Revival, Gospel Hope & Faithful Moms

Across college campuses, hunger for Jesus is rising.

The body of Christ is working together, praying for and reaching out to this generation with the gospel. Here’s how…

Thai Lam, Director of Collegiate Day of Prayer

If you’ve been browsing social media, listening to podcasts, or reading the news, you’ve probably encountered stories of what’s happening amongst Gen Z on college campuses. In January, Passion gathered 45,000 college students the first three days of 2026 to encounter and worship Jesus at sold-out Globe Life Field in Dallas— the largest number of people the baseball stadium has ever held!

Since Fall 2023, Unite US has gathered over 150,000 college students in basketball arenas on 24 college campuses and seen over 25,000 salvations and 10,000 baptisms in 2½ years! To add to this, 2025 marks a 21-year record high for U.S. Bibles sales, with 19 million Bibles sold last year compared to 17 million in 2024 and 9.7 million in 2019. This surge is being fueled by Gen Z young men—many of whom are first-time Bible engagers. Jesus is surely on the move amongst Gen Z on college campuses!

I believe we are witnessing the first fruits of revival and the early days of a spiritual awakening in Gen Z. As mothers and fathers to the next generation, it is imperative that we lock arms and unite our hearts in fervent prayer for all that our Heavenly Father wants to do in this hour amongst 250 million Gen Z college students globally. We need mothers, fathers, grandparents, small groups, and congregations to adopt college students and campuses in prayer, to see the flames of revival spread to 4,200 college campuses in the U.S. and to over 30,000 campuses worldwide. Because prayer not only precedes revival, but prayer fuels and sustains it!

Because prayer not only precedes revival, but prayer fuels and sustains it!

As parents, how do we pray and prepare our kids for all that God is doing on college campuses and in their generation? As a father of three Gen Z middle and high schoolers who grew up in church and a Christian family, we are jealous for our teenage kids to not become overly familiar and complacent with the Christian faith of their youth, but to grow in awe and wonder for the Gospel of Jesus. We don’t want our kids to hear how Jesus is reviving their generation and be nonchalant and unmoved. Rather, my prayer for our kids and other Gen Zers is that God would revive their hearts with His love, spark spiritual hunger to know Him, surround them with godly friends, protect them from the schemes of darkness, and provoke them to prayer for how Jesus may awaken their generation.

May our faith become their faith while they are still living at home, so that they can launch to college as lifelong disciples of Jesus, confident in the Gospel, praying for their Gen Z peers, and joining the reviving mission of God to their college campuses—not searching for acceptance and significance in the wrong places. As more and more unchurched Gen Zers are being awakened to faith, discovering the hope of the Gospel, may Jesus awaken and mark our kids in their teenage years, launching them as missionaries and messengers to their college campuses!

… may Jesus awaken and mark our kids in their teenage years, launching them as missionaries and messengers to their college campuses!

Tom Allen, InterVarsity Program Director for EveryCampus

“In everyplace we go, the activity of God precedes our presence.” That statement in a book I read recently caught my attention.* All of the things Jesus did in his ministry were acts of seeing the Father at work and choosing obediently to join in with that work (John 5:19-20). 

That spiritual reality is igniting a fresh curiosity in my life of faith each day—“Father, where are you already at work?” then shaping my activity and ways of relating with others—“Where do you want me to join in?” The conviction that God is already moving in a place before I or other Christians arrive is also shaping ministry on college campuses across the country.

“Father, where are you already at work?” “Where do you want me to join in?”

Last fall, two students and an InterVarsity campus minister from Northeastern University in Boston prayer-walked at a nearby campus, Roxbury Community College, a school with 2,500 students and no known gospel fellowship. While leaving the campus, one of them felt an urgency from the Spirit to go back and talk to the receptionist in the athletic building. Once they arrived, they started a conversation with Connie. She was a bit surprised, then proceeded to tell them she was a Christian, a grandmother, involved in a local church, and that she regularly prayed for and with students there on campus. She had also recently invited students to the church she attends. “Students need Jesus!” was her heartfelt statement. When asked if she would welcome a Bible study starting on campus, she replied, “Yes!” She has since provided direction to get one started at the school.

At Moreno Valley College in Southern California, visiting students from Chi Alpha campus ministry came through the city last summer and spent the morning prayer walking this campus of 17,000 students with no known Christian fellowship. Taking an early lunch that day, Mark, an administrator on campus, left his office, walked across the quad and saw the students praying. “May I ask what you are doing?” he said. “We’re praying for the college,” one student responded. “Well then, can I join you? I am a Christian and I have been praying for a Bible study to start on this campus.” Since that prayer walk encounter, God has brought three other administrators and faculty to join Mark in launching and leading a weekly Bible study. They have seen four students make decisions of faith and they’re training students to lead next semester.

The activity of God precedes our presence. More than we imagine, He is already at work before we show up. Praise God for moving in and through the lives of Connie and Mark to orchestrate these divine appointments that are helping launch campus fellowships where none existed.

When praying moms intercede for colleges and universities, their prayers join the work of a God who is already at work. They set in motion divine connections that amplify the movement of God toward every corner of every campus.

