Class of 2013: A Call for Moral Leaders

Earlier this month I had the privilege of speaking for ten minutes to the Andrews Academy student body for one of their morning worships. I had actually spent an hour and a half the night before writing up a devotional for that worship. But as I was praying before leaving my study that night, I had hardly gotten two sentences into the prayer when a “voice” said to me: “Nice devotional, Dwight—but the wrong one.” I was so startled by that thought that I rose straight up onto my feet and said to myself, “No way!” But as I sat back down at my desk, it was essentially, “Yes way.” In that moment of reflection the impression came to tell the students about what had been happening the last few weeks and to end that telling with a call for moral leaders. So that’s what I did that next morning. Told about how a couple weeks before I had been visiting with our youth pastor, Micheal Goetz. We were wondering what it would take around here to raise the bar so high that only God could accomplish it. No question, our campuses need a huge God-sized vision. Revival. A new breed of young missionaries. Etc. We had prayer together. Micheal left. And a few split seconds later there was a knock on my office door. A college kid named Jonathan stuck his head in, “Can you talk.” “No—I’ve got a board meeting in 20 minutes—what’s up?” “I’ve been walking around campus this afternoon thinking how much this university needs God—we really need a revival around here.” Suddenly I’m realizing he’s essentially summarizing the visit I’d just had with Micheal. We talked for a few moments, knelt to pray together, and when Jonathan left he promised that he would find twelve friends of his who would covenant to pray over the summer days ahead—every day—for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this campus in the new year. That morning at worship with the academy students I told how a week later I’d spent an afternoon with Jose Bourget our chaplain, planning for our new year worship journey at Pioneer come September. He shared how he’d been interviewing university students for positions in Campus Ministry, and how he sensed a spiritual ambivalence among these interviewees. “We need new leaders around here.”  We prayed together. The next morning I’m at the academy telling these high schoolers that it is very possible God is calling them—particularly the senior class graduating this weekend—to become the new moral leaders this university is needing. What if the Class of 2013 is in fact under divine appointment to become leaders for the Spirit of Christ on this campus? What would happen if we all committed to praying every day this summer for God to do “a new thing” on both campuses come the new year? And so I invited the students that morning to commit themselves to a “preseason of prayer,” to offer themselves to God as moral leaders, even if they must stand alone. They stood to their feet, many of them. And I am praying that God will honor that commitment,  and that for the Class of 2013 and the classmates they leave behind God will fulfill His promise: “I will do a new thing. . . . I will pour water on those who are thirsty and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon your descendants and My blessing upon your offspring” (Isaiah 43:19; 44:3). A God-sized promise and vision for a God-committed new generation of young moral leaders. I am convinced God is ready—and I am earnestly praying that over the summer days ahead the Class of 2013 and this congregation and these campuses will be readied for His “new thing.” Would you be willing to join me in that prayer?