God moving on UT campus

The following is part of a letter I received this week from Justin Christopher, the Director of Campus Renewal Ministries. This vision and action has come out of several years of praying and working for unity among the various campus ministries. They have embraced the Simple Church principles as a means of reaching, discipling and thereby transforming this college community in the Name of Christ. It is exciting to see how God is blessing their faith and commitment. I believe for no less for the wider community of Austin/Central Texas, and the Lord has called us to play our part in this.

It was encouraging to see their strategy of sending out students two-by-two (sound familiar?) but also the foundational importance of prayer. In our home church we have sensed the Lord's renewed call to be a people 'devoted to prayer' and for July and August at least, we have committed to gather every Sunday evening simply to come before the Lord in prayer & worship. This is in addition to our weekly gathering on Tuesday evenings - we just believe that to be devoted means that we will prioritize prayer and make sacrifices. But our longer term desire is to see the wider community transformed through the gospel of the kingdom, to see people coming to faith, being discipled and new simple churches being formed. So, a consistent part of our prayer is for workers for the harvest that God declares is ready.

Please pray for the work being done on UT campus and the people involved. But also ask the Lord to show you how he is calling you to the same work in your own context. May we begin to see a discipling movement emerge that leads to the establishing of new faith communities and the transformation of our city for the glory of God ....

Something tremendous is taking place among students at the University of Texas. Hundreds of students from over thirty different campus ministries and churches are working together to sustain 24/7 days prayer on the UT campus in the Campus House of Prayer (CHOP). These students are captured by a vision of seeing their campus transformed by God. They have a deep conviction that God will only reveal His glory in a transformational way on campus when the body of Christ unites in continual intercession.

Ministry leaders at UT, under the direction of Campus Renewal Ministries (CRM), have been working together for the last fifteen years, not simply by doing events together, but by actually pursuing a common vision to fulfill the great commission at UT. We are working “to see a viable Christian community in every college, club, residence, and culture at UT.” As part of our united commitment to research together, we have identified one thousand specific communities on the UT campus that we are attempting to reach. The goal: To commission missional communities of students into each of the one thousand. Two hundred of the thousand have commissioned missional communities in them already!

While the “campus saturation” strategy, as we call it, is the practical hands-on strategy to reach the campus, it is only as effective as the prayer base that supports it. Students have united around various prayer initiatives over the years, but never has there been the upsurge of students hungry for God in prayer as there has been since the Campus House of Prayer opened last year.

These students want a sacred place near campus where they can come to seek the Lord together at any time. They want a regular place to cross paths with students from different campus ministries and churches. They want a place where they can grow in their prayer life, where they can hear God’s voice as to their role in reaching UT, and where they can pray into the larger vision to saturate UT with the good news of Jesus. In the fall of 2006 God has provided the perfect place for a Campus House of Prayer (CHOP).

The CHOP is right off UT’s main drag, Guadalupe. Students can literally walk over to seek the Lord for an hour between their classes. Students in dorms or west campus housing can safely walk there any time of day or night. Plenty of parking is also available for students who live in other areas of the city. The building has a spacious prayer room, two small community rooms for studying and building relationships, and two small offices. CRM has moved its national headquarters from Cedar Park to this building near campus so that other national ministry leaders and students who come to learn about CRM can come to the headquarters and really experience the unique work that God is doing here.