“The Feeling of Christian Community Is Palpable”
By Tom Campisi, Managing Editor
“Something is afoot at Harvard Law School. God is on the move.”
Those are the thoughts of Justin Yim, Christian Union’s ministry director at Harvard Law School, as he ponders a contingent of students who are seeking God and seeking revival on campus. Students, ministry leaders, and even some law school professors are passionate about the possibilities of what can happen when believers “dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133).
In a recent prayer email, Yim wrote: “At Harvard Law School, there are groups of students who are gathering to study the Apostle Paul’s words of ‘...to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ There are others seated around a table in the dining hall in Wasserstein Hall with their Bibles open to the ancient words of a great leader named Nehemiah, who asked a Great God for favor as a holy discontent settled into his heart at the state of the city of Zion—Jerusalem. Still others gather to peer into the words of the Gospel of Mark, asking the same question that the author, himself, asked, ‘Who is this who commands the storm and the seas?’”
Law students David Tye and Jon DeWitt, leaders with CU Gloria Law, have also noticed a change in the spiritual atmosphere, especially during recent worship and prayer events that have stressed unity on campus.
“Public prayers are filled with repentance, submission, and praise for Jesus, and the atmosphere is joyful, communal, transcendent, and filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit,” said Tye, vice president of CU Gloria Law.
DeWitt, co-president of CU Gloria Law, said that the unity and feeling of Christian community has been palpable and very encouraging: “Christ said the world will know us by how we love fellow believers” (Jn 13:35).
“We are encouraged to see God move in powerful ways,” said Yim. “Unity is a requirement before revival comes.”
Justin Yim Members of HLS’s Christian ministries have been encouraged by the tremendous support of faculty members: Dr. Nat Gantt, a Harvard Law School alumnus and the Executive Director of the Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies at HLS; and Ruth Okediji, the Jeremiah Smith. Jr, Professor of Law at HLS and Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center. On Thursday mornings, Okediji hosts a revival prayer meeting in the office of the Program for Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies that is open to all students. Weekly, the Program for Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies also hosts a public reading of Scripture open to the entire community.
Among Christians at Harvard Law School, there is also a movement to seek the Lord through regular times of fasting and praying. Students and ministry leaders are seeking to undergird efforts to proclaim the Good News at Harvard Law School and bring more of the Lord’s presence to their community and beyond.
“Throughout scripture, believers are called to fast and pray to humble ourselves and to more consciously seek to align our wills with His—that has been the focus of these times of fasting and prayer,” DeWitt said.
Tye proclaimed that through fasting and prayer, we “seek first the Kingdom.”
“Our desire is to see spiritual revival both on Harvard’s campus and beyond.”
Fasting, repentance, seeking the Lord, sharing the Good News of the Gospel—surely, something is afoot at Harvard Law School.
“All Christians—from all the ministries—are united in this one thing: calling out to our God to do a new thing on campus,” Yim said.
“God is opening doors to bring Christians together. I feel like He is going to do something amazing.”
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