Prayer at Mizzou hosted its first 12-hour Pray Without Ceasing event Saturday in the old Artisan building downtown.

Senior and Prayer at Mizzou member Courtney Cain said the group has been fully functional for four years.

Prayer at Mizzou is unique in that it is not technically a student organization.

“We’re not a campus organization, but we come from campus organizations,” senior Laura Kebede said.

Jane Carter, sophomore and Prayer at Mizzou member, said Prayer at Mizzou has a core group of six or seven students that get together to pray and plan events.

“This organization is really unique in the way it functions because there is no leader,” Carter said.

Cain said Prayer at Mizzou has a different purpose from other Christian organizations, and that they have either a contact or member from the majority of Christian organizations on campus.

“The ultimate goal is to bring unity to the body of Christ at Mizzou and to establish prayer,” sophomore Adam York said.

Kebede said Prayer at Mizzou and the events are ways for campus ministries to connect and get to know each other.

“We aren’t calling people away from their ministries, we want it to be a way for us to come together,” Carter said.

Prayer at Mizzou connects with students through both Facebook and Twitter.

“The only reason we have a name for Prayer at Mizzou is to create some familiarity with it,” Kebede said.

Pray Without Ceasing was divided into six two-hour sets. Each set had a different band, a different topic of prayer and a designated prayer leader.

“We started planning the event about three weeks ago,” Kebede said. “It didn’t give us a lot of time to get the word out.”

They used email, flyers and social media to publicize the event.

“We networked, and tried to let as many people know what we were doing and why as we could,” Cain said.

Carter said they did not set specific expectations for attendance. Cain agreed.

“I would hope our heart would never be set on numbers, but obviously we wanted people to come,” she said.

Carter said at sometimes there were two or three people in attendance, while at other times there was close to 20.

“It was a very come-and-go atmosphere,” Carter said.

York estimated that most people stayed for an average of an hour and a half. He said attendance started to taper off around the start of the football game, but picked back up again after it was over.

Carter said it was interesting to see students priorities, and that some students who had tickets to the football game ended up staying at the event instead.

York said the attendance was definitely affected by game day, but not necessarily in a negative way. He also said he definitely felt he benefited from the event.

“It was really exciting for me because my mom actually came,” Cain said.

Kebede said they also had people from churches in Columbia come and help because they really care about MU.

“It was great to see that generational presence,” she said.

Carter said sometimes things fall apart while planning events.

“But things came together miraculously, divinely,” Carter said.