Students across Alabama assembled before school Sept. 24 at flagpoles and other venues to pray for their schools, state, country and the lost during the annual See You at the Pole (SYATP) event, promoted heavily by First Priority.
“It seems like it’s been a real success both from a numbers standpoint and from a spiritual perspective with the sincerity and earnestness of the people who participated,” said Greg Davis, president of First Priority Greater Birmingham and member of Gardendale’s First Baptist Church in North Jefferson Baptist Association.
Davis said about 30,000 central Alabama students typically participate in SYATP, gathering in large and small groups to worship, sing and pray.
While around 140 Birmingham-area schools usually take part in SYATP each year, numerous schools from other parts of the state also participate, according to First Priority. Although most events are held at middle and high schools, Davis said elementary school events are becoming more common.
“Lots of parents are getting involved and helping [elementary schools] organize that,” Davis said.
This year’s SYATP theme, Connect, based on 1 Samuel 3:9, encourages youth to follow Samuel’s example and connect to God early in life. But Davis believes the event also helps students connect to other believers around them.
“It helps them to live out Monday through Friday what we talk about on Sunday,” he said. “There is power, encouragement and influence in numbers for Christians. It makes you feel like you are not alone trying to live out Christianity.”
Several Hueytown churches continued the morning’s prayer focus with a prayer walk to each city school focusing on Christian and lost students and ending with a time of worship.
“In previous years, we’ve gotten together on the night of SYATP to do concerts, evangelistic events and joint church services, but this is the first time we’ve continued the focus on prayer,” said Michael Wallace, youth minister at North Highlands Baptist Church, in Bessemer Baptist Association. “The other events were good, but we want to instill in students the necessity and power that comes from prayer. We want God to do things that are even more powerful than we can do as churches coming together.”
North Highlands Baptist, Pleasant Ridge Baptist, Crossroads Baptist and Garywood Assembly of God churches reported participation in the prayer walk, organized by the local First Priority network.
“We may never know the spiritual impact just this one day of mobilizing students to pray has on other students and the world,” Wallace added.
Between 70 and 80 schools in south Alabama held SYATP events, but in the past few years, numbers have declined, according to Brent Allen, First Priority’s Mobile area director.
“I think the monotony has part to do with it, the same as we see in the churches,” Allen said. “We try to tell the students it’s more than showing up at the poles to pray for 30 minutes. It has to be a lifestyle. We are trying to teach the students to be Jesus not only around the flagpole but everywhere they go in school. Showing up at the poles is just a start. So, if that’s all they do, they’ve missed the whole point of it.”
In addition to the annual SYATP event, Davis encourages parents to help students plug in to ongoing ministries at their schools.
“SYATP is a once a year emphasis,” he said. “We have groups involved at the schools every week doing ministry … Some meet every day.”
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