The Prayer Locker: A Place to Leave What You're Carrying

It started as just a locker on campus with a simple invitation. Our Campus Ministries team wanted to make space. Not for noise or answers, but for honesty.

The prayer locker has become a place where students can pause for a moment and write down what they are carrying. Some slips of paper hold heavy worries, family situations, anxiety, big decisions. Others are short and simple, scribbled quickly between classes. Names aren’t required. Explanations aren’t either. Just the freedom to be real.

Every other Friday during lunch, the prayer team gathers. They open the locker carefully, as if what’s inside is fragile, because it is. They read each request, not to fix anything, but to lift each one up. In the middle of a busy week, they choose to slow down, to sit together, and to pray for classmates who may never know exactly who prayed for them, only that someone did.

What’s grown out of the prayer locker isn’t just a routine, it’s trust. Students are learning that they don’t have to carry everything alone. That there is a place on campus where their worries are held with care. That even in the rush of schedules and responsibilities, there is time set aside to notice, to listen, and to intercede.

The locker doesn’t solve problems. It doesn’t make life easier overnight. But every Friday, during lunch, space is made. And in that space, students are reminded that they are seen, valued, and prayed for, sometimes in silence, sometimes in hope, always with intention.