Student Stories

Three young men from an inner-city school in Los Angeles felt led by the Lord to start a Christian ministry on their campus. They prayed together all summer. In the fall, they found a YFC staff person who trained them and coached them on building a strong outreach on their campus. They say that prayer was the thing that motivated them to make an impact on their campus for the Lord.

Students at Los Alamitos High School in California wanted to start a ministry. The school administrators were very much against this happening. The students hooked up with their youth pastor, Youth for Christ, and some Christian lawyers. They were careful to follow the lawyers’ advice and gently shared with the administrators their constitutional rights to organize a Bible club. Slowly, the administrators came around and had the school disctrict lawyers come up with an official Christian club policy. This policy made it possible for every middle school and high school in the district to have student-led Bible clubs on campus!

At one time, the Bible club at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA became very small. During the summer, one girl began to pray every day on her lunch break for an awakening to come to her campus. She worked near the campus, so she would pray in her car next to it or walk laps around the school while praying. That fall the Bible club experienced huge growth and many students found Christ! This went on for almost six years, long after this girl had graduated!

“At Mission Viejo High School, we have a prayer team called Fuel, as prayer will be the fuel for the rest of our on-campus ministries. This team, composed of ten members, has the goal of praying for every student on campus by name over the course of the upcoming school year. By splitting up the 2,500 person student body … each member will have the responsibility to pray for about 250 students – that is one person every day of the school year. In addition, each member of the team will add members of the school faculty and staff to their list so that virtually every person will get prayed for. For the members of the Fuel team, this commitment will only take about 10 or 15 minutes a day and we are sure that the consequent blessings will be amazing.” – Brian Bushman (student, MVHS, class of ’04)

On many campuses with multiple Christian groups, there are multiple strategies for keeping unity. Poly High in Long Beach, CA has monthly meetings with all other groups on campus. Many schools’ clubs meet for prayer together or use See You At The Pole as a way to connect.

After praying for a way to serve their campus, students from one Southern California school decided to bring free pizza to lunch one day. They went out in twos with a box or two of pizza. They went up to groups during lunch and asked if they wanted pizza or prayer. Some students took the free piece of pizza, but most wanted prayer. So each time the students got a request, they asked if they could pray right there with the person. They went around from group to group all over the quad. They were never made fun of … it seems that MANY students wanted to be prayed for … and they got their wish.