Time: an un-renewable resource many people don’t seem to have enough of. On April 6, 1990, a group of teens in Burlson, Texas, took the time to go to three schools and gather around the flagpoles to pray for their fellow students.
On September 12 of that same year, 45,000 students at 1,200 schools followed their example by meeting at their flagpoles at 7 a.m. to pray for their peers and teachers. The meeting became a national movement called See You at the Pole (SYATP) in 1991.
SYATP was founded in an attempt to carry out the instructions written in 2 Kings 22:13.
“Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found” (ESV).
This year SYATP will be held on campus in the Ground Zero courtyard. All students are invited to come and pray for their peers, teachers and their country, Sept. 23, at 7 a.m.
SYATP has been an annual event on campus since the mid 1990s. Last year 63 students of all ages gathered in mid-September to participate in the prayer meeting. After a time of group prayer, the students broke into small groups and continued to pray for each other.
For senior Alyssa Quenzer, last years SYATP was an opportunity to promote school unity and address the needs of others.
“I went to SYATP because as a Christian school it’s really important for us to come together with God as our focus,” Quenzer said. “We need to pray that God will be the center of our lives. I hope we can look to him for guidance instead of material things.”
Like Quenzer, Sophomore Austin Rurik places a lot of value on time spent praying alongside a group of people.
“I really want to be part of this prayer movement,” Rurik said. “I feel like God has called me to go and pray for our students, and faculty. We need to spend time in prayer so we can be surrounded by God’s influence.”
Rurik views prayer as a catalyst for school-wide improvement.
“I think it’s really important to pray because there’s a lot of spiritual warfare going on in our school,” Rurik said. ‘We need to pray for God to protect us, and help us to grow spiritually.”
For Fresno Christian students, SYATP might be just another prayer meeting. For public school students, it’s a rare opportunity to reach out to their peers.
Clovis High student Taylor Overton, ’11, attends SYATP because she says it is one of her only opportunities to participate in Christian fellowship at her public school.
“It was really cool to be able to pray at school,” Overton said. “To be able to see how many people share my values was amazing. The idea of praying at school was a little nerve wracking at first. I wasn’t sure who would be there and I didn’t want to feel awkward. But being around so many confident people gave me reassurance.”
While Fresno Christian students are able to talk about God in and out of class on daily basis, many public school students are quiet about their faith.
“Religion isn’t really a topic of conversation at my school, so it was really amazing to see so many people there,” Overton said. “It was interesting to see so many people there that I didn’t even know were Christians. Seeing them there gave me a new perspective on a lot of my relationships.”
Bible teacher Robert Foshee say’s Fresno Christian student participation in SYATP is important, even though students have the opportunity to pray every day.
“Fresno Christian participates in SYATP in order to come alongside the prayers of public schools,” Foshee said. “The Bible says every time two or more are gathered, God is in our midst. It’s important for us to gather and pray for one another.”
