Claim Your Campus (CYC) is a national youth ministry that empowers students to pray for their school on a weekly basis throughout the school year. The goal of CYC is to have students praying each week on all 67,000 middle and high school campuses in America. When a student is passionate to change their school, CYC encourages and equips them to begin praying for change to take place. As Christ followers, we believe prayer equals change.
The organization started with two youth pastors, Jeff Eckart and Matt Lockett, who planned a school prayer walk in 2003 and called it "Claim Your Campus." Around 75 students participated in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Denver, Colo. More students joined in 2004 & 2005. As a result, in 2005, eight students at East Kentwood High School in Grand Rapids began a Tuesday morning prayer group. After four months of focused prayer on the issue of decreasing violence at school, fighting ceased on campus. This was unprecedented in the history of the school. Seeing this deeply affected Eckart, and he began sharing the story.
Since then, Claim Your Campus has become a national movement reaching over a half of a million students through sharing the vision and passion. Over the last 10 years, there are now 42 states involved, a CYC prayer group at more than 1,400 middle and high school campuses, and over 25,000 students praying across the nation.
Claim Your Campus has been uniting, connecting, training, and sustaining middle and high school students all over the nation through the CYC app. There are a multitude of features to this multi-functional, yet intuitive and easy to use app. After students register themselves, their prayer group and their campus, it teaches them about prayer through daily Scripture readings and prayer prompts. The app also guides students through their prayer time, and explains how to organize and sustain a prayer movement on their campus as well as connecting them to the larger prayer movement happening all over the nation. This includes See You at the Pole in 2019.
I have been a middle and high school math teacher for eight years before working as the Claim Your Campus Growth Strategist. Teachers see the hardships students face first-hand and are often the only adult who believes they are worth something and can achieve great things. I wanted to teach math because, like many students, even we lack confidence in both math and in ourselves. I felt God's nudge saying, "If you can teach someone to be confident in math, why can't you also teach someone to be confident in who God made them to be?"
Just like students today, when I was in school I wanted confidence in who God created me to be. I wanted to share my faith at school but didn't know how and didn't feel safe doing so. Claim Your Campus prayer groups offer a place where students can express their faith and gather together in prayer. We have heard many stories of answered prayer through healings, breaking through bondage, and eliminating school violence. In this day and age, students need something to inspire, encourage, and unite them in Christ.
As a public school teacher I was constantly searching for better ways to engage with my students spiritually that didn't cross the school's religious boundaries. Claim Your Campus is a great resource for teachers and students because it is student-led. Because of this, teachers don't have to worry about crossing religious boundaries and can simply offer their room before school as a meeting place. There's even room inside the app to offer encouragement through the in-app messaging feature.
In recent developments, we have an opportunity to join a national prayer movement that is quickly moving across America. Claim Your Campus is hosting a national event in near Kansas City the weekend of July 4th, 2020. Through the event we will empower and train students to actively pray on their campus. The event is a catalyst in reaching prayer at every middle and high school in America and we as adults play an important role as becoming advocates for a school of our choice. For more information about the event visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/cycadvocates/.
Today more than 25,000 students are praying across the nation. They join together in prayer over their schools, peers, faculty, and their neighboring community praying for frace, peace, justice, and mercy. Students wait expectantly for God to change lives through answered prayer. Join together with these students and pray for your campus.