When it comes to the open and unapologetic worshiping of Jesus Christ, most college campuses these days don’t have the best reputation – especially secular schools swimming in woke and politically correct propaganda.
But earlier this month, over 8,000 students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville defied the norm by gathering at the Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center for a night of prayer, praise and repentance.
Organized by UniteUs, a ministry dedicated to the “movement of college students united to lift the name of Jesus,” over 500 of those in attendance came forward during an altar call, with many more being baptized outside the arena.
The movement is spearheaded by Tonya Prewett whose ministry grew out of her decision to begin praying with girls on the campus of Auburn University. At the time she began her outreach, Tonya’s husband, Chad, was serving as an assistant basketball coach at the university.
Over time, Tonya’s small ministry grew from a gathering of five young women getting together to pray and study the Bible to a gathering of over 5,000 people inside Neville Arena on the Auburn campus on September 12, 2023. Since that first gathering, UniteUS has hosted dozens of similar revival meetings on other college campuses in Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas A&M. Well over a hundred thousand students have now participated.
“When God gave me the vision for Unite Auburn, I could have never imagined what was coming,” Tonya Prewett told CBN News.
“I remember standing at [the] baptisms after the Auburn event [in 2023] in the middle of thousands of students just praising God and thinking how can this stop? And it hasn’t. He keeps doing it. Again and again.”
After meeting inside arenas and stadiums, students often retreat to parking lots where pick-up trucks that are filled with water in the bed of the vehicle act as mobile baptismal fonts.
Lest anyone think the gatherings are simply emotional, feel-good events, consider Prewett’s straight-forward message to University of Tennessee students:
“Repent for your sins,” she told them. “Repent for the sins of this campus, for the city, and our nation. And let’s get free from those and we are just going to give it all to Jesus and go all in.”
Earlier this year, Chad Prewett announced his departure from coaching in order to devote his full-time efforts to the UniteUS movement.
“This decision comes with deep reflection, prayer, and peace, knowing it’s time to follow where God is leading me next,” Prewett wrote on X. “I may be stepping away from the court, but I will always bleed orange and blue. Once an Auburn Tiger, always an Auburn Tiger.”
Tonya has just released a book, Roses to Revival: An Unlikely Beginning to an Extraordinary Ending, which details the family’s extraordinary courage and decision to embrace the vision for college ministry that the Lord placed years ago on Tonya’s heart.
Driven by the rising generation’s quest for answers to escalating dissatisfaction, brokenness, addiction and sin, evangelical outreach to college students promises to deliver real hope and ultimate peace. Freedom from sin is possible. Relief from the drudgery and emptiness of modern-day idols is within reach.
Please join us in praying for continued revival!
Image credit: UniteUS
