e3 Partners organizes mission trips to many different countries around the world, but with the COVID-19 pandemic making air travel difficult, they have had to cancel many.

But e3 Partners plans to conduct mission trips virtually. “I think it’ll be something that will continue when this is over,” Jim Shannon says. “Because not everybody can hop on a plane and fly 16 hours.”

Google Earth open on a phone. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Shannon describes the virtual mission trips this way: “Let’s say this is a week-long virtual mission trip. Starting Sunday night, we would have a one or two-hour session on Zoom. We would have the national partner on the line, and let that partner talk about what God is doing in that location. What his challenges are, what his success stories are.”

Attendees will receive remote training for how to share the Gospel well. Shannon says, “We’ll be doing virtual prayer walks. In other words, if they’re going to go out into a neighborhood, we’re going to get the coordinates on Google Earth and we’re going to do virtual prayer walks. While those teams are out there sharing the Gospel, we’re going to be prayer walking with them on Google Earth.”

People joining virtual mission trips will interact with partners and pastors on the ground, learn from them, and accompany them digitally as they minister. “Just because we can can’t go abroad physically, that doesn’t mean that we can’t participate in what God’s doing around the world,” Shannon says.

Other ministry adjustments

E3 Partners is adjusting their ministry in other ways as well, though the goal remains the same. Shannon says, “We have been preparing as a ministry for this the last 33 years. Our strategy for church planning has always been about identifying, equipping, and assisting local indigenous leaders to establish churches among their own people.”

Shannon says they have used video calls for a long time but now have to accelerate their program of video training and remote Bibles studies. In fact, they hope to have 1000 Bibles studies going by the end of May.

Nearly empty airplane flight during the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Shannon says many churches are very small and don’t have much digital presence to handle a time of social distancing. “We have been reaching out to churches, [equipping] them to be able to use technology to maintain community.”

You can watch a live e3 Partners Bible study on Thursday nights on their Facebook page.

As far as non-digital ministry, Shannon says, “I think our biggest ministry adjustment has probably been an acceleration of humanitarian aid. We’ve always done some of that because it is part of the Gospel. But it hasn’t been our main focus. Right now, it’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s probably the most effective entry strategy for the Gospel.”

Pray that God would light e3 Partners’ way through this transition and that they would not be afraid. And pray that He will provide e3 Partners what they need to conduct this new phase of ministry.

E3 Partners has begun planning for virtual missions trips, with international air travel being so disrupted. (Photo courtesy of e3 Partners on Facebook)

EveryCampus with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship helped support Collegiate Day of Prayer. InterVarsity’s Jon Hietbrink says yesterday, they saw people doing prayer walks on campuses, praying in churches, and hosting prayer events to see God move. Collegiate Day of Prayer even did a live simulcast from a historic Yale chapel that broadcasted all over the country.

(Photo courtesy of Collegiate Day of Prayer)

“Part of what I love about Collegiate Day of Prayer is there are lots of different avenues for people to get involved and to participate,” Hietbrink says. “The hope is that it’s, of course, not just one day of prayer, but actually a day to shine a spotlight on the strategic need that campuses [have] so that folks would continue to pray for campuses long after Collegiate Day of Prayer is done.”

Other ministries involved in Collegiate Day of Prayer included Chi Alpha, Luke 18, Campus Renewal Ministries, Cru, and Navigators.

Hietbrink says the unity demonstrated between Christian campus ministries for Collegiate Day of Prayer is really unprecedented. But to reach the over 4,000 college campuses in the US with the Gospel, one campus ministry can’t do it alone.

“God knows every single one of those campuses and every single student and faculty and staff that comes through the doors of those campuses…. When we pray through Collegiate Day of Prayer, we get the chance to join in something that Jesus is doing and we gain a greater measure of God’s heart for these campuses and these students. It’s a privilege to be in that space.”

It’s not just ministry leaders leading the charge. Students are also taking the initiative to prompt a movement of the Holy Spirit on their campuses.

