The Morning Thing joined over 30 students at Mount Vernon High School this morning to celebrate See You at the Pole – the global day of student prayer.
A few local churches were on site with donuts and milk for the students who participated in the event.
See You at the Pole began in 1990 as a grass roots movement with ten students praying at their school. Over twenty years later, millions pray on their campuses on the fourth Wednesday in September.
See You at the Pole is simply a prayer rally where students meet at the school flagpole before school to lift up their friends, families, teachers, school, and nation to God.
See You at the Pole is a student-initiated, student-organized, and student-led event.
The 2019 See You at the Pole theme is “If My People Pray”.
The theme verse is 2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
From that very first year in 1990, See You at the Pole has been about one simple act—prayer. Today, SYATP is still about students humbling themselves, turning to God, and interceding for their generation.
Please let us know what is happening at YOUR SCHOOL! Email wnzr@mvnu.edu and tell us about your plans for See You at the Pole and what happened at your school!
The See You at the Pole Story
A small group of teenagers in Burleson, Texas, came together for a DiscipleNow weekend in early 1990. They came seeking God and little did they know how powerfully He was about to move. On Saturday night their hearts were penetrated like never before, when they became broken before God and burdened for their friends. Compelled to pray, they drove to three different schools that night. Not knowing exactly what to do, they went to the school flagpoles and prayed for their friends, schools, and leaders. Those students had no idea how God would use their obedience.
God used what He did among those teenagers and others who were holding similar prayer meetings at their schools to birth a vision in the hearts of youth leaders across Texas. The vision was that students throughout Texas would follow these examples and meet at their school flagpoles to pray simultaneously. The challenge was named See You at the Pole at a brainstorming session during a meeting of key youth leaders. The vision was shared with 20,000 students in June 1990 at Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas.
Only God had envisioned how many students would step up to the challenge. At 7:00 a.m. on September 12, 1990, more than 45,000 teenagers met at school flagpoles in four different states to pray before the start of school. Reports came into toll-free number for days after the first event.
A few months later, a group of youth ministers from all over the country gathered together for a national conference in Colorado. Many of them reported that their students had heard about the prayer movement in Texas and were equally burdened for their schools. No other events had been planned, but it was clear that students across the country would be creating their own national day of student prayer. There was no stopping them.
On September 11, 1991, at 7:00 a.m., an estimated one million students gathered at school flagpoles all over the country. From Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, from North Dakota to the tip of Texas, students came together to pray. Some sang, some read Scripture, but most importantly, they prayed. Like those first students, they prayed for their schools, for their friends, for their leaders, and for their country.
As in all great movements of prayer, See You at the Pole did not begin in the hearts of people. It began in the heart of God. God used the obedience of a small group of teenagers to ignite what has become an international movement of prayer among young people.
Since 1991, See You at the Pole has grown to God-sized proportions. Within the first few years, the movement began to spread to other nations through missionaries from the U.S. Now each year, more than 3 million students from all over the world participate in See You at the Pole. Students in more than 20 countries take part. In places like Canada, Korea, Japan, Turkey, and the Ivory Coast, students are responding to God and taking seriously the challenge to pray.
God is continuing to call His people to repentance and prayer. Countless inspiring testimonies of how He has used See You at the Pole to bring students to Christ and to change lives affirm God’s power to answer those who cry out to Him in humble dependence. Bible clubs, weekly prayer meetings, and other ministries have begun on campuses where students participated in See You at the Pole.
For more information about See You At The Pole, go to http://syatp.com/
