How does the 21 Days work?
Here’s how 21 Days for Global Harvest works:
Each day, this site will provide a prayer guide covering a range of categories. These prayer points are considered launching pads to encourage you and your prayer group to press into the Lord related to each point. Let the Spirit of God lead you into the specifics of how to pray.
Individuals and prayer groups from local churches, campus ministry fellowships, Christian universities, and mission sending agencies are partnering together with this season of prayer and fasting. There are many ways to use 21 Days in your setting, and creativity is encouraged. Your prayer group is encouraged to meet each day or evening, together seeking God using the prayer points as a springboard. Find a convenient time of day and location that works for your group and commit to meet then and there throughout the 21 Days. Most of all, we encourage simplicity and faithfulness to the steadfast and persevering work of prayer over the 21 Days.
Ideas on How to Fast
It is important to also prayerfully consider how you might fast. Fasting allows for a more focused and deliberate means of pressing into the Lord (see the article Fasting Basics under Resources after you’ve registered). Though the Biblical fast is to abstain from food there are other means which also produce the intended effect. Maybe fast from social networking, movies, texting on your phone, video games, watching TV, secular music, other books except the Bible, etc. The following are some specific highlights of how people involved in the different spheres of the student generation can participate in the 21 Days.
On Christian College Campuses
Staff and faculty are encouraged to call the student body to participate in this season of fasting and prayer. As campuses and various ministries on campus (student mission fellowships, discipleship groups, etc.) engage with God in this focused manner, change and transformation will begin to take place.
Hold prayer meetings nightly or every other night. Taking a season like this, and committing to seek Jesus with focus, could catalyze a spirit of revival in your midst like nothing else could. Organize a group and commit to an early morning prayer meeting. God honors the faithfulness of prayer, and not the flash or the size of the group involved.
In Campus Ministry Fellowships
Fellowship staff and student leadership teams are encouraged to make this season of fasting and prayer a critical part of your fellowship. Trumpet this call to prayer in your fellowship, and encourage students to form prayer groups to participate in a meaningful way. Encourage each prayer group to meet daily and seek the face of God using the daily prayer points to ignite passion for Jesus and a greater commitment to global proclamation.
It is important for students to understand that God is raising up a global movement of students who are motivated with God’s heart for the nations. While these students are still in college, they can call many of their peers to this mandate from heaven as well. Get the word out to other campus ministry fellowships on your campus, and hold a united meeting focused on generational awakening and prayer for the nations.
Through Mission Agencies
Mission agencies, who have networks and relationships built across the student world, are encouraged to call students to participation in these 21 Days.
Use this as an opportunity to call for a special time of renewal and spiritual refreshing, often overlooked in our busy schedules. For appointees in your organizations, this is a great way to stir hearts with a vision of seeing multitudes from their campus ministry or local church, mobilized to serve among the nations.
Through Your Local Church
The local church is God’s vehicle for reaching the world for Christ. It is the place of preparation, testing, shaping, and then being sent with prayer and financial backing.
Local churches have the unique calling of being a house of prayer for all nations. This is the foundation that all fruitfulness and power for ministry depends upon. This was the early church’s format, and it was used to usher in great fruitfulness for God. Use these 21 Days as a tool to call the student generation in your church to form prayer groups and open their eyes and see the global harvest that is ripe for reaping.
As An Individual
Though we are each part of communities that might participate in this season of prayer and fasting, each individual should make a conscious choice to set themselves apart to God during this season, and to abstain from certain foods and other Spirit-led items.
This is not an easy process, and it needs grace and help from the Holy Spirit to effectively sustain. Once the choice is made, you’ll need discipline to adhere to that choice and sustain the 21 Days. It is best not to do this alone, in order to have others encourage you to press on when you are tempted to quit. If you take this season seriously, you will see changes, and a greater prayer life and spiritual life will come as a result.
