Tarleton: 48 hours of praying and planting seeds of hope

The message Jesus proclaimed—and lived—never was never meant to be kept to ourselves. It was meant for all! Although that’s something we say often with our mouths, do our actions really show that?

Warren EthridgeJesus didn’t offer himself up as a loving sacrifice for just one side of an argument. He died for all. For everyone to hear this message, it has to be shared. But sometimes, the struggle in being the message bearer isn’t necessarily the message but how it’s delivered.

With a message the world considers politically incorrect, it sometimes is difficult to disagree with people in a loving way that continues a conversation.  

In preparation for Easter weekend, our staff decided to host a 48-hour prayer tent in the middle of campus. This 20-foot by 20-foot tent provided a place where any student could come pray about specific concerns or have someone pray for them. 

We set up four stations in the tent to help students learn how to pray prayers of adoration, confession and thanksgiving to God and offer a prayer of supplication for their peers. We also had a booth where we accepted prayer requests and prayed for any students who wanted it. We started at noon on Tuesday and continued until noon on Thursday. We located our tent next to the student center on campus, near the main traffic flow. 

Taking the initiative

It was exhilarating to see some of the leaders in our ministry take the initiative of reaching out to their friends as they passed by on their way to dinner and invite them in to pray with them. This was the front lines of ministry on our campus, and it was so exciting to see people with varying levels of faith come ask for prayer at the tent.

One individual in particular stands out. Morgan first came to the tent as I was explaining to someone else how to navigate through the stations. She initially impressed me as someone who was very nervous and curious about where she was. She was wearing some of the press-on NOH8 (No Hate) tattoos being given away at a booth behind us. I greeted her and finished explaining the stations and then asked her if she had any questions about how the tent was set up. “Can non-Christians pray here?” she asked.

Although I was not expecting a question like that, I told her of course they could and welcomed her in. I watched as she walked from station to station quickly and viewed what each entailed and started to leave. She paused in the doorway, and I quickly asked her name. I learned a little about her and why she was at Tarleton, and then followed up by asking about her initial question when coming to the tent. “How would you identify yourself besides as a non-Christian?”

The next hour and forty-five minutes were full of questions. I asked her what she believes and asked her to explain her answers. She asked me questions about why I believe what I do, along with many other topics. Ultimately, Morgan is a nonbeliever who used to consider herself a very “religious” person. She went to church every week after a great youth camp experience with a friend and even got baptized.

Fear crept in

But somewhere down the line, fear crept into Morgan’s life—fear about whether the Bible is true, fear about whether she really gets to go to heaven, fear about separation from the rest of her family who didn’t believe, fear about what God would call her to do. All of these plagued her thoughts. It finally reached a point where all that fear was causing her to slip into a deep, dark depression. She didn’t want to worship a God who let people live in fear, and after several bad experiences within church, she walked away from her faith. 

We spent much of our time walking through her past and tried to dismantle some of her fears about faith and who God is. I told her after talking about this for an hour, it seemed to me that she hadn’t put her faith in God to save her. If she had put her faith in the same God we both believed in, than there’s no way she could lose her salvation. Romans 8:37 states that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers…nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I explained to her it sounded like she had put her faith in a religion—not in a relationship with Jesus. There should never be that kind of fear when it comes to our relationship with God. It was very obvious that what happens after death is something that concerned her greatly. We continued to trade questions and discuss why we believe what we believe. 

At the end of our conversation, Morgan got up to leave. She thanked me for being so open and not being judgmental when she first came in to the tent and talking with her even though we were so different. I thanked her for also having an open mind and asked if I could pray for her. We prayed that if Jesus was real, he would reveal himself to her and would replace the fear in her life with peace in such a way that she would know exactly who he was. As she left, she turned and surveyed the prayer tent and some of our student workers who had been manning the stations and praying for her. “I wish there were more Christians like you guys,” she said.

Seeds were planted

Morgan returned to the tent a couple of more times within our 48-hour prayer emphasis and talked to some of our other students. I am so excited for the seeds God allowed us to plant in her life. Please pray for Morgan, as God continues to draw her to himself. Pray that she continues to have positive encounters with other Christians on campus. This is the front line of our ministry. This is where we get to proclaim a message of reconciliation. 

Warren Ethridge is serving with Go Now Missions as a campus missionary intern at Tarleton State University in Stephenville.