For example, Hietbrink says he heard of one group of students from Tennessee who road tripped from Knoxville to New York City. Along the way, “I think they prayer walked something like 20 or 25 different schools as they road tripped up the eastern seaboard. They visited campuses, they made contacts on those campuses, sought to pray for the blessing of God to rest on those campuses.”

(Photo courtesy of Collegiate Day of Prayer)

The need for a spiritual revival among college students is great.

“This emerging generation — call them iGen or Gen Z — is fraught with anxiety, dealing with profound issues of loneliness and isolation from their peers. So the opportunity is really pronounced on college campuses for students to encounter the good news of Jesus in a fresh way, in a way that’s relevant and compelling to them that meets the needs that they have and that they experience on campus.”

Also, Hietbrink points out that college students are unique agents for the Gospel because they are more mobile and can go wherever God calls them.

Although Collegiate Day of Prayer is over, you can still adopt a local college to prayer walk through EveryCampus here!

EveryCampus can help you search for campuses near you. They also provide a customized prayer guide for the campus you prayer walk “to pray on-site with insight.”

For now, Hietbrink asks, “[Pray for] students and faculty and staff — that they would meet God, that they would encounter God on campus, [and] that He would empower those people who already follow Him to bear witness to His goodness and His Gospel on campus.

“I think we’re in the midst of witnessing something pretty historic right now. So it’s a great time to be engaged with young people and to be serving and loving college campuses and we couldn’t do it without the support of the broader Church.”

Header photo courtesy of EveryCampus.

But InterVarsity Christian Fellowship believes a revival is on the way. National Evangelist for InterVarsity, York Moore, explains that InterVarsity felt the Holy Spirit leading them to work with college students towards a revival in their EveryCampus initiative.

EveryCampus is a collaborative initiative dedicated to bringing Gospel communities to every college campus in America. How do they plan to do this?

It starts with prayer. “We designated 2019 as the year of prayer for EveryCampus. And our goal was to simply prayer walk on site, physically, every single one of the 4,948 campuses in America,” Moore says.

Over 3700 Campuses Prayer Walked

(Photo courtesy of EveryCampus.)

A Prayer walk is a simple act of walking through a college’s campus with a group of other volunteers to pray for a revival at that college and to pray the students there would come to know the Lord. EveryCampus provides Prayer-walkers with a helpful prayer guide to walk them through the steps of praying over a campus.

Currently, EveryCampus has prayer walked over 3,700 college campuses.

According to more, “That was really extremely exciting to see so many people… get behind the vision of prayer walking the campuses of the United States. But we want more. This thing is about revival.”

It’s not just volunteers getting on board to partner with EveryCampus; churches want in, too.
“EveryCampus is not just about campus ministries doing more campus ministry, it’s really about the church join us to reach these unreached campuses, the underserved campuses,” Moore says.

Reaching Every College with the Gospel

(Photo courtesy of EveryCampus.)

For EveryCampus and many other ministries, 2020 is the year of the Bible.

“It’s a global movement, to really ignite a Bible revival,” Moore says. This year the goal is to get everyone into a consistent practice of reading the Bible and knowing God’s Word.

EveryCampus will also use this year to launch Gospel communities on college campuses and evangelize college students. “We hope to mobilize thousands of people… to reach their campuses for Christ,” Moore says.

If you want to help bring a revival to America’s colleges, you can partner with EveryCampus to make that happen. Moore explains that there are still 1,000 campuses left to be prayer walked by people like you. Find one near you here.

You can also donate to InterVarsity here.

“EveryCampus is really also about mobilizing people to be on mission with Jesus on our college campuses and being led by the scriptures. So, this is a prayer movement, it is a Bible revival, all for the purpose of reaching every campus in every state of America,” Moore says.

Would you pray for a revival to happen on college campuses?

Header photo courtesy of EveryCampus.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is one of 150 ministries in the EveryCampus movement. As a next step, they’re encouraging churches to build relationships with college students and empower young Christians to reach their peers with the Gospel.

