40 days of prayer starts today

 How often do you say you will pray for someone or something and then forget to actually do it? When I was in elementary school, I was always afraid of leaving someone out of my prayers. After rambling off a list of family members, friends, teachers and pets, I’d round every prayer off with, “and bless everything else too, God! Amen.”

Well, for the next 40 days the United Methodist Church is making a commitment to pray specifically for college campuses and you should too.

Why?

Because every fall, more than 17 million American students head off to college and university campuses (plus millions more worldwide) to become the next generation of teachers, accountants, mothers, fathers, doctors, CEOs, journalists and ministers. In college, they will grow and learn to make decisions that will shape their lives and the world around them, and it should be our prayer that as they make these decisions, learn these lessons and become these people that they do so having been shaped by Christ. 

The purpose of Pray40 is to call the Church to pray for college students and to help college students learn to pray.

The prayers have been written by campus ministers, college students, bishops, authors, pastors and other leaders, and collectively, they express a heart for God to inspire, challenge and transform the lives of college campuses and individuals.

Here is today’s prayer from the Rev. Tarah Trueblood, the executive director and campus pastor at the Wesley House and Campus Center at University of California, Berkeley.

Ready, set, pray. Can you make the commitment to pray for college students from August 23-October 1? And don’t worry, you can sign up to get prayers by e-mails, texts or even via Twitter (@CollegeUnion). See, you really have no excuse!