3 ways praying moms bring their unique perspectives to empower prayers for college campuses

Natural Curiosity

Moms bring a unique curiosity that has been honed by years of seeing, wondering, hoping, and delighting in their children and grandchildren. They’ve learned to see below the surface and engage their children and grandchildren with creativity, expectancy, wonder and encouragement. Believing God is active, praying moms seek Him, asking where He is at work that their prayers might align with His movement. They are poised to expectantly seek God who wants to make Himself known and delights to show them what He is doing.

They are poised to expectantly seek God who wants to make Himself known and delights to show them what He is doing.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 NASB

Bold Humility

Colleges and universities need the bold humility of a mom’s prayer that contends with God for a breakthrough of His kingdom. Forged by a fierce love for her children and a humble heart that surrenders control to God, the bold humility of a mom’s prayer is needed to unleash the power of God to bring healing, hope, freedom, and ultimately salvation to students and faculty.

Travailing Love

The travailing love of a mother’s heart for her children has taught her to pray with compassion, long-suffering, expectancy, honesty and resilience. It is a heart of love that when turned toward the university in prayer has been formed to seek the very heart of God for revival and awakening and unleash fresh movements of the Spirit on college campuses.

* Reviving Mission: Awakening to the Everyday Movement of God, IVP 2024

Alison Phommachanh, former Intervarsity Staff & Moms in Prayer Florida State Team Member

I grew up going to church, praying nightly with my parents, knowing that God loved me, and knowing that I wanted to please Him. My parents and church leaders laid the foundation and set examples for me to follow. However, starting college was difficult. My first year and a half was marked by homesickness, especially because my parents had moved to a different part of the country after I’d finished high school. “Home” was just as new as college!

As a college sophomore, I was invited by dorm neighbors to a large group gathering of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF). I worked up as much courage as an introverted person could and am grateful to this day that I did! Seeing students just like me singing praises to God and receiving their warm welcomes, was a major turning point in my college life and in my faith journey.

Seeing students just like me singing praises to God and receiving their warm welcomes, was a major turning point in my college life and in my faith journey.

That year I learned how to read and study the Bible on my own and with others—something I hadn’t experienced in the church of my youth. Every day I learned a little more about God’s love for me and for all He created. There was community, laughter, friendship, and growth—in so many ways!

In addition, I learned the power of praying in agreement with others, in Jesus’ name, like we do in Moms in Prayer. Praying aloud wasn’t common in my childhood church (unless it was something we all said as a congregation). A little hesitant and feeling awkward at first, I quickly came to enjoy praying with and for others in campus ministry and for the campus and community we lived in. My senior year in college, I served as Prayer Coordinator for my chapter. I loved encouraging others to form prayer groups and to join with them in intercession.

After college, with much prayer and advice from my IVCF staff workers, I applied to become a campus staff worker myself. For two years I served my alma mater —leading small group Bible studies, helping to plan student retreats and other events, discipling female students one on one, and meeting with international students to help with their English and tell them about Jesus.

These friendships have lasted and many of the students are still following Jesus closely in their relationships and careers. One student who I led in Bible study became a staff worker herself. She still mentions the retreats and events we participated in together decades ago and how that influenced her to want to work with college students.

I know without a doubt that my parents’ lifelong prayers for me helped guide me towards seeking God on my own. There are moms of my childhood friends who I know had been praying for me, as well. It’s a beautiful thought, that the prayers sown years ago helped create the faith I have now. And today I get to sow prayers into the next generation, my own children, and their peers.

It’s a beautiful thought, that the prayers sown years ago helped create the faith I have now. And today, I get to sow prayers into the next generation, my own children, and their peers.

Know that our prayers for our children are never in vain! Praying on our own for them is important, yet there is a unique way God works when we pray together—our voices joined, our faith multiplied, and our hearts encouraged. We find other mamas bringing similar thoughts of gratitude and prayer and we don’t feel alone.

How has this blog encouraged you? Leave a comment below.

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Thai Lam is the Director of Collegiate Day of Prayer, a movement that mobilizes the Body of Christ to unite in prayer for revival and spiritual awakening on college campuses. He also serves as Founder and Executive Director of Revival is Family Foundation (RIF CAMPUS), a campus prayer movement that is equipping college students to be praying leaders. Thai has pioneered and led campus ministries at UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, San Jose State, KU, and UMKC. He came to faith in Jesus as a freshman at UC Berkeley, graduated in Religious Studies, and then studied Cross-Cultural Missions at Fuller Seminary. Thai and his wife just celebrated 18 years of marriage and they have three children.

Tom Allen works with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a nationwide ministry on college and university campuses. He serves as InterVarsity’s Program Director for EveryCampus, a coalition of 120 ministries making Christian fellowships a reality on every college campus. He led InterVarsity staff teams in Southern California for 31 years. Tom and his wife, Denise, are based in Riverside, California, one half mile from the dorm where they met in college. Their two adult children and families live in Southern California.

Alison Phommachanh loves Jesus and family, and loves praying with her Moms in Prayer (MIP) group! She is mama to a son in college and a daughter in high school. Alison enjoys running for exercise, time with God, and writing for reflection and encouraging others. She contributes regularly to the MIP Facebook page for her beautiful home state of Florida, sharing the gift of praying together with others!