History

In the late-1990s groups of university students from campuses across the United States began meeting regularly to worship and pray for spiritual awakening and renewal at their respective colleges and universities.

Encouraged and resourced by Christian evangelical ministries like Campus Renewal, Passion, Youth With a Mission, CRU, Intervarsity, Chi Alpha and others, these worship and prayer gatherings quickly became a national movement that spread to the University of Tennessee. Here, students from almost every Christian ministry fostered All Campus Worship and 100 Hours of Prayer - a series of united gatherings. From these gatherings arose a felt need and a decisive call by students and others for a place to pray and worship together on campus anytime day or night. 

God answered their prayers in 2009 when the Campus House of Prayer (CHOP) at UTK was birthed as a gathering place for united prayer and worship. Hundreds of students, campus and church ministry leaders utilized this space and place to strategically and collaboratively advance Christ’s Kingdom in accordance with God’s promised blessing of unity as recorded in Psalms 133 of Scripture. 

Realizing its great effectiveness in uniting Christ-followers, a coalition of local collegiate ministry leaders, students, and other Christ-followers from across Knoxville established Knox CHOP in 2017, serving both the civic and collegiate communities of greater Knoxville TN through united prayer and mission while remaining true to the historic mission and purpose of Christ and His Church through discipleship, evangelism, sacraments, worship, prayer and fellowship. 

In the summer of 2022, Knox CHOP moved its location to 1538 Highland Avenue in the Fort Sanders neighborhood (due to our need for more space and the owner’s sale of our Lake Avenue property for commercial development) where we continue to expand Christ’s Kingdom and UT and beyond!