I write this prayer as an open letter of gratitude so that others may join in giving thanks and praise to you, Jesus, for what you have done in this community. Thank you for the years of abundance, and thank you also for this season of difficulty that has brought us closer together, reminding us of our unity and our constant dependence upon you. Thank you for the many opportunities you have given us, and are still giving us, to advance your kingdom here on the earth.

Thank you for the people whom you have brought together here, and for the many ways in which you have taught us to love and serve each other as we pursue the mission you have given us. Thank you for my colleagues, who have been such inspiring examples in their public work and in their private lives, as well as in their classrooms. Thank you for the many students who have committed their lives to you, and who are so eagerly and diligently—even passionately—seeking knowledge, wisdom, and understanding as they prepare to fulfill your calling on their lives. Thank you for using these classrooms and this community to ready their minds and strengthen their faith, even drawing some students to place their faith in you for the first time, and thank you for preparing them for positions of influence and leadership in strategic institutions.

Thank you for the brave alumni who have already taken up positions of influence in strategic institutions. Thank you for placing recent graduates in strategic businesses and financial institutions such as CBRE, Bridgewater Associates, Morgan Stanley, Blockworks, and PWC. Thank you for the alumni who are positioned to influence publishers and news media institutions including The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Newsweek, Christianity Today, Hearst, and Penguin Random House. Thank you for the alumni whom you have placed in cultural institutions like NYC Public Theater (Shakespeare in the Park), Long Wharf Theatre, Scope Art Gallery, Taubman Museum of Art, New York office of Perform Groups, and Broadway theatre. Thank you for the alumni who are impacting legal and political institutions, including clerk positions for the Texas Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Erie County Board of Elections, and numerous legal firms. Thank you for the alumni whom you have placed in educational institutions, including teaching positions at Great Hearts Academies, Trivium Preparatory Academy, and even an adjunct position here at The King’s College; also those whom you have placed in leadership positions at the National Association of Scholars, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and The Ancient Languages
Institute (founded by a TKC alumnus). Thank you also for the many alumni who have been accepted into graduate degree programs at Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Montclair State, American University, Rutgers, Aberdeen, UT Austin, U of Washington, London School of Economics, Kingston, St. Andrews, McGill University, U of Chicago Law School, and many other influential universities. And thank you, especially, for the hundreds of alumni who are equipped to serve the most important strategic institutions of all: their families and their churches.

Thank you for beginning a good work in us, and thank you that you will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). May your kingdom come, and your will be done.

Gratefully yours,

Joshua Hershey