Thursday, April 03, 2008

Prayer Emphases at Mariager Højskole

Pray for Denmark.com has a new and valued friend. In the past several months I have had contact with Jakob Vagner who is a teacher of Bible and theology at Mariager Højskole (Danish Pentecostal Bible School). Jakob asked if we could give some information about prayer emphases at Mariager Højskole. This is of interest to me because we are more and more realizing the need to publicize the prayer efforts of Danish believers, churches and Christian organizations.

This webpage hopefully raises prayer support from outside Denmark, but we are thrilled always to know that there are many believers, churches and organizations within Denmark itself that gather together regularly to pray. We want by all means to encourage such efforts. There is nothing more important to the evangelization and spiritual life of a nation than the fervent prayers of God’s own people. Spiritual revivals are always bathed in prayer.

Students at Mariager Højskole are encouraged in many ways to be prayer warriors. Students, faculty and staff set aside a full week of prayer twice every year. Jakob writes: “This year we will have one week of prayer for Denmark in the summer–and then one week of more quiet prayer retreat in October. In August ( in typical Danish dating, week 32), we will be around 40 adults and young people focusing on intercession for Denmark, for revival in our personal lives and throughout the nation. We have three gatherings each day with a bit of Bible teaching and then we pray for each other and for our country. In October’s week of prayer, it will be about 30 people getting together for Bible meditations, quiet prayer, symbolic acts, and so on, in which the emphasis is more personal. In both settings we work in small groups as well as with the group as a whole praying together. . .When we get together for the weeks of prayer we pray for many different things, but more than anything else we pray for Danes to be saved and for churches to grow.”

Students at Mariager Højskole meet each school day for morning worship. Then, on Tuesday evenings throughout the school year there is a ministry service where great emphasis is placed on leaders praying with students concerning important problems and decisions about their ongoing spiritual life and walk with Christ. I attended one such Tuesday evening meeting while in Mariager two years ago and was greatly impressed with the intensity of praise and worship and dynamic teaching during the service, and of an unhurried and sometimes quite emotional after-meeting with faculty and staff counseling and praying with individual students. As in all Bible training institutions, I suspect too that at Mariager Højskole there are groups of committed students who gather together for informal prayer times.

In a later posting, I intend to give more specific information about Mariager Højskole as well as other Bible and theological training facilities and programs in Denmark.

PRAY that faculty, staff and students at Mariager Højskole will be encouraged to engage in sustained prayer and intercession on behalf of secularist Denmark and the hundreds of thousands of Danes who do not know what it is to have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

PRAY for Jakob Vagner, for an effective ministry of teaching at Mariager Højskole, for his and other faculty members’ influence on students’ spiritual life and walk, and for the salvation of Jakob’s unsaved sister.

PRAY that what students learn and experience of intercessory prayer during their time at Mariager Højskole will be transformed into an ongoing and vibrant prayer life in their future ministries, wherever the Lord may lead them.

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