President Prevo kicks off ‘Liberty in Prayer’ initiative on campus, online

The power of prayer and God’s call for His believers to join together in asking for His provision were the focus of Friday’s Convocation in the Vines Center, as President Jerry Prevo introduced students to the university’s new community prayer initiative, “Liberty in Prayer.”

The morning began with songs by Christian music artist Dennis Agajanian, who has played at churches around the world in 120 countries. He has been featured at the Harvest Crusades and Billy Graham crusades since 1974 and has been awarded Musician of the Year and Entertainer of the Year multiple times by the Christian Country Music Association. During his time onstage, knowing that prayer would be the focus of the gathering, Agajanian asked students to pray for his friend Terri Graham, cousin to Franklin Graham, who is currently fighting cancer.

Prevo then introduced the theme of the Convocation with Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God.” On every seat in the Vines Center was a blank card, and Prevo encouraged each student to write down his or her prayer requests and place them in collection buckets carried by LU Shepherds.

“We’re going to ask you today to not only make your request known to God, but to make your request known to all of us,” Prevo said.

As the cards were written and collected, Prevo shared a testimony of how God answered prayer at a turning point in his life. When Prevo and his wife, Carol, were about to move from Tennessee to Alaska to pastor Anchorage Baptist Temple — where they served for 47 years — Prevo’s mother broke the news that she and Prevo’s father were separating.

“My mother looked at me and said, ‘Jerry, your dad has left me. Of all of the times I’ve needed you, it’s now, and you’re going 4,000 miles away,’” Prevo recalled. “It was hard, but I knew God had called my wife and I to go and take over that mission work. One of my prayer requests then was this: ‘God, please bring somebody into my mother’s life who will love her and take care of her.’”

This prayer was soon answered as his mother met someone and got married.

“I want to tell you that God answered my prayer; He loved my mother, He cared for my mother,” Prevo said. “Every time I would come back from Alaska and visit with her, I would go to (her husband) and say, ‘I want to thank you for loving my mother and taking care of her. You’re a godsend.’”

The collected prayer requests were placed in boxes that will soon be placed at different areas of campus, available for students who pass by to pick out a card and pray for their peers. Prevo pulled out a handful of the cards and read them aloud. Some asked God for healing, others for the salvation of their loved ones, and some for the future of the university and country.

Prevo referenced the Washington Prayer March that over 2,000 students attended in 2020 as one of many examples of Liberty students taking an active step in praying and asking God for His peace and power together.

“When we went to the (Prayer March) up in Washington, D.C., I was so proud to see almost 2,000 of you who got together as a group and prayed,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that, you weren’t told to do that, but you did it.”

As the students prepared to leave the Vines Center to attend their classes in different areas of campus, Prevo strongly encouraged them to take with them the Lord’s Prayer and the practice of praying it throughout their daily schedule. The Worship Collective then led them in a song of the Lord’s Prayer to conclude Convocation.

Online prayer requests can be shared at Liberty.edu/Prayer-Request.