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Commentary
COMMENTARY: Praying for and with our college campuses Ashlee Alley and Creighton Alexander, Aug 4, 2010
By Ashlee Alley and Creighton Alexander Special Contributors
More than 17 million American students head to college and university campuses each fall. Millions more around the world will join them. These students are being shaped into the next generation of teachers, accountants, parents, doctors, CEOs, journalists and ministers, among others. Shouldn’t it be our prayer that as they become these people, they are being shaped by Christ?
We invite you to join us this fall as we pray for the next generation of Christian leaders heading off to college and university campuses. Starting Aug. 23, we are calling the Church to prayer for our college campuses for 40 days.
We have a two-fold purpose: to call the Church to pray for college students and to help college students learn to pray.
The “40” comes from Isaiah 40 to “prepare the way of the Lord.” This chapter of Scripture is one where we see God calling his people to hope from despair, to understanding from futility and to strength from weariness.
This is our prayer for the generation of college students who populate campuses around the world—that they would come to trust in the one true God and be strengthened to run the race before them.
The prayers have been written by campus ministers, college students, bishops, authors, pastors and other leaders. Collectively, they express a heart for God to inspire, challenge and transform the lives of college campuses and individual students.
As you pray the prayers offered by these fellow Christians, may you see how God is calling you to minister to those future Christian leaders who may not yet profess the name of Christ.
As we seek to call forth prayer from the Church, we’re following the words of Psalm 71:24, proclaiming God’s righteousness all day long and offering three opportunities for prayer: morning, noon and evening prayers.
The morning prayers are written by pastors and leaders who support the work of campus ministry; the noon prayers come from campus ministers who have often prayed these prayers on their own; the evening prayers come from college students themselves, revealing the passion they have for ministering to others in their generation.
People can participate in several ways:
• Daily e-mails provide the prayer for the day in the morning, at noon and in the evening;
• A downloadable prayer guide to pray by yourself or to share with your family, church or prayer group;
• Twitter reminders (follow us @CollegeUnion) that give a link to the prayers online;
• Text messages that give you a link to the prayers online. Sign up by texting “pray40” to 41411; standard text-messaging rates apply.
• Check in regularly at www.Pray40.com and help spread the word.
Those who minister to college students, including campus ministers and Wesley Foundation directors, will be encouraged to connect by:
• Joining the prayer effort themselves and inviting their students, board members and partnering churches to do the same;
• Signing up for a 24-hour period of continuous prayer within their ministry;
• Teaching about prayer in their ministries this fall or using recorded teachings on prayer that we are providing free;
• Considering signing up to have students pray as a part of the Living Prayer Center, a ministry of The Upper Room.
The prayer effort is a partnership between College Union, The Upper Room, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, Foundation for Evangelism and United Methodist Communications.
Ms. Alley, campus minister at Southwestern College (above left) and Mr. Alexander, director of campus ministry for the Missouri Conference (above right), are Pray 40 coordinators.
More than 17 million American students head to college and university campuses each fall. Millions more around the world will join them. 
People can participate in several ways:
