Christian students and campus ministry staff at the University of Wisconsin have once again launched a 40-day 24/7 prayer room at Faith Community Bible Church, which is located at the corner of Park and Regent streets, adjacent to campus.
"We have a heart and desire to grow in intimacy with the Lord through prayer, build unity amongst believers on campus, and prepare the way in hearts and minds of students and faculty for the coming of the Lord," the prayer room team said in announcing the beginning of the prayer campaign in February. The 40 day campaign began on Ash Wednesday and will end on Palm Sunday.
But while students have been signing up online to pray in hourly shifts, there is a gap on the calendar between March 12-22nd, caused by Spring Break at the UW. Community members are invited to join in the prayer campaign at any time, but particularly during the Spring Break period.
Community members can get more information by going to the 24/7 prayer website www.madisonprayer09.com and may also want to contact the prayer room organizers by email at madisonprayer09@gmail.com.
A similar 40-day 24/7 prayer campaign was held four years ago at Faith Community Bible Church. But Madison has not been without prayer in the interim. Several citywide prayer ministries have sprung up, including the House of Prayer for All Nations that was located near East Towne Mall before closing down last September. A new House of Prayer ministry has recently opened up closer to campus, as an outreach of Advance K ministries, at the corner of Mifflin and Bedford Streets. 
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This semester at the UW Madison God is doing some amazing things. One of the most exciting is a 24/7 prayer room on campus where students are praying together for the UW Campus and the World over the 40 days of Lent. The room is bringing together all the evangelical ministries on campus to pray. That’s roughly 1000 students who will praying together during this season.
In January, I began to ask if this wasn’t time for another prayer room on campus. The last one over 4 years ago was an amazing time of prayer. It started slowly with no vision for prayer on campus but over the 40 days students developed a heart and passion for prayer. One student told me that when she first heard we were going to pray for 40 days continuously, she thought “When am I going to find time to prayer?” After her first hour in the prayer room she started asking “How can I make time to pray more?!” So she signed up two days each week at 2am!
This time it’s different. There was no need to build passion and vision for prayer it was already here. Many students and even a campus staff told me that they had dreamed of something like this all last semester. At our first meeting we had over 30 students from different ministries come to talk and pray about the idea of building a prayer room and praying together for 40 days. The answer was a unanimous “YES”!
A group of us spent a month together praying about the room, envisioning the design, and thinking through the logistics of 40 days of prayer open to any believer and ministry on campus and in
This is a season of preparing hearts and minds, of being equipped for the battle to come. The theme and focus of the room is “Prepare the Way”. We are praying together for the way in people’s hearts and minds to be made ready for the coming of the Lord. We are also praying that we too would be prepared. We hope and pray that after this season is done that the Lord will send us out over 1000 strong, to declare his good news in love and the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are stations in the room to get right with the Lord, experience intimacy with him, and be equipped for the battle. We also have stations to intercede for lost friends, strongholds on campus, Jewish students and missions around the world.
I’ve been watching and experiencing as the room has filled with prayers. Here are some of the testimonies of students who are praying.
“God has brought me back to him when I was lost. He has filled me with His love again and I know that I’m finally home.
“The time went so fast. Spending time alone with God with NO distractions is amazing. He’ll meet you!”
“I was in the tent of intimacy reading Song of Songs, praying and singing. Suddenly the tent was filled with the sweet smell of flowers.”
“God has blessed my feet with dancing – all for His glory!”
Would you join us for a few hours in the coming weeks? The focus is the campus and the students but we need the local body in
The prayer room is in the main sanctuary of Faith Community Bible church on the corner of Park and Regent. You can sign up for a time slot at www.madisonprayer09.com. The password to get into the “signup for a slot page” is “Phil46” (case sensitive).
Blessings,
Peter Horton
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
For the