InterVarsity evangelist York Moore says later this year on EveryCampus’s website, “We’re going to be releasing a series of free premium content — resources that are going to empower everyday people to do what InterVarsity and Cru and Chi Alpha and all of the rest of the collegiate ministry organizations have been doing for decades.

“We’re giving away the best of what we have so that we can empower the Church to reach more students for Christ.”

(Photo courtesy of Element5 Digital via Unsplash)

These free resources will include a downloadable guide on how to identify a person of peace, build a relational network map, and grow an outreach team.

There will also be coaching centers opening soon so collegiate ministries can support churches in outreach with college students.

“I think in the past, the idea of partnership with these parachurch organizations in the Church has been, ‘You give us money so that we can go do what we’re the experts in doing.’ That is not the philosophy of InterVarsity or the EveryCampus movement,” Moore says.

“Partnership has to increasingly look like, how do we celebrate and empower and champion the best of who you are and the best of what you have to get the job done? Not just give us the check so we can go away and do it for you. But how can the Church now begin to do what InterVarsity and Cru and the other organizations have been doing for a long time?”

If we’re going to stir spiritual revival among young people today, it needs to reach beyond the church building. And young Christian college students need the support of the entire Body as they represent Jesus to their peers.

“A church can actually have a campus ministry in the walls of their church. But our hope and dream really would be, wouldn’t it be awesome to see a Gospel movement on those campuses so students can reach students for Christ in the dorms, in the cafeterias.”

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

Stay tuned for college outreach resources on EveryCampus’s website.

More than 2,000 colleges still need someone to do a prayer walk on their campus. Could that person be you?

Find a college campus near you to prayer walk here!

Meanwhile, on-campus or off-campus, please keep praying for college students. Pray for young believers to be connected to the local Church and grow in their faith. Ask the Lord to give them courage and wisdom as they represent Him.

Header photo courtesy of Ryan Jacobsen via Unsplash.

One student recently told the cookie team that their presence was a comfort to him. He knew that if he felt stressed or lonely, there was a group of people who cared about him.

(Photo courtesy of Ryan Jacobsen via Unsplash)

Stress and particularly loneliness have become a more ominous presence on college campuses.

A survey by the global health service company Cigna found college-aged young people in the US reported more feelings of loneliness than previous generations. The Higher Education Research Institute reports incoming freshmen rating both their physical and emotional health lower and lower every year.

These kinds of mental health concerns are familiar to InterVarsity Campus Staff Ministers.

“Students often don’t know how to have conversations, do conflict, and link theoretical faith values to day-to-day prayer, vulnerability, and community,” says Scott Hall, a veteran staff member based in Kent, Washington.

Before teaching about doctrine and Christian values, Hall says students need to be shown how to love, pray, talk, and share with each other.

(Photo courtesy of Element5 Digital via Unsplash)

One of the biggest differences between Generation Z and their predecessors is the presence of social media as they came of age. Social media provides a form of connection for college students, but it can only go screen-deep.

Greg Jao, InterVarsity’s Director of External Relations says, “Because they’re an ‘I don’t want to miss out’ kind of generation that’s highly attached to their smartphones, they’re also less willing to commit to meet together and much more willing to cancel out if something else better comes along.

“So when you have those three things happen all at the same time, you have a group of people who tend to be a little shallow in their conversations. They’ve always curated their image online. They aren’t willing to connect or commit, which makes it difficult to build long-lasting relationships. And they’re just profoundly disconnected from one another.”

InterVarsity is passionate about fostering Christian community and true connection on college campuses.

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity)

According to Jao, “One of the key ways that we try to serve the campus is [we] provide weekly Bible studies for students to get involved with…. It’s critical for students to have a weekly meeting where they know the same group of people are going to show up, are going to engage God’s Word, and then transparently and vulnerably interact with it.”

On the campus of San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico, the InterVarsity chapter has countered loneliness with a tradition of weekly, family meals on campus for students. “It helps to be together, share laughs, know each other, see what the whole community’s like,” says Campus Staff Minister Rashawn Ramone. Before, “they never really had time to be able to sit down with other people and listen to them.”

