First of all, thank you so much for committing to pray for a high school student attending MOVE! Prayer carries us through difficult circumstances, breaks chains of generational sin, opens hearts, and transforms minds. We believe that it is one of the most important and impactful things that we can do for people. It is real, true, powerful ministry. So, thank you.

On this page, you will find some specific ways to pray over the next few weeks as we anticipate all that Jesus has in store for these young people.

Getting Started

Hopefully, you’ve received a MOVE key tag from the youth minister at your church. Make sure a student’s name is written on it! No name on it? Feel free to write the name of a student attending MOVE this summer or ask the youth minister at your church if there’s a name you should write! Don’t have a MOVE key tag? No problem! Just ask the youth minister for one. We want these to serve as a daily reminder to pray for a specific student from your church.

As you look at this keychain think about James 5 which tells us, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Imagine what can happen when a righteous person prays 1, 3, 6, or 10 times a day for a teenager who is learning about Jesus and hearing the call to enter a life of Kingdom Work.

Before MOVE

MOVE’s theme this summer is "The Rest of Your Life". There is an incredible invitation given to us by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. It is an invitation to come to him, but not only to come to him, but to come and rest. Matthew 11:28-30 reads: “Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

What a glorious invitation from Jesus. And this is no empty promise. Jesus is alive in this world and extends an offer to come, to be unburdened by the troubles of this world, to learn from him, and to find the rest our souls so desperately long for. This invitation from Jesus is no week-long vacation, a temporary respite from our trouble, but the rest of our life for the rest of our life.

We all feel pressure. To measure up. To be the best, the brightest, the prettiest, the strongest. To try harder, work longer, never give in, never give up. We ask, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?” Does all our striving, all our efforts to keep up, to stand out, to be noticed, to make someone proud not only lead to being tired, exhausted, burnt-out, worn-out, fatigued, and weary? We all know this to be true and Jesus has something he wants students to hear, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

At MOVE this summer, students will learn how only Jesus can give you the REST of your life - for the rest of your life.

— We invite you to prayerfully read Matthew 11:28-30. As you do, try to hold that student’s name in your mind constantly praying that Jesus’s loving sacrifice for their sins would be made clearer to them in these coming days. Pray that student would see that when Jesus declared that “it is finished” as he took his last breath on the cross, it was a declaration to a weary and burdened world that the heavy lifting was over. Repeat this exercise weekly until your church departs for MOVE.

— Also pray that in this time leading up to MOVE, that God would protect their hearts and minds. The evil one is here to steal, kill, and destroy. He would love to hinder each student’s experience with the worship, community, and truth that God has in store for them.

What to pray before MOVE

During MOVE

Alright! They're on the bus headed to MOVE. Below are the daily themes and scriptures we'll be going through at MOVE together. Please be praying over each day’s message and that God’s Spirit does deep work through each session.

Someone might not know who Jesus is, but I can guarantee they know what it means to be tired. We love the “grind.” We champion the idea of being constantly engaged in something or with someone. But what good is it if a survey of students tells us that half claim feelings of persistent sadness and/or hopelessness? Jesus offers the greatest solution… ”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” Living a life of rest starts with Jesus, but are we going too fast to even recognize that we are tired and that we need rest?

This week we want to call students to pause, recognize their tiredness, and embrace Jesus. He is calling us to walk with him, work with, and watch how he lives. It’s time to PAUSE and begin to live a different life. A lighter life. For the rest of our lives.

That students would recognize their tiredness and embrace Jesus and his invitation to take the heaviness of our life from us.

That students would begin this week to PAUSE and live a different life – a lighter life – for the rest of their life.

DAY 2 – POSTURE: I can rest because Jesus has what I need.

 To find true rest we need to receive from Jesus first.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” In our greatest effort to find rest, we end up running to things that only drain us more. Doing things on our own leads us to more brokenness, emptiness, and weariness. Scripture uses the imagery of sheep in need of a shepherd do describe our great need. It is in the shepherd – the good shepherd – that the sheep find all that we need. To receive from Jesus what we need and what he longs to give us, we need the right POSTURE. Such as in the account of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 where Mary sits at the feet of Jesus to receive the greater while Martha is running around the house to serve lesser things. When we take a posture to receive from Jesus, he is able to provide all that we need – in him, there is truly nothing we lack.

That students would know that the role of the Good Shepherd is to provide for his sheep.

That students would recognize the difference from being around Jesus or doing things for Jesus versus being with Jesus and receiving from him and that they would take the next step in assuming this posture.

DAY 3 – PRESENCE: I can rest because Jesus is with me.

 We can find protection in the presence of Jesus

We can rest in the power and authority of Jesus.

