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In fact, the World Prayer Center server has crashed several times because so many people are signing up to receive e-mail prayer alerts, ranging from the healing of a cancer patient in Alabama to protection for Pakistani Christians from persecution by Muslim extremists. Lately, the team has focused more of its attention on Iraq, initially praying that Saddam Hussein comply with U.N. weapons inspectors and then that he abdicate. Haggard personally believes that is was God's plan for Saddam to leave Iraq, but that Saddam, despite the entreaties of millions, exercised his free will. Haggard told Christianity Today, "Saddam made a choice."

The team now prays mainly in four areas: the leadership of the United States; minimal loss of life in the war; freedom for all people, especially the politically oppressed in Iraq; and freedom of religion, particularly of worship. Though he believes in miraculous prayer, Haggard also knows what he's up against. "We all know we are living in a fallen world," Haggard says. "Death is a part of war. Prayer doesn't turn earth into heaven."

New Life Church has started a new "Call to War Men's Prayer Offensive" ministry (www.calltowar.com). The Call to War webpage features an American eagle over the words "More Prayer. Less Talk." Among other requests, the Call to War site includes this suggested prayer: "Lord, we come against the spirit of terrorism in the Middle East. We ask that any nation that harbors terrorists would come under new leadership. Lord, bring Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden to justice. Give our military leaders supernatural guidance to their locations."

Another group with a goal to pray for those in national authority is Global Harvest Ministries (www.globalharvest.org), which was instrumental in founding the World Prayer Center. Leaders of the group consider its methodology more strategic than some other prayer initiatives because of their highly trained intercessors, according to Chuck D. Pierce, vice president of Global Harvest Ministries.

Global Harvest Ministries was founded in 1991 by Fuller Seminary's C. Peter Wagner and others who hold to the warfare approach to prayer. Supporters can subscribe to its Global Prayer News quarterly newsletter or sign up for the e-mail version.

Pierce subscribes to Wagner's theology that prayer should be spontaneous, frequent, aggressive, loud, expressive, and emotional. Pierce, coauthor of The Future War of the Church (Regal Books, 2001), believes the terror strikes of September 11 ushered in a seven-year "season of war." Pierce says that by 2008, the United States will either align with God or drift from his purpose, resulting in more destruction.

Citing Ephesians 6, Pierce believes that Christians have the ability to raise the shield of faith and quench the fiery darts that would hurt innocent people. "That doesn't mean there won't be casualties," Pierce says. "But we have the ability to minimize them."

One assumption of many prayer efforts has been that prayer's effectiveness increases with the number of people praying. Haggard, for example, while acknowledging that the plea of a humble child might be more effective than appeals by a million adults, says that "some Scriptures indicate that people praying in agreement becomes increasingly influential in the kingdom of God."

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May 2003, Vol. 47, No. 5