame (Glendale, Calif.: Regal Books, 1971), 19.

[2] The Pinetops Foundation, The Great Opportunity: The American Church in 2050, 9.

[3] Orr, The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening (New York Oxford, 1976), 8.

[4] Orr, Campus Aflame, 25.

[5] Ibid., 27.