Have you ever found yourself somewhere and wondered how you got there? That’s exactly how I am feeling today as we are kicking off our forty days of prayer for Southern Methodist University here in Dallas. It’s been a five-year long journey.
As we embark on this “Take Ten to Find the One” prayer campaign I have such an expectant anticipation that the Lord is going to go before us and make a way where there seems to be no way on this 100-year old campus, where intellect and academia has always taken precedent over the spiritual. There has never been a revival here.
I want to share with you the strategy the Lord has given us during these forty days of prayer so you can pray with us and believe God for a miracle on campus.
There are several key elements:
Prayer Altars on Campus and in the Community
Through the Holy Spirit’s prompting the Director of SMU ARISE AND PRAY (smu.ariseandpray.org) was led to read through the book Prayer Altars by John Mulinde and Mark Daniel . These great men of God saw Uganda changed and turned toward God in the 1990s when they created prayer altars in their homes, churches and businesses to invite God’s presence into their lives.
When they spent thirty minutes reading the Word of God and worshiping each day as a sacrifice to the Lord, they were establishing prayer altars. And they saw an entire nation return to God. Their country had the highest AIDS epidemic of any African country when they began establishing prayer altars. After the nation turned to God, they only had 6%!
During our forty days of prayer on SMU campus we are asking the community to create prayer altars in their homes and businesses to pray specifically for SMU. We are also creating a prayer altar on SMU Campus where we will meet every single day at noon for forty days for one hour to praise and worship, pray, read scriptures and take communion and invite God’s presence to SMU. We will also meet across from the campus at U ARISE every evening for one hour from 5:30 – 6:30 so the community can participate in the same way.
Take Ten to Find the One
We were struck with the notion “There is someone on this campus the Lord wants to reach at this time. Some “one” who is going to do great and mighty things for Him.”
So we created a prayer campaign on campus to reach that some “one” who would be a great World Changer for God. We realized if we could make it like a scavenger hunt, it would be fun for the students to seek out and find that “one student”. We reached out to the Advertising majors on campus to create the look and feel of the campaign.
Take Ten to Find the One is the tagline that emerged. The idea is for campus pastors to encourage their students to take ten minutes each day for forty days to find one stranger on campus and approach them and engage them in this conversation: “I recently signed up for a challenge to take ten minutes each day to find one student I don’t know and ask them how I can pray for them. You are my one student today. How can I pray for you?”
Just think: If ten of the campus pastors at SMU signed up ten of their students to take the challenge for forty days, they could reach 4,000 students on SMU campus with prayer! Please agree with me in prayer that the lost students would find Christ and that the Christian students would be energized to evangelize as they Take Ten to Find the One!
As a busy ad agency owner and advertising professional, Vicki Garza heard the Lord call her to volunteer to serve the unborn and their parents in late 2008. She joined the Board of the Downtown Pregnancy Center in January 2009 and became the Chairperson of the Sub-Committee to start the Uptown Women’s Center, where graduate students and young professionals could come for answers concerning their physical, emotional and spiritual needs: uptownwomenscenter.com
In 2012, she co-founded U ARISE with her 23-year old niece, Kate. U ARISE is an educational non-profit created to promote spiritual health and wellness on high school and college campuses. In Fall 2013, U ARISE hosted ARISE AND PRAY, a 40-Day Prayer Initiative calling the nation to pray for the health and wellness of college students across the country: ariseandpray.org
Vicki is an avid reader and enjoys writing, presenting and public speaking. In her spare time, she looks forward to special moments with the Lord in Bible study and prayer and enjoys helping others. She has five children and 12 grandchildren and has been happily married to Paco, her high school sweetheart, for 36 years.