PLAINVIEW — “Students are hungry and responding to the gospel,” said Donnie Brown, Director of Spiritual Life at Wayland Baptist University. “We’re not doing anything different from what we’ve always done. This is a movement of God.”
“God is doing something here at Wayland,” affirmed JR Dunn, Baptist Student Ministries Director. “Students are praying and showing their faith.”
Brown said he began to recognize God’s movement during the fall semester, when students began to approach him to talk about spiritual life on campus. “We began talking about what they could do to help us change the spiritual climate on campus. I challenged them to pray. I challenged the students and myself.”
God began to reveal what needed to be done as the spring semester began, the Director of Spiritual Life said. “I sent an email to all students asking if any of them would be interested in serving on a chapel prayer team.” The response was more than expected.
An application and personal interview process was used to determine how many of those who expressed interest were serious. “We wanted to make sure they were believers, then, we wanted to make sure that each of them had a daily prayer life of their own.”
Brown had expected a handful of students to have a genuine interest and heart for praying for fellow students, but God surprised him with more than a dozen truly concerned about changing the spiritual climate of the campus. Instead of one chapel prayer team, two were created.
“Through expectant prayers and softened hearts, God has left His fingerprints on this campus, yet the work is not finished; it is never finished until all of His children get to know Him as a Father,” said Adriana Armstrong, a junior from Maricopa, AZ, who along with other students started coming early to chapel and praying over the auditorium.
“They would pray all the way through,” Brown said.
A designated time was incorporated in each chapel service with team members spreading across the front of Harral Auditorium where students could come for prayer.
“We had never done anything like that before,” the Director of Spiritual Life said. “I didn’t know how the students were going to respond. You do that in a church, and all you get is crickets — nobody. So, the first time we offered it, we just told them the prayer team was here.”
God provided more than Brown and the prayer teams were expecting.
“People came,” he said. “I just thought, OK, Lord, I see. Little faith Donnie, here we go, and he was saying, ‘I got you.’”
Brown said God continued to move week after week.
“There are more and more who come down to receive prayer from their peers,” he said of how the movement continues. “More and more students are open to what God has for them. They are open to seeing what God would have them to do. They are searching for truth, searching for God to be involved in their life.”
Amid the surge in students seeking God came Wayland’s Encounter Week, an annual event that’s never really been spiritually disruptive. This time it was different.
“It’s called Encounter Week because our whole goal is that students would encounter Christ in a real and tangible way,” the Director of Spiritual Life explained. As the movement of God became more obvious, students began to pray that Encounter Week would bring a harvest. They also started putting hands and feet to their prayers.
“Students started inviting their friends,” Dunn said of students involved in Baptist Student Ministries. “They started doing ministry. They made specific contacts.”
Robert Purvey, who has built one of the most solid young adult ministries in the country through his ability to communication with people of every ethnicity and socioeconomic background, was the perfect speaker.
“The first night there was a pretty good crowd,” Brown said of Trinity Chapel, where the evening services for the three-day event were held. “It looked full the first night, but even more students came the next night. We were seeing that God was moving.”
Two events took place Wednesday — a morning chapel service in Harral Auditorium and the third evening session in Trinity Chapel. Brown knew that the chapel service offered a captive audience with some students required to attend for credit.
“I told our speaker that chapel would be the largest concentration of lost students, and I just wanted him to give a gospel presentation and offer an opportunity to respond,” Brown said. God moved.
“As I left my office, I grabbed 12 response cards. But I learned quickly that 12 was not enough because more than 30 came forward to make some kind of decision.”
About half of those decisions were students who came to Christ. The response was overwhelming, spiritually and physically.
“They were coming and saying, ‘I want to follow Jesus,’” Brown recalled. “I was calling for BSM to help counsel. Our President, Dr. Donna Hedgepath and her husband, Pete, were sitting on the front row praying. I tapped them and said, ‘Can you help us?’”
The image of Wayland’s new President praying with a student while others prayed around them was a moment reflective of how God has been moving at the university.
“Encounter week created a worshipful and vulnerable space that we could listen and encounter God,” said Rosa Ramirez, a senior from Lubbock who has been on the chapel worship team this year. “I have been praying about Wayland and praying for the seeds that were being planted in chapel. I encountered God by seeing a change on campus and seeing students on campus worship Him and inviting Him into their lives.”
But God wasn’t done yet.
Because it was the last night of Encounter Week, Dunn, Brown and student leaders expected more students than usual at Trinity Chapel, but God moved in an unexpected way again, more than tripling the crowd.
“We kept having to bring out chairs — chairs and more chairs,” Brown said.
Dunn estimated that more than 150 students crowded into the small chapel.
““It was a packed house as Robert preached from Romans 12:1-2 about offering your body as a living sacrifice — laying it all down, surrendering to Jesus,” Brown said.
Purvey emphasized renewing the mind and offered an invitation for salvation.
“Two more students made a profession of faith,” Brown said. “Then he offered an invitation to believers who just wanted to surrender and live their lives for Jesus. The altar was full.”
“The presence of the Lord brought many to tears,” Armstrong said. “Encounter Week was a week of surrender by the many students who were already seeking, a testimony of proof that God is only waiting for you to let Him in before He begins a big work within.”
What the Director of Spiritual Life described as “sweet time of celebration thanking God” followed the service. “It was like a glimpse of Heaven, just a beautiful moment,” Brown said.
Dunn noted that there was peer-to-peer counseling as students stayed late to talk about what God was doing in their lives.
“Encounter was exactly what we had prayed for,” Brown said. “We had prayed for a harvest, and God said, ‘Ok, here it is.’”
In the days since Encounter Week, God has continued to move. Players have come to their coaches requesting to pray after football practices. “After every practice they will not leave without someone leading a prayer,” one coach told Brown.
A soccer coach said a player approached him about doing a student-led devotional after practice, and the track team has started a student-led Bible study.
Dunn said many students are getting plugged in to BSM and FCA. “Friends are inviting friends. God is doing something.”
“I believe what happened during Encounter Week was proof the students of this campus are craving the presence of God, so that when given the opportunity to seek Him, they found Him right where they were,” Armstrong said.
“It’s a movement of God,” Brown said, noting the one-on-one follow-up taking place is crucial as God continues to move.
“It’s about making disciples,” the Director of Spiritual Life said. “Once I have those initial meetings, we are forming discipleship groups or putting some in what we already have. If they're new believers, we will walk them through a new believer Bible study and encourage them to get plugged in a local church and get baptized. We want them to be discipled because we need to turn them loose and have them be able to share their faith and to make disciples. They will need to go and replicate.”
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