Prayer Draws Together a Radio Community of Faith

Every Sunday evening, men and women from throughout Southern California call a radio station in Glendale to pray on the air with a pastor they have never met.

It’s “Prayer Time With Pastor Jim” on KKLA-FM (99.5), and callers tell the Rev. Jim Misiuk, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Lake Forest in Orange County, about every conceivable human condition: illness, loneliness, unemployment, financial difficulty, marital problems, past wounds and spiritual struggles. And they ask him to pray for them.

Unlike many other religious radio shows, “Prayer Time” does not solicit contributions. (His church buys the weekly time slot from KKLA at a special discount rate.) Also setting it apart: There is no preaching, teaching or calls to join a church.

A woman named Morgan recently asked Misiuk to pray that she might hear from her 28-year-old son.

“I don’t know where he is; I haven’t heard from him in two years,” she said, her voice breaking. “I pray that he will contact me. I love him.”

“Let’s go to the Lord in prayer,” Misiuk said, urging his listening audience to join in prayer for the mother.

“Father, please hear this mom’s call,” he said. “We pray for her son. You know where he is. We know her heart is breaking tonight. Please, God, bring that to pass. We pray that she would get some good news and that this division is healed.”

Theologian Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, said the popularity of a radio show like this is a reflection of the “extreme individualism” of American society, especially in California, with its huge population density and mobility.

“A lot of folks really have no roots, no extended network of relationships, so it’s a cry from the heart,” Gibbs said. He said that the program fills a need and that he hoped it would lead people to get connected with a community of faith “that could respond to them on a deeper level.”

For 2 1/2 years, Misiuk has listened to hurting people pour out their heartaches.

“I wait every weekend for that program,” said Larry Robinson, a construction worker in Agoura Hills who has been calling for nearly a year about a son who got in trouble with the law and had a drug addiction. “I’ve seen so many things come my way because of Pastor Jim’s prayer--and the power of all those joining him to pray.”

Robinson said his son -- who used to “get into trouble and fight all the time” -- has turned around so much that authorities have told him they are considering releasing him early from a youth detention facility.

Misiuk said he had seen a need for a radio program devoted solely to prayer, not to Bible teaching or preaching. He recounts what he says was his own life-changing experience of the power of prayer and his embrace of Christianity.

In the mid-1970s, after doctors told him his 7-year-old son might have leukemia or Hodgkin’s disease, Misiuk said, he prayed.

“That night, I got down on my knees and spoke to the Lord,” he said. “I said, ‘If what these people out here in the Jesus movement have been telling me is true, please answer me and make yourself real to me and heal my son.’ ”

In the middle of the night, Misiuk believes, God let him know that his boy would be all right. The next day, after new blood tests, doctors told him that results were different from those of earlier tests, he said, and that the youngster would be all right without any treatment.

From that point on Misiuk, a computer programmer analyst, began attending the Rev. Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, eventually becoming an assistant pastor 13 years ago. In 1995, he started Calvary Chapel of Lake Forest, which now has about 300 members.

“Prayer Time” was born out of his and his congregation’s goal to take prayer to people who are bedridden, have no home church or have no one to pray with.

Misiuk doesn’t know how many people tune in on Sunday evenings.

But, Jason Jeffries, director of long form programming at KKLA, said the station is the most listened-to Christian talk radio in the nation, according to Arbitron. “ ‘Prayer Time’ is one of our most popular programs,” he said.

Through the Internet, “Prayer Time” also reaches listeners across the country and around the world. Maryjane Behan of Eatontown, N.J., listens via the Internet when she is up late. The program is on from 9:30 to 10 p.m. Pacific time.

Behan calls it “soul-warming” and “beneficial” to her prayer life because she prays for the strangers who call in.

Because Misiuk doesn’t solicit contributions, there is no need for time-consuming paperwork or to keep track of names or phone numbers of callers.

“That’s why the program works,” Misiuk said. “We don’t request anything and we don’t keep tabs on anything. That would be diluting the program.”

“I know of no other program like it anywhere,” said the Rev. Jason Van Divier of Calvary Chapel in Parker, Colo., who has led churches in California and Massachusetts. Van Divier, who listens to it on the Internet occasionally, said he had never come across another call-in program solely for prayer. It “is original, but more importantly, it is a blessing to thousands of people,” he said.

As Misiuk prays with callers in the studio, his wife, Mary Ann, answers the toll free number -- (888) LATALKS -- screening callers and taking down information in an adjoining room.

Misiuk’s approach is kind and patient. When long-winded callers get repetitive and rambling, he gently steers them with, “Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.”

The anonymity of the venue also seems to encourage people to talk openly.

A caller, Linda, asked for a prayer for her mother -- who had dementia and was near death in a nursing home -- that the “Lord would take her quickly in his mercy and be a comfort to the family and for me too.”

“We put Linda’s mom in your hands, Lord,” Misiuk said. “Lord, please speak to her even in the state she is in. Draw her close to you. We pray now that her trust, faith and hope would be in you and that she would be at peace. We pray that she would go home quickly and peacefully. We pray that you will comfort Linda.”

For those who can’t get through, Misiuk urges them to call the church -- where four elders field the calls and pray -- after the program.

Some listen even if they have no intention of calling.

Marietta Sajdowitz, the mother of a toddler from Lake Forest, is a regular listener because the program shows “how connected we are to the other members of the body of Christ.”

After putting her baby to bed, she and her husband, Eric, often sit in their living room and pray along with Misiuk, she said.

“Sometimes I’m moved to tears during the prayer,” she said. “The problems some of the people call in about make me feel like my problems are so insignificant,” she said.