Feb 2023 will mark the 200-year anniversary of when every major denomination and university in America first adopted a national day of prayer for colleges in 1823. For almost 100 years, churches across our nation set aside the last Thursday of February to unite in earnest prayer for God to awaken and capture the hearts of their sons and daughters on college campuses. This is the oldest day of prayer in American history that persisted for nearly a century.
Though dormant and forgotten for most of the 20th century, the Collegiate Day of Prayer was rediscovered and revived in 2010 by a group of collegiate ministry leaders. Over the past 12 years, tens of thousands of students, parents, pastors and church members have convened on the last Thursday of February to pray for 20 million students on 4,200 college campuses.
With this 200th anniversary upon us, we believe this upcoming Collegiate Day of Prayer on Feb 23, 2023 could give local churches a strategic opportunity to catalyze prayer in their congregations for God to once again awaken and capture the hearts of sons and daughters on local college campuses. The current statistical trend is that 66% of our high school students will stop attending church in their college years, and more than half won’t return to a local church. We want to partner together in united and fervent prayer to change this.
With this in mind, we’d like to invite you to the Collegiate Day of Prayer Summit on Sep 27-28 via ZOOM. It will be a 24-hour leadership gathering of denominational, church network and collegiate ministry leaders both in person and online via zoom where we will be able to share, discuss and pray for our goal of every college campus in America adopted in prayer by the local church down the street.
Here are key meeting times on zoom for the Collegiate Day of Prayer Summit:
- Tues 9/27 @ 630p – 930p PT — History + Vision for Collegiate Day of Prayer
- Wed 9/28 @ 830p – 1130a PT — Prayer, Strategy & Collaboration for CDOP23
- Wed 9/28 @ 1230p – 2p PT — Roadmap to CDOP23