Prayer is the garden from which strong, fruitful, ministry grows.
The healthiest, strongest, and longest lasting movements of evangelism, discipleship multiplication, and mission sending work grow out of this garden of prayer.
Considering the Bible says that the House of God will be called a “House of Prayer” in Isaiah 56:7, Matthew 21:13, and Mark 11:17, how would you say the ministry you belong to and help lead is living up to that nickname?
My first seven years in college ministry were not from a prayerful heart. The ministry was good enough, but surely limited with such little prayer emphasis. In many ways, I needed a ministry-heart transplant from God a few years ago to prioritize prayer in my heart as the leader, for my lead teams, and for our ministry as a whole to depend on God in prayer ministry.
Recently, a phrase came to my spirit that has marked me as a ministry leader: “The Prayer Tithe.” God applied it in two specific ways that may be helpful to you as well!
Prayer Tithe: My Time
I realized that over the course of this school year, I had (unintentionally) given 10% of my weekly work hours to college ministry prayer gatherings. Every week. If we assume most work weeks are 40 hours, I realized that I had been spending 4 hours leading prayer ministry for our students. A tithe of praying — spread out across Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
That of course doesn’t include the time I spend praying in secret (Matthew 6:6), with my family, or in other places. That is important too. Probably more important!
The prayer legend E.M. Bounds once asked,
“Where are the Christlike leaders who can teach the modern saints how to pray? Do our leaders know we are raising up a prayerless set of saints? Let them come to the front and do the work, and it will be the greatest work that can be done.”
Lifting our prayers up to God as leaders, and as a ministry, is an important Kingdom Work in the present. Just as significant, this work is also a future investment into this college-aged-generation — as we teach them how to pray and rightly prioritize the ministry of prayer.
A tithe is supposed to hurt the wallet a bit. In the same way, a prayer tithe with your working hours will cost you in other places on your calendaring. But, the Lord is ready to bless that investment and turn it back to something more fruitful than the original 4 hours would have accomplished without prayer.
Prayer Tithe: Big Group
Stop and think for a moment about how many total students your ministry reaches each week. Now, divide that number by 10. This smaller number represents 10% of your college ministry.
What would it take for you to see that number of students (10%) activate in weekly prayer ministry together? No ministry snaps their fingers and reaches that number. It will take you multiple semesters of casting vision, raising up leaders, building prayer teams, and praying in small numbers. But it is a marathon worth running, as you stretch your students and condition the group to deeply treasure the ministry of prayer.
Watch this short video teaching on “Raising Up A House of Prayer” from a Roundup breakout I taught in 2023. Two years later, by God’s grace, I have the receipts that these strategies work and are fruitful for all the components of ministry fruitfulness that you are working hard to grow. Our ministry has never had more students praying weekly than we do right now, and we have seen that have an exponential growth effect on our discipleship groups multiplying and students developing a love for the lost on their campus.
Raising Up A House of Prayer Teaching
This is an important week to consider the “prayer tithe.”
For the second consecutive year the National Collegiate Day of Prayer will be broadcast this week, to the world, from our state (Thursday, February 27th, from Bryan College Station). This is a 200 year old tradition of Christians from across the globe praying for revival on college campuses. What a privilege to be in the prayers of so many faithful Christians!
Perhaps this needs to be a week where you have a ministry-heart transplant, as the world prays for universities. If the leader’s heart is not gripped for serious, passionate prayer… then neither will our students be moved towards depending on God in prayer.
If resources and teachings like this are helpful for you, consider joining us at the Roundup Conference this May 14-16, 2025, in Ft. Worth. We will have dozens of speakers coming in to help you grow as a college ministry and do faithful + fruitful college ministry. If you register in February, be sure to use code FEB25 to save 25%.
