Denton: Power of prayer and pancakes

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On Wednesday of the second week of this semester, the Baptist Student Ministry participated in an event called the “International House of Prayer and Pancakes.”

student sharel gaskey130Sharel Kaye GaskeyStudents from the various ministries on campus collaborated on the event centered around prayer to the one and only God and reaching our campus in the name of Jesus.

To do this, we set up three couches in free-speech areas and assigned a Christian student to be there every hour to welcome students that passed by. The believers invited other students to sit and pray with them. The stories from that time are enough to blog about, but something more amazing happened that I know made the angels rejoice in heaven.

After a whole day of praying with students, we made some pancakes and met in the Student Union Building to pray and worship together with anyone and everyone who was willing to come.

Challenges

We knew God was going to do something big when the church that sponsored the pancakes backed out, and we had to buy and make the pancakes on our own. Then the BSM director got really sick, and although she still worked really hard to make sure we had everything we needed, she asked me—the new campus missionary intern—to speak. On top of that, our amazing worship leader was losing her voice, so two other girls and I jumped in and led worship for the 30-plus students who were present.

With hot pancakes almost ready, after the music died down, I was introduced. I read from Colossians 2 and Ephesians 3 and talked about being rooted in Christ. Without much elaboration, I encouraged the students to be rooted in Christ because without him, we can do nothing. I suggested that they get into small groups to pray for each other and for the campus.

Invitation

After a few more announcements and one more song, I got word that someone wanted to give her life to the Lord. So, before we ate pancakes, I grabbed the mic and said, “If anyone here wants to rededicate your life, give your life to the Lord, or has already done it tonight, please raise your hand. “


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The girl who I was told accepted Christ didn’t raise her hand, but another student did! So, we gathered around both our new brother and sister in Christ and welcomed them into the family.

We prayed over them and connected them to one of the ministries that was there. We celebrated with pancakes, and I know the angels were rejoicing, too.

I had read from Ephesians 3:30 that God is able to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. He did exactly that on our campus.

Sharel Kaye Gaskey is serving this semester as a campus missionary intern at Texas Woman’s University in Denton through Go Now Missions.


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