Movement 133, a group of students from houses of prayer on college campuses all over Southern California, came together on Feb. 22 to fast and pray for revival.
The gathering, held at the University of Southern California, was a culmination of students and house of prayer staff fasting for twenty-two days throughout the month of February. Campuses involved included USC, University of California LA, University of California Irvine, California State Polytechnic University Pomona, Biola University, and Vanguard University.
“We each held up a key, signifying the keys to the house of David, and simultaneously turned the keys as a declaration of a new season,” said Kyla Tedstrom, President of the Vanguard House of Prayer. “We then had a representative of each campus come forward and pray for one of the other schools as a way of linking arms and standing alongside one another with what God is doing in the region.”
This act demonstrated what Movement 133 envisions — campuses united as one body with one mind and one accord. Fasting up to the event helped unite every person in the movement, before they even met together, giving them vision for each campus and helping them feel God’s closeness.
“Through fasting, I am better aligned with God’s heart for our campus,” junior USC student, Alex Pham, said. “It helped me to pray and intercede for the things on His heart.”
While the Movement 133 gathering was a time for all of these campuses to come together regionally, everyone involved sees cross-ministry unity happening at the basic level, on their individual campuses, through houses of prayer. At USC for instance, Shara Bialosky, worship leader for Movement 133 and staff worker at the USC House of Prayer, says that she and her co-workers are currently seeing their house of prayer engage students from all areas of campus, from the football team to international students, from Intervarsity to Korean Christian Ministries.
“In all honesty, unity efforts are hard, and I think people from other ministries would say the same thing,” Bialosky said. “It’s easy to get comfortable in your own group, but we are praying that God would really mark hearts for prayer and the significance of just even being in the prayer room, to minister to Him and pray for the campus.”
Andrew Kong, junior at UCLA, feels that the Bruin House of Prayer unites his campus as well and has been a constant source of encouragement for him.
“I can pray alongside students who I have never seen before, yet have the same desire to see God’s kingdom come mightily unto our campus,” he said, “I believe that God’s heart has a special place for prayer meetings of people who have a burden to pray for the same thing.”
Movement 133 meets throughout the semester at a few or sometimes all of the campuses involved, with the purpose to simply pray and stand in unity for God’s promises over the campuses in the region.
Janelle is a junior Journalism major at The University of Texas at Austin. After college, she hopes to become a foreign correspondent to continue sharing people’s stories. Janelle is involved with the Baptist Student Ministry, Austin Stone Community Church, and is a Campus Renewal Media intern.