Facilitating Prayer Group Formation at a Community College
How it began:
At church in 2017, I ran into a faculty member I had known and worked with when she served as director of nursing at a community college. We had partnered to start a Nurses Christian Fellowship group for her students. As we talked, I mentioned that InterVarsity also does faculty ministry and that if she had even just a couple of colleagues who wanted to pray together, I would help them get started. A few days later, she texted to say that she couldn’t get this idea out of her mind. At her present institution, she was serving on the chancellor search committee and needed to pray. Meanwhile, I attended our Pacific Region staff conference, where Kathy Tuan-MacLean spoke about spiritual formation and had us write a name or people group to intercede for on a popsicle stick. I wrote “Hawaii faculty.”
I intended to email my faculty contact when I got home to follow up, but before I could do so, she emailed me. She said she talked with a few colleagues and gave me a date and time they were planning to meet and asked if I could be there. Of course I showed up, and God moved powerfully. At the first gathering there were five faculty/staff, and I shared about the four faculty loves: love for God, love for the campus, love for one’s academic discipline, and love for the world. As we shared prayer requests and prayed for one another and the campus, there was not a dry eye in the room. The group was amazed that they were praying to Jesus on campus, with colleagues, in the middle of the day. God started something powerful. We asked if they’d like to meet again. They all said yes. We asked how often. They said weekly.
What is happening:
- Frequency: This group of faculty and staff has been meeting weekly with a few breaks for the holidays and part of the summer.
- Format: They meet for 30-60 minutes to share prayer requests and to pray for each other, the campus, students, administration, colleagues, and more.
- Participation: Sometimes the prayer meeting has two or three people. Sometimes there are 10-15. Everyone is welcome whenever they are free. They also have an email list where the meeting time and location and prayer requests are shared. Participants have come from various departments and programs: nursing, chemistry, health sciences, hospitality management, the chancellor’s office, student activities, information technology, student success office, etc.
- Leadership: A core group coordinates, but the group leads itself.
- Inter-campus gathering: In April 2018 the group held an inter-campus faculty gathering they called “Fan into Flame” where they invited colleagues from other campuses on Oahu. The hope was that the Lord would inspire other faculty to start prayer groups on their respective campuses as well. Faculty from three institutions participated.
- Mission: The group is living out the four faculty loves in outreach and witness, community involvement, and excellence in research and teaching. They spur one another on to greater faith and collaborate in ministry among faculty and students.
What I as staff do:
- Attend periodically: I visit the prayer group once a month and let them know ahead of time that I will be there. The word is that my attendance encourages others to show up.
- Maintain vision: I think one of my main roles, as with student groups, is to help maintain vision. Sometimes both student and faculty groups can become too inwardly focused, so I help the group to think and pray outwardly as well.
- Introduce prayer styles: Whenever I visit I try to introduce a prayer style to help the group engage with God and prayer in different ways. Some things we’ve done include: making and praying over network maps (“aloha webs” in Hawaii), repeating Scripture while emphasizing different words, praying fruits of the Spirit over the campus, praying in the opposite spirit (i.e., unity instead of division, joy instead of distrust, etc.), praying over class rosters, and more.
- Encourage listening prayer: I encourage faculty to learn to hear God’s voice for themselves and for others. Frequently I will sense a word from God to share with the group, and by God’s grace the faculty have been blessed and often remember words from even months before.
- Follow up: I’ll occasionally follow up with specific faculty via email or after prayer meetings to offer encouragement or to talk. Less frequently I will grab lunch or meet up with individuals outside of the prayer group. Since I’m not around very often, the group has learned to lean on one another instead of on me.
Fruit we’ve seen:
- Sensing that the campus needed more joy, two participants started playing ukulele in the middle of campus once a week. It’s a physical act of changing the spiritual climate. Other staff and students occasionally join in.
- One participant is especially invitational and will talk with basically anyone about Jesus. She has her aloha web (network map) in her office and prays over it regularly. Over a dozen others have become involved with the prayer group because of her invitation.
- A faculty prayer group participant reached out to a fellow faculty (not in the prayer group) who she saw was having a difficult time. He shared with her that his wife had cancer, and the faculty prayer group participant took his concern to the group for prayer. In November this man followed up and shared, “She [his wife] went to the doctor last week and her scans came back clean. She is feeling great... her doctor is cautiously optimistic and will continue to monitor her. The only logical conclusion I can draw (as a mathematician) is that prayer works.”
- A faculty member prayed for and received funding to send an indigenous Pacific Islander (Micronesian) student to a conference to present undergraduate research on biofuel from coconuts.
- Inspired by what God is doing here, a prayer group has begun and is growing at the University of Hawaii.
Talking with GFM leaders was really helpful for me before and at the beginning stages of the group getting started. I am grateful for Kathy Tuan-MacLean, Lisa Liou, and Janna Louie who offered great insight. It has been a joy to see this prayer group become established and flourish and inspire others.
