THE HEDGE: National Collegiate Day of Prayer

A group of our students was involved in planning and hosting a prayer wall on campus this week on the National Collegiate Day of Prayer. We partnered with other campus ministries to make this event happen, and I was pleased to see some unity in the campus ministries as we came together in this way.

What a variety of prayer requests were written on the boards! I had the opportunity to spend about an hour with some of our students, praying over the requests. While I was there, I spoke with a student from another campus ministry who shared that he had presented the gospel to another student earlier that morning while he wrote his requests. By God's grace, the student who heard the gospel put his faith in Christ! It's such a blessing to see unity among God's people leading to the spread of the gospel on campus!

I was invited to be on a couple of podcasts in January and February, so I wanted to highlight those podcasts for your listening consideration.

The Student Ministry Matters (studentministrymatters.com) podcast is hosted by Dan Carson, who leads Student Ministry Matters (the Baptist Missionary Association of Arkansas Youth Department). Dan and his guests aim to provide support, encouragement and connection for those who work with students in ministry settings. I can attest firsthand to his passion for helping student ministers, particularly those serving in volunteer and part-time positions. On this episode of the SMM podcast, one of my students, Kaitlyn, joined Dan and me in a conversation about the value of college campus ministry at the University of Arkansas.

Harold Smith hosts the Backwoods Baptist podcast (youtube.com/@backwoodsbaptistpodcast). Harold is a jack of all trades and a master of some. He pastored for many years and now leads a ministry where he provides interim pastoral leadership for churches that are without a pastor and not in good health. He also has a bookstore in Van Buren where he gives away free Christian literature — Backwoods Book Company. As the Backwoods Baptist (Smith) says about the podcast, “We seek to apply a heaping helping of country-fried common sense to the issues facing Christians today." On this episode of the Backwoods Baptist, Harold and I go unscripted and talk about various topics. No telling what you might hear, so you probably want to give it a listen.

These guys have both been a great help to me personally, and I'm glad they had me join them for these conversations. I'm hoping you'll enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoyed having them.

That's what I see when I look back on the last month at The Hedge.

Would you join us in praying for the following requests:

• Student requests from the prayer wall (including revival on campus, salvation for families and friends and unity among Christians).

• Wisdom and guidance for adding a ministry team member

• Laborers in the harvest