Campus Ministry focused on the spiritual discipline of prayer for the month of October.
A spiritual discipline is an act or behavior that is deliberately chosen and intentionally practiced in order to focus on God and grow in obedience in the Christian life. Discipleship Coordinator Abby Janzing is heading up the spiritual discipline aspect of Campus Ministry this semester. Her goal is to promote spiritual disciplines as a concept, and, most importantly, to encourage students to practice spiritual disciplines both on an individual and community level.
CM has always promoted spiritual disciplines. Last year, CM was focused on Bible reading. They also organized 24-hour prayer vigils in dorms and held themed prayer labyrinths—focusing on a specific spiritual discipline.
This year, CM is committed to making this focus more intentional and consistent. Janzing says on this more focused approach: “It’s a little scary but kind of exciting to try something new and see what God will do with it.”
CM plans to focus on one spiritual discipline a month, holding some sort of community activity and also a gathering to facilitate discussion about the spiritual discipline in question, ideally with a panel of faculty and students discussing and learning together.
October’s spiritual discipline has been prayer. CM sets up a 24-hour prayer vigil from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Prayer Room of the Franken Center. Janzing reported that over 60 people signed up to pray for the vigil, and it is possible that many more participated: “Students were encouraged to just drop in to the Prayer Room.” The first discussion session, in which a panel of professors and students met to talk about prayer, took place on Thursday, Oct. 28.
The spiritual disciplines for the reminder of the year are fasting, worship, Sabbath, God’s Word, service, and stewardship.
Janzing welcomes any students wanting to encourage and participate in the practice of spiritual disciplines on campus. There will be monthly meetings to generate ideas and plan community events. The next meeting is on Nov. 4 at 7 p.m.. It will be held in the North Conference Room of the Franken Center. These meetings are open to all students—“it’s not too late to get involved,” Janzing said.
Abby Janzing is one of three Discipleship Coordinators. The other two are Josh Gross and Jacklyn Punt. Gross is continuing to facilitate prayer labyrinths for CM this year. Punt is working on a new project, “Inner Circle,” which she hopes to introduce next semester. “The Inner Circle is a concept based off of Jesus’s inner circle of disciples (Peter, James & John). He had a deeper relationship with this small circle than with the larger group of 12. They were relationships of interdependence, confidence and vulnerability based on love and transformation,” Punt said.
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