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.
To start a campus prayer walk ASAP, follow these suggestions:
1. Set a Time and Place for All Walkers to Meet
Have everyone who wants to pray for the campus gather at a specific time and place on campus. Consider holding the walk at a time when people are active on campus.
You might want to reserve a room on campus where you will start and end together. If so, choose a quiet space that will have minimal interruptions, and where you can sit together.
Split the group into pairs or threes to cover various parts of campus; assign locations if you’d like. Collect one person’s cell phone number from each small group.
Agree on a time to return and debrief the prayer walk together. Plan on an hour for the walk, and perhaps another hour for debriefing.
2. Ask God to Show Up
Appoint one person to pray over the whole prayer walk. Have them invite God to speak to each prayer group through images, Bible verses, songs, situations seen around campus, etc. Pray that each participant would be open and responsive to God during the walk, expecting God to answer.
3. Start Walking, Praying, and Paying Attention
As each group starts walking to different places on campus, participants can be praying that God would show them what they could start praying for.
For insights, pay attention to:
- What’s being advertised on bulletin boards. What values do they promote?
- What students are doing, wearing, and saying as you pass by.
- The spiritual climate on campus. Do you sense any spiritual strongholds?
- Activities and situations in progress at the student union, dorms, dining halls, libraries, religious spaces, and other important campus locations.
Make prayer stops as needed, if your group feels the Holy Spirit prompting you to spend time in prayer for a specific person, building, department, etc.
You may want to have someone be in charge of taking notes on what you’re each observing.
4. Re-Group and Debrief
Debriefing the prayer walk is extremely important!
When everyone has returned, have one person from each small group sum up what their group prayed for and what they felt God reveal to them. It is helpful to note that one person may receive a picture or a word and not know what it means, but God may give an insight to someone else in the room.
Anything that is clearly not from God can be set aside (such as any direction that contradicts Scripture).
After every group shares, highlight any patterns, themes, and broad concepts that came up across the multiple prayer groups.
Assemble a list of specific prayer requests based on the common themes; have someone type them up and distribute them for participants to continue praying in the days and weeks ahead. Share these observations and requests with others in your chapter. If your chapter has a regular prayer meeting, bring the list along to that as well.
After the debriefing time, the large group can pray collectively for awhile. Have one person close the prayer time.
