Junior High Student Sets Example For All Believers By Leading Peers In Prayer
Levi Graves, 15, prays over the 61 ninth graders gathered to pray on the National Day of Prayer at Ada Junior High School in Ada, Oklahoma.
While many 14- and 15-year-olds would normally spend their lunch period chatting about upcoming tests, worrying about homework assignments, or catching up on text messages, 61 ninth graders in Ada, Oklahoma took time out of their lunch period to participate in the National Day of Prayer. They didn’t just talk about prayer or listen to an adult teach on prayer – they ran right into the presence of God in prayer themselves!
Ada Junior High ninth grader Levi Graves began the gathering by praying over the entire group of students assembled in the gymnasium, and then directed the students to break into smaller groups of 10 or less to pray on different topics of interest and need. These students lifted up their friends and peers, their school, churches in the community, and many other areas in prayer, pouring out to the God of hope and trusting that He would fill every need in each area.
This National Day of Prayer gathering was a new expression in a movement of God that these students have been experiencing in recent months. Last year as eighth graders, Levi Graves and two of his friends, Jake and Carson, felt the Lord leading them to start a weekly Bible Club during their lunch period. It quickly grew from averaging 30 students to 50 students each week!
Levi and his friends don’t have a gimmick or special incentive to get their peers to join them – the young men simply take turns giving a devotion and sharing the Gospel while they eat lunch together.
This year in ninth grade, the Tuesday Bible Club meetings have continued to grow in number and in power, averaging 60 to 70 students joining each week. Before the National Day of Prayer, the Bible Club saw six students respond to the Gospel and pray to receive Christ as their Savior!
Leading up the 2025 National Day of Prayer, Levi and the Bible Club members encouraged their peers to join the special prayer gathering by word of mouth and handed out flyers to remind everyone of the different meeting day. Their prayer gathering was a time to respond God in their growing faith journeys, applying all they had learned in their devotions to glorify God and increase their hope in Him by pouring out the desires of their hearts: to see God bring salvations and transformation to their school and city.
Just this week on Tuesday, May 13th, at the last Bible Club of the school year, Levi was able to lead a young man to the Lord, who became the seventh student to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ at Bible Club this school year!
These students are already seeing God answer their prayers, and just as the 2025 National Day of Prayer theme verse says, they are being, “filled with all joy and peace in believing!”
Levi Graves was also featured in the 2025 National Day of Prayer Broadcast pouring out in prayer throughout the program! If you haven't watched the 2025 National Day of Prayer Broadcast, be sure to catch Levi and prayer leaders from around the nation for a time of powerful prayer, encouragement, and hope!
Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.
1 Timothy 4:12 NASB