InterVarsity President Tom Lin believes genuine community, much needed on today’s campuses, is the starting place for campus ministry. “Students need to have places where they can be themselves, ask questions, find encouragement, and learn about Jesus,” he said. “Our 2030 Calling will offer this on more and more campuses every year.”

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity)

If you know a college student, Jao says opening your home or even sending an encouraging letter goes a long way. “What a profound witness to those students, but what a profound way to connect them into community with people across generations, which I think they desperately need.”

InterVarsity also wants to mobilize the Body of Christ to pray for college campuses. They created a resource with Cru called everycampus.com and are inviting believers to prayer walk every campus in the US by December 31st.

Click here to sign up and prayer walk a campus near you!

“We’ll send you resources. Just go to a campus, walk around, pray and listen to Jesus,” says Jao. “We need your prayers. This isn’t just a social issue. It’s a spiritual issue as well.”

InterVarsity starts the 2019-2020 school year with 1121 student and faculty chapters on 772 campuses across the US, from the Ivy League to community colleges. During the previous academic year, InterVarsity saw 3,140 decisions to follow Christ through our campus ministry, up 39 percent from ten years ago. InterVarsity is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students and a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Header photo courtesy of InterVarsity.

"Beyond Brothels" started when a Pioneer worker in Asia felt
called to serve the many women trapped in the sex trade. Many of the women this ministry tries to help work in
brothels called "pink light shops"–named from the neon pink lights advertising
their services.

While prostitution is illegal in this country in East Asia (unnamed for
security reasons), the practice is both accepted and rampant throughout all
levels of society. "Beyond Brothels" offers these women an
alternative way to make money: to make and sell jewelry for a living while being ministered to in
Christian love.

Women who work with "Beyond Brothels" regularly conducts prayer walks
through the city, and while on these prayer walks, they meet women desperate
for escape from that livelihood. Some
find employment with "Beyond Brothels," and many eventually come to faith in
Christ.

Recently, as two Pioneers partners prayer walked through one
of these neighborhoods, they met a pink-light shop owner who was interested in
hearing the Gospel. Some of the women
who work there also seemed open.

The prayer walkers plan to start a regular Bible study with
this group of women. It is important to
develop relationships with the women, because a series of casual encounters
will not likely break through their distrust and fear. Pray that the Bible study will bear fruit. Pray,
too, for women who are in the sex trade and want out.

There's more about Pioneer outreach in Asia here.

Knowing this, Greater Europe Mission is calling Christians from around the world to participate in the Day of Prayer for Europe.

This virtual prayer walk begins tomorrow (October 23), says GEM's President Henry Deneen. "We have directed people to our Web site, GEMission.org, where they will be directed to an interactive prayer map for all of Europe, North Africa and Turkey. They can click on any country, see pictures, [and] read specific prayer requests."

Deneen says many people around the world believe Europe is already Christian. "Even in the traditional places of London, Paris and Amsterdam, with the rise of Islam and the secularism that's so pervasive, many people are now saying that Europe, down through the Central Asian countries, is going to be called the 40-70 Window with a place of real missions emphasis."

The population of the entire region is about a billion people. Deneen says, "Most say that somewhere between one and two percent are followers of Jesus."

He says the region is quickly becoming Islamized. That's, in part, why they're holding this virtual prayer walk. "We're not enemies of Islam. We love Muslims, and we want to see Muslims experience the peace, love and joy of Christ. But when you see Sharia law now being recognized in parts of the UK, the reality of Islam is really crystallized."

Deneen says the Day of Prayer for Europe has taken on a life of its own. "People in the U.S. are keyed into it, and Canada, of course in Europe: prayer networks; this thing has gotten on Facebook in several different ways; people are having folks in their homes." While they were hoping for 10,000 prayer participants, it'll likely be many more.

The virtual prayer map will be loaded to GEmisssion.org today (October 22).