c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Ads offering people psychic direction about their love life or finanical future via toll calls have become staples on television, especially late night TV . Now there’s an evangelical Christian alternative.

During breaks in”The Jerry Springer Show”or”Judge Judy,”30-second TV ads tout the Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based National Prayer Hot Line as a”better alternative to the psychic hot lines.” As a stream flows through a serene landscape on the screen, a voice says,”The power of prayer: When you get down to it, nothing is stronger.”A woman talks about the time she called the hot line.”I got a very, very nice lady on the phone. I felt a sense of peace come over me,”she says.”What this woman did was put my faith and trust in God.” The prayer hot line is aimed directly at viewers who might take their troubles to a psychic on the phone.”I cannot tell you your boyfriend is coming back,”says Linda Morrison, co-founder, president and full-time volunteer for the 2-year-old toll-free prayer hot line.”I can tell you who won’t leave you.” The hot line has been offering an evangelical Christian brand of comfort and guidance for about 300 callers a month who typically are worried about money, poor health or ailing relationships.”People don’t know where to turn today,”says Morrison, who attends Harvest Church in Silver Spring Township, Pa.”People aren’t thinking about God for their hope.” Ads for the hot line run on cable or Fox network stations serving Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and, beginning just recently, Washington, D.C. Ninety volunteers from 35 churches in those markets make sure the hot line is staffed around the clock.

The effort is yet another example of the increasing use of popular media _ and its rhetoric and style _ for religious messages. Evangelical Christians, who place particular emphasis on reaching people outside the church, have been quick to use mass media for that purpose.

The hot-line volunteers, who are recommended by their pastors, are trained to recognize a crisis and to refer any caller who appears suicidal to another hot line staffed by counselors, Morrison says.

What the volunteers do is pray, using language based on Bible passages and selected to fit the caller’s problem, she said.”Our whole purpose, if we don’t do anything else, is to love our caller,”Morrison says.”Many people view Christians as unforgiving and judgmental.””Many of the people that we would like to reach see our churches as barriers. … The telephone reduces the barrier,”says the Rev. Paul Veney of Abundant Life Community Church in Harrisburg, a co-founder and vice president of the hot line.

Veney, who has occasionally filled in as a volunteer, said”just listening”is a crucial part of his role. Often, he says, the callers”start out talking surface talk”and only slowly reveal the painful reason for the calls.

A booklet mailed free to the callers contains topical prayers Morrison says are typical of ones the volunteers pray with callers. For people who need jobs, for example, one prayer asks they”be diligent and fully satisfied”and their”storehouse would be full to overflowing.” There’s a dose of evangelizing, too, along with the prayer.”We talk to them about salvation and a relationship with Jesus Christ,”Morrison says.”We tell them they need to get to a church where people can put their arms around them and love them.” If a caller already goes to church regularly,”we don’t sheep-steal,”she says, but a list of participating churches is mailed free to those who have no regular church.

Morrison does not identify the regular volunteers or the places where they take calls. One volunteer _ who attends Christ Community Church in Lower Allen Twp. _ talked about her experience on condition she be identified only by her first name, Lynn.

Lynn said she makes a point of finding out if her callers are born-again and whether they are going to a”good Bible-preaching, salvation-teaching church.”She said many of them are lonely, or worried about their marriages, or their own or a loved one’s illness.”I believe God heals,”said Lynn, and she shares that belief with her callers.”God says if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains. All the answers are right there in the Bible.” Many people who call her are living in”sexual immorality,”Lynn said _ and she has learned to keep passages about that issue marked in her Bible so she can turn to them quickly during a call.

People don’t get miffed when she addresses that issue, she said, because she is”giving them truth.” Lynn said she has gotten as many as eight calls in a six-hour shift, though lately, with more volunteers working, it has typically been about three. They’re limited to about 10 minutes apiece, but they are very engrossing for her, she said.

Besides Christ Community, Abundant Life and Harvest, 15 other midstate churches provide volunteers for the hot line.

Veney hopes more churches will commit some of their mission budget to the effort, which is funded by donations. Each call costs the hot line about $2.50 and each airing of a hot line ad costs about $100, said Morrison.

Plans in the works call for the hot line to begin a new series of TV ads this fall in cooperation with several area churches.

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