Campus Context Prayer Walk

NOTE: This resource is currently being tested. Please do not share this material beyond the testing team. Once we receive feedback, we will make a more highly-produced version of the video and materials below.

No college or university exists in isolation, unaffected by time or space. The story of a campus is connected to the story of the city, state, or even the nation. It’s even tied to the first inhabitants of the land. This Discipleship Cycle will help you grow in awareness of the campus context and better discern the spiritual climate.

The hope of this exercise is to:

Have God’s eyes and perspective for this campus.
Grow in awareness of spiritual strongholds that impact this campus and city.
Engage in retrospective justice through honoring the first people of the land.

Hear the Word

Respond Actively

A prayer walk is an interactive way you can take spiritual authority and do the critical task of interceding for your campus. It’s an on-site prayer meeting that has a way of stirring up ideas, insights, and faith in those who are gathered, in a way that sitting in a room may not.

This activity will help you plan and design a prayer walk focused on learning your campus context. Learning the history and context of our campus prepares us for engaging in justice that is effective for these students and faculty (people), at this university and city (place), and at this point in culture and history (time).

Before You Go:

Spend 15-20 minutes prayerfully reading through your campus website. Download this worksheet to help guide your research.

Download the Worksheet

Design A PRAYER WALK FOR YOUR COMMUNITY

Invite others to join you in learning about and praying for the campus. Use your Campus Context Research to help you write up your plan. Follow these steps to plan out your time:

Cast vision.
How would you explain why it is important to learn the context and history of your campus? Were there any scriptures that the Lord brought to mind as you reflected on your research? Write out your vision pitch. Once you gather a group of people to join you on the prayer walk, use this vision pitch to introduce the time.
Decide on stops for the prayer walk.
Your prayer walk will have three stops total (adjust for the sake of time if locations are close or far from one another).

Choose two locations from the list below to be stops one and two:
- A monument that represents your school’s heroes/values
- A place that reflects either justice or injustice experienced by students
- A place to represent the school’s founding - possibly admissions

third and final stop

Sample Prayer Walk

Decide on how you want to pray at each stop.
Are there certain prayer practices that would correlate with what you’re praying about? (ex. If students are feeling silenced, choose to pray out loud). Being prepared to give simple instructions on how to pray at each location will help others know how to engage. Here are some ideas:
- Liturgical or responsive prayer
- Pray silently, individually
- Pray in pairs
- Popcorn prayer
- Pray aloud, all at once
Prepare a debrief.
At the end of the prayer walk, help the group reflect on their experience. Come up with a few questions to help the group process their experience on both a personal and communal level as well as how their experience can shape the fellowship.

Debrief & Interpret

Reflect on your experience preparing and leading this prayer walk. Here are some questions to guide your reflection:

What was it like to pray together as a community for your campus? What impact did this prayer walk have on you personally and in the group you gathered?
As you practiced having spiritual eyes for the campus, what did you learn about God's heart and desires for your campus or city?
How can you help translate learning to action? How can you and your fellowship address the challenges and needs on campus?

Here is a sample Prayer Walk Script that you can modify for your campus once you've followed the steps above.

Sample Prayer Walk Script