"I'll be praying"

“We should have lunch sometime!” “I owe you one.” “I’ll be praying for you.” These well-intended phrases often flippantly roll from our tongue without much thought. I remember when a good friend taught me about the power of phrases like this.

“We should have lunch sometime!” I said casually.

“When?” she
asked specifically.

Well, truth be told, I didn’t really have a day in mind. I was just being polite, expressing that I’d had a good time hanging out with her and her friends and I hoped they invited me to hang out again. But her request reminded me not to throw around comments like that, devoid of intention. Such it is with the phrase: “I’ll be praying for you.” When? What will you pray? For how long?

Today is Day 1 of an intentional, shared, and specific prayer campaign set aside to support United Methodist campus ministry in prayer. My friend, Creighton Alexander, and I, along with 38 other people who care about campus ministry, have written prayers that provide an answer to some of those questions.

• When should we pray for campus ministry? Starting today.
• What will you pray? A prayer written by someone who cares about campus ministry.
• For how long? 40 days.

Each day the prayer will be made available here. If you are on Twitter, follow us at: www.twitter.com/collegeunion and we will send you a link to the prayers daily. Finally, if you would like to download the entire collection of prayers, you can download it here.

We ask you to join us in these prayers, lifting up in general the ministries for college aged young people around the UMC connection. We also ask you to specifically pray for the ministries or young people with whom you are acquainted. Let them know that you’re praying for them. And if through your prayer time, you feel inclined to do something, do it in the knowledge that you are being sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t have a hidden agenda for these prayers. We simply want God to bless the ministers and students of our college campuses around the world. And we think that it is important enough to involve others in this season of specific prayer. Won’t you join us?

Posted by Ashlee Alley