Praying for others has become almost a cottage industry, with thousands of ‘prayer warriors’ handling requests across the nation. Pawling, N.Y.

It’s time for Geraldine Dawson to reach out to the Lord. "OK Mary," she tells the caller, "let’s pray." Head bowed, hands clasped at her computer keyboard, Dawson begins speaking into the phone at the Peale Center for Christian Living. "Heavenly father, we pray for Mary ... we pray that you will use any medication that she may be getting to bring relief to her."

And so it goes for Dawson, one of thousands of so-called "prayer warriors" across the USA. In 90 minutes this morning, she’ll handle 22 telephone prayer requests. One woman wants a prayer for her job hunting spouse. Another caller worries about a shut-in, 80.

Around the nation, praying for others has become one of the hottest forms of religious outreach in the ‘90’s. The trend encompasses individual churches, entire denominations, nondenominational ministries and even radio stations. Advances in computers and telecommunications allow these outposts of the Lord to flourish. Prayer-seekers can write, call on toll-free lines or even post their needs on Internet sites that are springing up:

• The Peale Center handles about 2,000 letters, 450 phone calls and 175 Internet messages a week.
  
• In Nashville, calls to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center are up 33% in just two years, to 110,000 in 1995, the latest numbers available.
• Outside Kansas City, Mo., the Silent Unity prayer ministry handles about 3,300 calls a day around the clock and expects to answer 1.25 million calls this year.
• The Assemblies of God’s National Prayer Center in Springfield, Mo., has logged about 100,000 calls since it opened in October 1994.

"Certainly in the last five years it has really mushroomed," says Henry Blackaby of the Southern Baptist Convention. With the growth come warnings from some religious watchdogs who say many evangelists offer prayer merely to create mailing lists for fund appeals. But Quentin Schultze, a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and editor of the Internet for Christians newsletter, says the majority do it with good intentions.

Why do thousands, possibly millions of people, ask strangers to pray for them? Believers say because it works and because in the Bible God tells people to pray. "Christians have always believed... that we ought to pray for one another, and that the prayers of other believers are helpful and valuable in bringing our needs before the Lord," says Andrew Attaway, an editor at Guideposts, the religious publisher and ministry that includes the Peale Center.

For Mary-Alice Jafolia of Silent Unity, the prayer ministry of the Unity School of Christianity, there’s a less theological answer. "When people call us they’re usually in a hurt place," she says. Baskets holding tens of thousands of prayer requests, from letters and telephone calls, line the walls of the ministry’s small round chapel. Each request remains there 30 days. At least one person from Silent Unity is in the chapel at all times praying for the requests. "It’s comforting to know prayers will continue at least a month," Jafolia says.

Jim Roy, coordinator of the Upper Room, says the ministry helps lift a burden. "We briefly take the prayer requests from their shoulders, (put them) briefly on our shoulders and then onto God’s shoulders," says Roy. In some prayer centers technology allows volunteers to pray at their convenience. The Assemblies of God channels calls from Springfield, Mo., to prayer centers at churches and colleges. The toll-free number has been promoted in denominational literature and bumper stickers that read, "Hurting? 1-800-4-PRAYER." The organizations insist a donation is never a condition of responding to a prayer request. But running toll-free telephone lines and processing centers is not cheap. The Unity School of Christianity’s prayer program, for example, will cost $9.5 million to run this year, all of that coming from donations.

Some groups, such as the Assemblies of God, won’t take more than a first name from a caller and a home state. Many others will write down a name and address so a written response can be sent. Some, such as the World Ministry of Prayer, a department of the United Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles, include a return envelope for a donation. "The ones that just take the first name are the ones you can bet are sincere and legitimate," says Ole Anthony, President of Trinity Foundation, a religious watchdog group. His organization keeps flies on 130 evangelists he says use requests to get names. The practice is growing. "If you call into a ministry and they require anything other than your first name, hang up."

On Internet: Uplifting But Not Very Private
USA Today By Lori Sharn

E-mail and the Web can send a single prayer request to thousands of people around the globe in a matter of hours.

That can be a wonderful source of spiritual uplifting and comfort. But Quentine Schultze, author of Internet for Christians, cautions that some prayer seekers don’t understand the very public nature of the Internet. The post personal information, he says: their real names and sometimes the names and troubles of friends and neighbors. And they could leave themselves open to con artists. "Some of these people bare their souls," Schultze about the digital medium that encourages people to reveal private matters that they would not otherwise reveal." There is little privacy on the Web’s bulletin boards, where postings may be made public immediately. Many Web site operators, however, keep prayer requests confidential, showing them only to employees or volunteers within their organization. Or, they may offer prayer seekers the option of posting requests on a bulletin board.

With E-mail distribution lists, Schultze says, a prayer request goes out to every subscriber. Many prayer lists have hundreds or thousands of names. And some of the addresses on the list could be other lists, creating a cascading effect.

Some lists guard privacy more carefully than others. Schultze advises that prayer seekers check out any lists they join and monitor them carefully for at least a few days before sending out their prayer requests.

Peale Center Takes Care In Processing Prayers
USA Today By Lori Sharn

Pawling, N.Y. With its cubicles and desktop computers, the Fulfillment Department of the Peale Center for Christian Living looks like an insurance office. And in a way it is. Only instead of processing claims, the employees here process prayers. "We believe in praying by name and by problem for each request that we get," says Ruth Peale, 90, widow of the legendary minister Norman Vincent Peale. Callers are asked only for their first names, and their requests are handled immediately, over the phone.

Letters seeking prayers usually come from subscribers to Guideposts publications. The Peale Center is the outreach organization of Guideposts. After the letters are opened and bundled into stacks of 25, a prayer representative such as Ginger VanderMeer reads each one. She types in the name and address, and one or more of 36 codes corresponding to the letter writer’s problem. VanderMeer then types in the code for the booklet each writer will be sent. There is no request for money.

Finally, the letters are rebundled and distributed for prayer. Many are mailed to 182 volunteers, or sent to Peale Center employees who pray on their own time. Stacks go each day to the small chapel with cushioned pews and a stained-glass image of Jesus above the altar.

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