It's summer. Your schedule is different: camps, mission trips, VBS. Your youth are sleeping until noon.
But this change in schedule can offer some unique opportunities to engage students and other churchgoers to make a valuable investment in praying for the schools in your community. This can be done on the fly, with little organization and advance planning. And it's better than an X-Box coma.
Here are two simple ideas to get traction with making prayer count:
Footprints on Campus
Randy Davis, NNYM's Chief Ministries Officer, would love to have you join him in praying for schools. He started Footprints on Campus in 2016. He was impressed by God's words to Joshua in Joshua 1:3: "I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses." When he drove by Lord Botetourt High School in Daleville, Virginia, he obediently placed his feet on the school ground and prayed for the students, teachers and administrators.
When he got home to Indianapolis, he shared the concept with others, and started visiting schools near their homes. Within a couple of weeks, youth leaders prayed for more than 100 schools in four states.
The plan is simple, and the goal is enormous. Go alone or with some others (adults, students) and visit a school near you. Take your Slurpee or vanilla frap with you. Stand on the grounds in front of the school and pray. If you want to record your investment and encourage others, snap a "footie" and upload a photo to the Footprints Facebook page.
The burden for "footprints" prayer began with this conviction, Davis says: "We often say we want to see things change. We want to see teenagers of our world capture what God has for them. For this to happen, it must begin with prayer.
Randy asks, "What would happen if we would make our schools a priority of prayer? What if someone would plant their feet on every school and pray for the students, teachers and administrators?
What if, indeed?
Prayer Zone Partners
Youth Alive is a missionary youth outreach whose members have the same burden for prayer that Randy Davis expressed. They have a campaign called, "Our Schools Matter" that connects churches to serve schools and mobilize students to impact their campuses. And a key part of OSM is another simple challenge: be a Prayer Zone Partner.
Like Footprints, PZP is so simple that it's genius. A Partner is someone who prays for the school, community and church. They can sign up on the PZP website, but the action point is "Pray as you drive through a school zone." Every school has a yellow caution sign warning motorists to slow down. Why not use that prompt to pray for the school? Why not load up your SUV and make it a spontaneous prayer outing with kingdom purpose?
The PZP website has some great "ways to pray" and other resources to keep the prayer time fresh, varied, and powerful. The resources help you invite others until every school in your community is covered.
Whether you're putting your feet on the parking lot, or taking your foot off the gas, you can make a difference in your prayer life, provide a teachable moment for students or other adults, and make an impact where millions of students and teachers spent a lot of their lives.
Doug Clark is the National Field Director for NNYM and is passionate about working together for the Kingdom of God.