The Campus America Story ...

In the early morning hours of January 23rd, 2005, the Campus America vision began with a clear word from God spoken simultaneously to Pete Greig, co-founder of 24-7 Prayer, and to David Blackwell, who helps lead the 24-7 movement in the USA.

24-7 Prayer is an international, interdenominational prayer, missions and justice movement that started with a single prayer room in England in 1999 and has since spread to more than one-third of the nations on earth. (Be sure to check out Red Moon Rising for the full account of how 24-7 began and where the movement is going.)

The Campus America Story

“Campus America,” said the voice, jolting Pete awake. “Call Campus America to pray!” Meanwhile, David Blackwell was having a dream about a friend from high school who had died of a drugs overdose. In the dream the young man was alive, dressed in college football gear but vacant and lethargic. However, as David stirred his old friend to action, a voice spoke saying: It's time to call the dead to get into the game”.

“Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you.”
– Apostle Paul, Ephesians 5:14

From Pete Greig:

It was – for the record – on a trip that David Blackwell and I took to Redding, California that God spoke to us about mobilizing prayer on campuses in America. I've outlined below the flow of events from my journal entry that morning:

6:00am

I wake up buzzing with God speaking to me, ‘Campus America, call campus America to pray!’ I go down to the foyer of the hotel and begin journaling – it’s as if God is speaking directly to me – a strategy for mobilizing movements of prayer on every campus in America. This includes a framework of prayer and action based on Isaiah 60-62 and the idea of an exit strategy as people leave prayer rooms having met with God, plugging them into areas of training and mobilization.

7:45am

In the shower God again speaks to me and simply says, ‘David’s had a dream.’ I step out of the bathroom and find David awake and journaling furiously. I ask him if God gave him a dream last night, and he replies that he had four significant dreams. David writes out one of them:

David’s Dream:

“I was just coming out of a church service and knew there was a college football game about to start. I entered into a lobby area and could see the football players dressed in their pads and ready to play. I noticed this one guy standing alone and knew it was my old friend from high school, Donni West. (Donni died during our senior year.) He seemed disinterested and very unprepared to play this game. I started asking Donni basic questions about the game and his role to play in it, in an effort to stimulate him toward readiness. Slowly, he became alive and mentally prepared to play the football game.

“Immediately as I awoke, I was thinking about Donni West and I felt the Lord say, ‘It’s time to call the dead to get into the game.’ It was as though God was challenging me to wake university students up from the dead, to come alive and to fully engage.”

The Story Continues…

For a couple of years we kept quiet about this, trying to discover God's timing and seeking the counsel of seasoned leaders. In the meanwhile God continued to confirm – through more dreams and words and friendships – that Campus America was indeed his idea. Working together with other like-minded ministries we began to witness a number of mini-movements of prayer on campuses, including a year of non-stop student prayer that continued unabated throughout the 2006 - 2007 academic year, stretching right across America and involving 120 colleges and universities.

From early on in this journey we began to realize this vision was much bigger than just Campus America – that we alone did not own this dream – as multiple groups, individuals, ministries, churches and networks banded together to pray. It quickly became evident that God was up to something historic, that no single person or ministry could solely contain the depth and breadth of what was coming; that, in fact, it would require all of us to work together to get the job done. We now look forward to the hope of a non-stop surge of student prayer and action that will involve every campus in America during the 2010 calendar year.

This is an Old, Old Story…

“There has never been a spiritual awakening that did not begin in united prayer.” – A.T. Pierson

2010 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of an extraordinary gathering in Edinburgh, Scotland called the World Missionary Conference. The reason this event is considered remarkable is because it became the culmination-point for multiple individuals and campus movements (like the 1806 Haystack Prayer Movement, C.T. Studd and the Cambridge Seven, and John R. Mott and the Student Volunteer Movement) to agree with one another to reach everyone they could with the gospel of Jesus “in this generation.”

Although 100 years have since passed, Campus America is still a part of that old story of prayer and humility and action that has guided each and every spiritual awakening in the history of Christianity. That story did not begin with us – nor did it start in 1910 or in 1806 – or during any of the other significant moments in our collective history as Christians. This is an old, old story. In fact, this Story started with Jesus… and now we have the opportunity to follow him into the next riveting chapter of our history. Are you up for it?

Dive further in: