For nearly 20 years, a committed group of current and former faculty and staff have met weekly with one purpose: to pray for Seattle Pacific University. This group began in 2007 by retired University Communications staff member Kathy Henning when she felt led to begin praying for revival at SPU.
“From the time I got here in 2005 I felt led to start a prayer group because there weren’t any that I knew of on campus,” said Henning. “It took me about two years to actually get it going and it started small with just three or four of us.”
The group began meeting after work in an upstairs room in First Free Methodist Church. “We called it the upper room,” said Henning. Soon they joined a group from Seattle Pacific Seminary when the two groups discovered they had been meeting at the same time every week to pray for the university.
Over the past two decades there have been about 30 people who regularly participated in the group at some point, representing not only faculty, staff, and students but numerous countries and denominations. The group, now led by Professor Emeritus of Education Bill Nagy, averages about 5-8 people each week.
The prayer group structure typically follows a pattern. “We start with a time of inviting, welcoming, and honoring the presence of God,” said Nagy. “Next, I ask if anyone has anything they want to share right away — a prayer request, an answer to prayer, or some news. Then we often read some Scriptures – usually I’ve chosen a set of Scriptures on a theme but sometimes we spend extended time in a more unstructured silence, waiting to see if there’s anything that the Spirit seems to be prompting.”
Nagy says the group puts a strong emphasis on silence. “It is my underlying belief that it is better to pray for one thing that God wants you to pray for than ten things that you think are important,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if people are comfortable with that much silence, but I believe that we are. In fact, one member of the group has said that our prayer time is the most meaningful part of their week.”
Henning and Nagy have countless stories about the prayer group over the years. One time, the group felt led to begin praying through the Psalms. By the end, they had prayed every single verse of the Psalms over SPU. Another time, the group, inspired by Todd Volker’s book Street Level Prayer, set up a canopy in Tiffany Loop with a large sign that read, “Need Prayer?” Among those who stopped by was a man who had seen the sign from his seat on a bus. He got off the bus early so that he could receive prayer.
At other times, individuals in the group felt that God was impressing specific words on their hearts. When shared, they often found that others felt they were hearing the same thing. “A year or so before COVID, we started hearing about ‘shaking.’ Everything that can be shaken will be shaken,” Nagy said, paraphrasing Hebrews 12:27. “We had little idea at the time of how profound the shaking in the next few years was going to be.”
Once COVID began in 2020, meetings continued online — one of the reasons Nagy and Henning attribute to the longevity of the group. Today, there are still members of the group who have left SPU to work at different institutions and yet continue to pray for the university remotely every week. “There is something about praying with people that creates a closeness and real sense of being in the family of Christ,” said Henning.
The group has prayed for faculty chairs, university presidents, students, and many others through the years. Their hope is to continue to intercede for revival and blessing at SPU in the years to come.
Henning and Nagy encourage anyone interested in attending to simply “come and see” (John 1:39). The group meets in the Alexander and Adelaide Hall chapel at 12 p.m. every Wednesday.
(If you have questions or prayer requests, contact staff member Ariana West at westa2@spu.edu.)
