REZ WEEK AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
In November of 1992, Bobby Dean, a student at Texas A&M University, invited student leaders from various ministries on his campus to explain his vision for a week long time of united prayer, worship, and evangelism. He asked these leaders to share this vision with their ministries, and to pray for two weeks about God’s will for this movement. Two weeks later, these leaders came together and truly felt that this was God’s direction for their ministries. This week was dubbed Rez Week. Rez Week is short for Resurrection Week.
Over 200 students attended evangelism and follow-up training sessions the week prior to Rez Week. Well over 2,000 students participated in the week and came together in united prayer and worship each night. During the week a 24-hour prayer room was established, tables were staffed by students conducting evangelistic surveys and student counselors answered a hot line for those interested learning about Christ. Bobby Dean wrote of his experience with Rez Week:
"It was a highlight of my life to watch God work through Rez Week. If you notice in the history column above, this undertaking was much greater than me and the talented leadership team that had formed. God was the founder of Rez Week and He called his servants to be obedient to Him. As the vision for Rez Week expands to other campuses, I pray other students can experience the Resurrection power of Jesus Christ."
GOD BRINGS REZ WEEK TO THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
Unknown to Bobby, his prediction had been coming true at the University of Texas in Austin. God was moving in the hearts of students from various ministries led by Justin Christopher who had been gathering to pray every morning for revival on campus since the Fall of 1991. In the Spring of 1993, these students hosted a campus-wide Concert of Prayer where students from various ministries on campus came together corporately for three hours of prayer.
In the Spring of 1994, Jeremy Story, a student at the University of Texas, challenged the UT ministry leaders to help put together a week of corporate prayer, worship, and outreach. For a while the week went without a name until its leaders heard of a similar week at Texas A&M called Rez Week and decided to use this name.
In the Spring of 1994, UT’s first Rez Week was birthed. At the concert of prayer in an unplanned display, students spontaneously began to line up to publicly confess sins one by one as God convicted the whole auditorium. Again over 2,000 students came together in prayer and worship. Student outreach teams shared Christ with students on campus and many decisions for Christ were made. Jeremy Story wrote of his experience with Rez Week:
"I was amazed and grown tremendously by the power God released as his children came together in unity. Many student leaders took this larger picture of God’s power back to their groups and stepped out with new found faith. Neither I, nor Bobby Dean, or any other Rez Week director can claim to be the authors of these times; we are simply servants to whom God gave the awesome grace gift of seeing up close God move through Rez Week. To God alone be the glory for what we have seen and are seeing on campuses through Rez Week, both now and forevermore!"
Since 1992, God has been birthing Rez Week celebrations on other campuses in Texas. In the Fall of 1994, Jeremy Story began to travel to various campuses to encourage united movements of prayer, worship, and evangelism as well as to coordinate Rez Week activities. Out of these efforts Campus Renewal Ministries was formed.
GOD BRINGS REZ WEEK TO FSU
In January of 1998, Brent Kanyok, a student at Florida State University, went to Passion ’98 and met Jeremy Story, the President of Campus Renewal Ministries. Jeremy shared the vision of Rez Week and Brent’s heart began to ignite with vision to unite the body of Christ at FSU campus. It was a Passion because two years prior to 1998, he worked towards bringing students together from different ministries to worship Jesus on Landis Green. This divine appointment with Jeremy Story fueled a desire to start a Rez Week on the FSU campus. Then later that Spring of 1998, FSU participated in its first Rez Week.
In the Spring of 2001, God spoke to Brent about calling the Body of Christ to pray 24/7 during Rez Week. This was a big change for Rez Week, which was primarily event driven. The campus ministers and students caught the vision of praying 24/7 during Rez Week, and it has become a week for the different ministries to come together and seek Jesus with nonstop prayer for a whole week. Rez Week is now in its 8th year of existence, and is a time on campus where the Body of Christ looks forward to celebrating Jesus Christ.
Brent Kanyok wrote of his experience with Rez Week "I think Rez Week has been a huge component to the move of unity on FSU campus. Rez Week has become a yearly celebration of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. I think the campus ministers and students are growing relationally and functionally on campus. I have come to realize how awesome the campus ministers and students are at FSU. God ultimately has built this move of unity at FSU. I believe our campus has moved towards wanting to believe and hope for transformation and revival at FSU. Jesus is the only hope for this to happen on the campus of FSU."