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Prayer for Students

The following prayer was written by “Daniel Jones, InterVarsity Artist-in-Residence, who led at the student-focused evening service at Knox on October 15th” and taken from the Knox Presbyterian Church‘s weekly email.

Please join us in praying:

for the new students who have arrived on GTA campuses this fall, that they would find places of belonging, that growing friendships and relationships would solidify.
for returning students, that Jesus would protect, and walk with them to flourish and thrive, and lead them to be people of welcome for first years and new students.
for those curious and wrestling and intrigued by Jesus, that He would meet them and find them in their questions and wonderings, and for students who aren’t yet interested in Jesus to encounter Him, that they would make unexpected connections in unexpected places, like conversations over food, or in the midst of study, that will change the trajectory of their lives.
for the campus fellowships on each campus, that Jesus would build communities that would gather God’s people to be equipped and fed by your Word and then sent out to serve those in their midst.
for student leaders of campus fellowships, for boldness and courage in their love and sharing of faith, and for wisdom in conversations, for generosity of hospitality and the ability to share the Word and teach scripture through bible study.
for Christian students, that they would have a willingness to go to the edges of campus, to the uncomfortable places, to love and serve and care for people who may not be like them for the sake of the kingdom.
for faculty and campus workers of faith to be blessing and light, that they would share stories of faith and offer wisdom, and that Jesus would strengthen and empower them.
for the all Campus Ministry staff and volunteers, that Jesus would encourage them and renew their vision; provide partners to love and serve alongside them; grow profound love in them for the students that they know and for those whom they have yet to meet; give them endurance to persevere in the hard seasons, and gratitude to celebrate and share the good stories of your faithfulness.
for all the campuses in the GTA, that they would be places from which God’s people are sent out – into life and into work – and that they would reflect and bring glory to Jesus where ever He sends them!”

Amen.

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Less victim, less pressure, more grace, more hope.

Jonathan Haidt, made infamous for his article on trigger warnings and coddling of the American Mind, was recently in the news again concerning the well-being of teens and young adults (see article, and Haidt’s own words in article1 and article2). The argument once again points to social media as playing a significant role in the well-being of youth (see also Twenge’s now famous article on whether smartphones have destroyed a generation).

Another part of Haidt’s argument about the decreased well-being of young adults is his articulation that certain ways of thinking, “say identifying with, or privileging victims and a victim status, tends to disempower people because it puts someone else in charge of your life.” (Robinson) While we should acknowledge that many of us, and some more than others for various reasons, have been and continue to be victims of unjust behaviour and/or institutions, the problem comes not from recognizing that we are victims, but by allowing being a victim to become one’s sense of identity. Victims have limited agency and there is limited focus on resiliency. Without conversations about resilience and agency, people are more likely to become depressed.

While this is an interesting conversation to be had in terms of how such thinking is affecting young adults, especially at university, it’s also an interesting conversation in wondering, like Robinson, “if there is some cross-over to all this in churches.” Have we lost our sense of agency in the church? Or, more accurately, have we forgotten God’s agency?

Robinson notes that in the “more liberal and progressive church context, there’s a lot of emphasis on the problems of the world, and on what you should be doing about it. Which begins to sound a lot like law, not gospel. It’s all about what you should do or feel or think. If God is in the picture, it’s about what God needs us to do, demands that we do. There’s little emphasis on what God has done or is doing on our behalf or on God’s capacity to bring good out of or in the face of evil. So it’s kind of all on us.”

That sounds exhausting and debilitating.

In a world where so many are exhausted and overwhelmed, when we feel like we have too little agency and too much responsibility, church can’t be a place that tries to give us more of that. Church – and all Christian organizations – need to be places of grace and hope.

Please pray with us that we in the ministry might indeed be one of those places where we extend grace and help people hope.