We are never promised a life that is free of hardship. Psalm 23 makes this pretty clear using the word “when” in reference to walking through valleys. But our Good Shepherd is there to provide sustaining life through the valleys of life. Jesus wants to guard our hearts from evil and guide our steps to a life of obedience. This provision is so clear when Jesus calms the storm in Mark 4. We sometimes feel like the disciples in the storm, feeling lost, hopeless, and alone. But the PRESENCE of Jesus changes everything. One day every storm will be stilled. Jesus will break brokenness and put death to death. We can take heart in the PRESENCE of the One who has overcome the greatest storm.

That students would clearly see where they have looked to other things for protection and direction rather than looking at Jesus.

That they would see that all authority and power in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus.

That students would fully believe in the power and authority of Jesus to rescue them from the greatest storm of sin and death – in which we find true peace.

DAY 4 – PURPOSE: I can rest because Jesus sets me apart.

Despite our mistakes, Jesus gives us purpose.

Maybe you have had lamb for dinner, but have you ever invited a sheep to come, sit, and dine at your table? Have you ever taken a sheep and anointed its head with oil? Jesus has. That’s what he does for us. He offers us a seat at his table. The amazing thing about having a seat at His table is that it doesn’t require a perfect resume. Jesus calls everyone to this table. The broken, dirty, forgotten, tired, hopeless, afraid, and the list goes on. All are welcomed to sit with Jesus in His presence and the more time we spend at this table, the clearer our PURPOSE becomes.

This is evident in the life of Peter, whose resume was far from glamorous. In John 21, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus finds Peter has gone back to what he knows…fishing. Jesus prepares a “table” for him around a fire early in the morning, and it is around this fire that the heart of Jesus toward Peter (and us) is revealed. Around the campfire, Peter is reminded of his calling, to love Jesus fully again and to serve him.

It is at the table, or in this case, around the fire where we intimately spend time with Jesus, loving Him fully, and discovering (or rediscovering) our PURPOSE in His kingdom. Jesus calls Peter to “feed my sheep” which is our same call to purpose. To love and care for His people. Showing them that rest is possible through Jesus.

That students would recognize that Jesus’ invitation to his table is for all, no matter what their resume looks like. Pray they would be like Peter and accept the invitation to love Jesus fully.

That students would have a call on their lives to serve the church, to become fishers of men, and “feed his sheep.”

DAY 5 – PACE: For the rest of my life…

 The pace that Jesus calls us to is slow and consistent.

In the world of running, pace is all about finding a consistent rhythm to help run farther and longer. To “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” is not a hurried life. It is a life that intentionally chooses to grow and walk with Him. Keeping pace with Jesus means watching the way that He lives and matching it step by step. This whole week we have learned what it means to rest in Jesus and as we go back home we need to choose to continue to live this way. As the Message translation says in Matthew 11:28-30, “Walk with me, work with me, and watch how I do it.”

Setting the right pace for the rest of our lives means staying connected. When we live the pace of Jesus by staying connected to him, the people around us will know and see that we are his disciples. It creates disciples and produces Kingdom Workers. It changes the trajectory of our life. For the rest of our life.

That Students would stay connected to the true vine that gives us life and leads to us to steady growth.

That God would commission his people to go out, rest well, stay connected, be changed, and change the world.

That students would have a plan to live out the rest of their life for the rest of their lives.

What to pray during MOVE

After MOVE

Well, that’s it. The students are loading up and heading home. This can be a time of a lot of conflicting feelings for students. They don’t want to leave MOVE, but they’re excited to see their friends and family back home. They don’t want to stop drinking from the firehose that they’ve had this week, but they’re excited to put into practice all that the Lord has placed on their hearts. They don’t want to return to the “real world”, but they are excited to be a part of God’s plan for redeeming this world. They can simultaneously be excited, sad, emboldened, and scared. This is pretty common for anyone coming down from a mountain-top experience. But the truth is, we weren’t meant to live on the mountaintop. They’re small, have no water, and no people. While mountain tops are great, the majority of our lives are spent in valleys. While God shows us His glory and majesty on the mountaintop, He shows us His love and mercy in the valleys. As students come down from the mountaintop, pray that…

They would not be discouraged by the valley feeling “different” than the mountaintop but instead would experience God’s love and mercy in new and beautiful ways.

They would stay connected to their church over the next few months, remembering that they need their church, and their church needs them.

They would have God’s eyes to see the lost and hurting around them.

They would be committed to lives of Kingdom Work.

Thank you so much for caring so deeply for these students that you would take the time to pray for them over these past few weeks. We’re so glad to partner with you in this ministry!

CIY

PROGRAMS

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We call youth to Christ
and into a life of Kingdom Work through His Church.

MOVE Prayer

Getting Started

CIY

PROGRAMS

STORIES

Resources

We call youth to Christ and into a life of Kingdom Work through His Church.

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MOVE Prayer

Getting Started

We call youth to Christ
and into a life of Kingdom Work through His Church.