Prayer for the Nation's Schools

CBN.com -

Over 100 churches agreed to gather recently in a high school football stadium in Virginia to pray for the safety of the nation's school children. And that event is just one of what appears to be a fast growing grass roots effort to turn the crisis of violence on America's public school campuses into a national call to prayer.

"All those people losing their lives, watching their fellow classmates fall to the ground, it just makes you wonder every day," says one teenager.

It makes you wonder every day if these horrific scenes of American school kids running for the lives on live TV could possibly happen again. For Christians nationwide, that haunting question has turned into a wake-up call to prayer.

"We just felt the initiative and the drive from the Lord to do something after the Columbine incident," says one student.

In Rhea County, Tennessee, an offhand comment in a small Sunday school class of only 18 members resulted in more than 900 residents from two dozen area churches coming together to join hands in a prayer circle - over a bridge, up the stairs - until the hand-held prayer chain completely surrounded the local high school.

"We're acknowledging that the problems in our nation are not just social problems, but they're spiritual problems," says one teenager.

"One of our number one prayers each morning should be 'God's will through us today,'" agrees another teen.

In Peachtree City, Georgia, two public high school graduates co-sponsored an outdoor youth concert to pray to rid the nation's schools of violence. Their solution?

"Jesus Christ is the answer to every problem that they're ever going to have," says event sponsor Eric Abney.

"What I would love to see happen is for God just to open doors," says event sponsor Phil Bradfield.

They want the doors opened to continue all school year long -- the fervent call to prayer that's been issued every time tragedy strikes.

Under Georgia's moonlit skies, hundreds of teens and parents gathered to honor the memory of Coloradan Cassie Bernall, one of the Columbine students who was brutally shot to death for confessing faith in God.

"Somebody called out, maybe ten to 15 minutes into it, and said 'Somebody religious better be praying right now,'" recalled a Columbine survivor.

"Just the fact that (Cassie) died for everything she ever believed in is just amazing," said one attendee.

And they heard from Cassie's own lips what she believed in a clip of her heartfelt testimony to members of her church youth group. In her testimony, she stated that she was "just trying to not contradict myself and get rid of all hypocrisy and just to live for Christ." Then they listened to the young Christian martyr's favorite band echo the words in her favorite song.

And at night's end, dozens ran forward to follow Cassie's example - accept Christ, and rededicate their own hearts to God.

In Newport News, Virginia, thousands of students, parents, and teachers filled the stands of a high school football stadium for the second year in a row to offer prayers of protection for students, teachers, and school administrators.

"We've been praying for this night for such a long time," says event sponsor Pastor Don Seymore.

Toni Houck, the mother of two Columbine survivors, outlined why they were all there. The working mother of two teenage boys was on a business trip in Florida when the shooting spree started.

"We went to funeral after funeral and I watched my kids sign caskets instead of signing yearbooks," says Houck. "I can remember when my husband called one time before I got to the TV. He said, 'I can't find them.' And he started crying. And I started crying. I said, 'You can't do this. You need to find our boys.'"

Both of the Houck children lived, but her younger son Matthew lost two of his best friends: Daniel Rohrbach, who was shot while holding open a door for other students, and the girl he studied with in the library almost every day, Cassie Bernall.

"Cassie was in the library that day when I wasn't, and Eric and Dylan, the killers, went in the library and that's where they killed most of the people," remembers Matthew. "They put a gun to Cassie's head and said, 'Do you believe in God?' And she said, 'Yes.'"

And the teenager encouraged students everywhere to stand up for their beliefs in their schools.

"Even if you're not under pressure you can go through the halls and say that you believe in God, you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord," says Matthew. "You have to have boldness to walk down your halls in a public school and declare God is God and that God rocks!"