Campus America: Campus Iowa: Awakening Stirs at Iowa State

Campus America wrote a story about what is happening here at the Iowa State Prayer room. Campus America is the organization that the ISU prayer room is part of. They have the vision is to have 24/7 prayer at every college campus to give every student the opportunity to experience the presence of Jesus Christ. Find more stories from around the country or learn more about their vision here.

Campus America: Campus Iowa: Awakening Stirs at Iowa State

Prayer is the greatest force that we can wield. It is the greatest talent which God has given us. He has given it to every person. We may differ among ourselves as to wealth, as to our social position, as to our education, as to our ability, as to our inherited characteristics; but in this matter of exercising the greatest force that is at work in the world today, we are on the same footing.

-John Mott, founder of the 1910 World Missionary Conference and 1946 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, raised in Iowa



Before the spring 2010 semester began, two different groups of students and campus ministry leaders felt God calling them to fast and pray for revival to come at Iowa State University. As Lance Allgood, a 2009 graduate who is now a leader for the campus ministry known as Salt, and a handful of others met during the holidays, they heard God tell them to begin the semester with a 21-day fast.

“We were all just burning to see God move at Iowa State,” Lance said. “When [the students] came back to school, we decided to do some fasting. I felt an invitation from the Lord saying, ‘If you want to be close to the heart of what I'm doing this semester, you should do this fast.’”

Upon arrival back to campus in January, sophomore Matt Cline and a group of others felt strongly that they needed to establish a 24-7 prayer room for the campus. They called every church within a mile of campus to see if they could help, but none were able. Matt didn’t relent, though, and at the last minute, a church across the street from the university opened up a 30-seat chapel to them. They launched their season of prayer at 10 p.m. on January 24.

“That night God poured his Spirit down on the room,” Matt said. “More than 25 people ended up there praying through the night singing, preaching and praying. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.”

On January 25, which marked day 21 of the fast, Lance ran into a friend who had been in the prayer room all night. He shared with Lance about how they felt strongly that revival was at hand and saw God moving powerfully in the people that had gathered. They even saw a young man come to the Lord in the wee hours of the morning. Lance hadn’t heard of the prayer room or met Matt until then, but very soon after joined in helping to lead the prayer room.

After a while, the students and leaders on campus felt like they needed to perpetuate the prayer they had begun. They are now indefinitely praying 24-7 and have seen God continue to heal people physically and emotionally, and have also seen more salvations. Lance and Matt both said that, admittedly, the transition from simply doing a season of prayer to praying indefinitely and around the clock has been a challenge for them. Nonetheless, they recognize the significance of what God is doing on their campus.

“We've been transitioning out of the honeymoon stage and into the long, flat straight-away where you just have to dig in and keep going,” Lance said. “The first two weeks were awesome.Now, several of the shifts go unfilled, which is ok.The goal is Jesus being lifted high, not us keeping some streak.People are still crying out to Him passionately. We just have to keep re-filling the vision tank—that we want to see revival on campus, but at the same time that crying out to Him in the middle of the night is inherently valuable in and of itself.”

“God is sovereign,” Matt said. “He is good and loves it when his people are humble enough to come to him in prayer. When this first started, some people gave me some credit for starting this.God proves to me everyday it is nothing we do and nothing I have done.What is happening here is God pouring out His power and loving His children because He is good, and I love being small part of the thing God is doing.”

[Story by Rachel Wegner]