As the days get darker and America’s continued prosperity and stability look more in doubt to many than has been the case in a long time, many people are turning to Christ, along with encouraging others they know to do the same, in an attempt to help those who need it find some peace and contentment in this life. One organization, See You at the Pole, is leading the charge to help that happen among younger Americans.
See You at the Pole is a globe-spanning ministry that is meant to appeal to members of Gen Z, particularly those who are not already Christian or who once were but have strayed from the faith, to observe a prayer time around school flag poles and find or rediscover God.
See You at the Pole’s website describes it by saying, “See You at the Pole™, the global day of student prayer, began in 1990 as a grass roots movement with ten students praying at their school. Decades later, millions pray on their campuses on the fourth Wednesday in September.”
Continuing and describing what it does in a bit more detail, it provides, “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 theme of this year’s See You at the Pole event is Jeremiah 29:13, in which the Lord, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah to the captive Israelites, carried off by King Nebuchadnezzar, says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
More fully, the Lord says in Jeremiah 29, “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.[B] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Doug Clark, the national field director for the National Network of Youth Ministries, which is very involved with See You at the Pole, spoke about the special meaning Jeremiah 29:13 holds to him, saying, “But in the context of that, God says through Jeremiah, ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’”
Then, commenting on how it relates to See You at the Pole’s mission, he added, “But in the context, there’s a question of: Are you seeking me with your whole heart? So, the theme this year is ‘wholehearted.’ We want to challenge students to see God with their whole hearts.”
"*" indicates required fields