These two stories come from a prayer room at St Andrews University earlier this year. “We are daring to believe that an entire campus can turn back to the Lord.” writes Nick Guy… “We are praying that not only our campus would radically rend its heart back to the Lord (Joel 2:12), but that an entire generation would do so. Its been too long on university campuses where the Lord has taken second place.”
Meeting in the very Church where John Knox preached and just 75 hours into the prayer week Nick said that they had to turn people away to pray on the streets during their first corporate meeting in the prayer room as it was packed out!
“Our prayer week turned into 2 weeks from the demand!!” continues Nick. “The second week booked up very quickly. The room was so full the majority of the time. Quite often there would be multiple people praying together. It was so powerful to have a small room to continuously seek the Lord. To turn away from all the distractions and just say yes to the Lord. One guy came into the prayer room during the 2nd week – then went to a bunch of our evangelistic events as well and through this and the prayer room – became a christian!!! That was totally cool. I think we where all renewed in the Lord. It was so powerful spending hours in almost silence just being with God. Many corporate prayer meetings happened.
I really feel the Lord softened the hearts of the people in the town – we had a missions week during this prayer time and there where people on the street asking anyone who past by questions – so many people where keen and said they wanted to Know the Lord. We look forward to next year – who knows what the Lord will do!!!!”
Another take on the week comes from Alden Chapman McCray. “What surprised me more than anything else” writes Alden, “was the way that God used the prayer room. Our week was timed so that it was the week just before our CU’s missions week, the time of the year when we, as a CU really seek to reach out to people in the town. I knew a lot of people were interested in supporting the prayer room, or who thought it was a good thing to do. But the sheer numbers staggered me. At our opening prayer meeting on the first Sunday evening, we couldn’t fit everyone in the room. Even standing, there were still people waiting at the door to get in. We needed a bigger venue, so we sent people out to go in groups or pairs to walk through and pray for the town. That prayer walk was one of the highlights of my week. We had always known that someone was going to be in the prayer room all the time, but there was rarely just one or two people there. Often spontaneous prayer meetings erupted praying to God for revival in the town.
God amazed me in how he used the prayer room for outreach and evangelism. Even as a room in a church, a lot of people felt less threatened by going into a prayer room than they might going to church. Friends of ours who don’t know God often went in together or with a Christian friend. I think it would be fair to say that they noticed something tangibly different about being in that place, a place where God was so present.”
St Andrews University Prayer room was part of ‘The Big If’ year of 24-7 Prayer currently sweeping Scotland, For more info check out their website here.
