The Culture of Prayer at Tech

Hey all you folks out there in the blog-sphere, my name is Hunter Davis and I have the opportunity to share with y’all the journey of how 24/7 got restarted at Tech. I’ll ask y’all to bear with me because writing is not my strong suit, so that being said I pray that God is prevalent in this blog and that he shines through this despite grammar or vocabulary.

For those of you who don’t know I was blessed with the opportunity to be apart of the leadership team for Foundation Retreat, and that’s where this journey all begins. Bess Caldwell and I were asked to specifically be the Ministry Chairs; our focus is prayer and service. For years now Foundation has held Campus House of Prayer, or CHOP as it is more commonly referred to, once or twice a year. Our goal and passion for this was to draw near to the Lord through prayer as a body. The major dilemma with that however was that we held it at The Wesley Foundation, Bess and I had noticed in years past that this had scared many people away from praying because they felt that you had to be apart of the Wesley to pray. So, in order to accommodate as many people as possible Bess and I began praying for a building to host CHOP that would be inviting to any and everyone.

After about three months of praying Bess and I were at our wits end with what to do, so we were ready to just settle with having it at the Wesley one more time. That is when God placed a true blessing in our lives.

In February 2012 the culture for prayer at Texas Tech changed forever. A wonderful woman of God by the name of Jill Hurley was called to begin seeking out opportunities to restart an international organization called 24/7 prayer. Through her obedience she eventually found out about Foundation and our CHOP, Jill saw this as a perfect opportunity to partner together in prayer. So she spoke to our director Adam, he was so impressed with the vision God had blessed her with that he gave me her number. I called her two days later and setup a meeting time. Bess and I met with her and the three of just had a love-fest for the next two hours. We all shared such a similar passion, which was just a complete answered prayer. 

From there we began planning for the first week of 24/7 prayer. At this point in our journey we were reminded that setup can't occur without prayer! Our first week went amazingly, lives were touched across all sorts of people groups. We saw high school freshman, engineering majors, and adults. The coolest aspect of prayer is that anyone and everyone can participate. 

After that first week of prayer, Bess and I knew we were called to be apart of 24/7 beyond this year. So after prayerfully considering things with Jill, Bess became the new treasurer of tech 24/7 and I became the new president! We are so beyond excited to see where things continue to take us.

At this very moment I am typing this from the prayer house during our second week of 24/7 prayer here at Texas Tech. Personally this week I have seen unbelievable commitment from so many individuals this week. I can truly say that God is moving this week. One of our many goals is to see him move everyday regardless of if prayer is in a specific place. 

So in wrapping things up, I would just encourage all of you that you mean so much to us as 24/7 staff and that your prayers are carrying a lot of weight. They are apart of what is changing this ministry and apart of what is changing Texas Tech! I encourage y'all to continue to be in prayer each and every single day! 

Love you guys!!!

Campus House of Prayer

What an amazing journey this last three months has been.  In January, I felt the Lord begin to stir my heart once again to invite students to join me in a season of 247 prayer for the Texas Tech Campus.  The only problem was I didn't know where we would host the event.  Likewise I also struggled with feeling alone in this journey.  I longed for students and adults alike to walk beside me, crying out for the Kingdom of God to come to Lubbock.  So I began to faithfully talk to student ministries and ask them if I could share with them about 247 prayer and the dreams God has given me for Tech campus.  I spoke with students from InterVarsity, Campus Crusade for Christ, Sigma Phi Lambda, BYX-fraternity and more.  I knew of a group of students who prayed together at a yearly event called Campus House of Prayer (CHOP), but I didn't know much about them beyond that.  I called and left a message with their director about my hopes to work with them in the future.  Then shortly thereafter, my friend Marcia, told me that I should call a church in town that owns a home and see if I could have my prayer events there.  Again, I called and left a message.  A couple of weeks went by and in an instant the proverbial drought ended and it started to rain.  Hunter Davis and Bess Caldwell, called me and invited me to meet them for coffee.  They are the Ministry Chairs of a group called Foundation, that hosts a camp for incoming freshmen at Tech.  They are the ones responsible for hosting CHOP.  I shared my vision for Tech 247 with them and just simply told them that I would love to help them in any way I could to grow CHOP.  Through tears in their eyes, they began to tell me of their dreams for Tech, which were exactly the same as mine.  They decided that instead of continuing on with CHOP, they would rather invest their efforts in growing and supporting Tech 247.  So together we decided that instead of doing prayer for one week a year, we wanted it to occur more often than that.  That same day, I was planning on meeting with a lady named Julia Morton who works as a liason between a church and a non-profit called Family Promise.  I met with her and little did I know, but there is a house just about a block from Tech Campus, where a church provides housing for homeless families 3 weeks per month.  The 4th week of that month, the house is vacant.  Julia offered to let us use the house for Tech 247 prayer.  Praise the Lord!  So in what seemed like just a couple of days I went from being a lone ranger to having community and a space to facilitate prayer.  We had about 1 week to organize our first month of prayer, and it was a great success.  We had about 60 students come and pray with us in February.  In March, the group from Foundation which is comprised of 144 students each signed up for 3 hours of prayer.  In addition to that, students from other campus ministries are coming to pray 24 hours a day this week.  The Lubbock Avalanche Journal is also going to do an article about us in next weeks papers. 

I sit here typing and am truly amazed at what God is doing here in Lubbock.  I'm just so grateful.  I moved back to Lubbock in 2005 after being with many people who now lead 247 USA, and have prayed for a similar minded group of people to form since then.  God answers prayers!  This week we will become an official student organization at Tech as well.  I continue to ask God to give us vision, wisdom and discernment as we begin the first steps of hopefully one day becoming a student lead boiler room.  As we navigate the road of being an intentional community amongst a transient group of people.

Keep us in your prayers this week as students pray, 24 hours a day, until Saturday, March 24th at 5pm.  Students will also be prayer walking several locations around Tech campus and the city this week.