MICHAEL WESTFALL: I would like to welcome you to The American Conservative and thank you for your participation in this interview. I have several questions to ask you. You are head of a very important ministry covering a very important industry. When and why did the Hollywood Prayer Network, (HPN), begin and how many members do you now have?
KAREN COVELL:
Thanks Michael. The Hollywood Prayer Network started in July of 2001. I began it out of Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Hollywood and it has been growing every since. We now have over 5,000 members, representing over 10,000 praying units across the world. And people are joining us on-line every single day!
We have 14 local chapters in the United States, Canada, Thailand and Italy. We have almost 500 "I to I Prayer Partnerships" which are matched pairs of an intercessor outside of Hollywood committed to pray for a Christian who is an industry professional in Hollywood. My goal is to have every Christian in Hollywood and in other entertainment industry cities across the country to be prayed for as missionaries as they work, live and minister in the media. We now also send out HPN Media packets, which include our brochure, our 15-minute DVD entitled "The Hollywood Crisis," talking about how God is moving through prayer in Hollywood, and our Remote Prayer Stickers, which are stickers that fit on the front of any TV Remote. They say "STOP and pray for this show!" This encourages Christians to pray for the media they’re watching.
MW: What inspired you personally to become active and can you explain just what HPN does?
KC:
I have a three-fold reason for my inspiration to start HPN. First of all, as a TV Producer myself, and being married to a composer, I saw that we are working in the world’s most influential mission field. Washington DC is the global seat of power, but Hollywood is the global seat of influence. I knew that Christians had turned away from Hollywood decades ago and since then the programming has been getting darker, more compromising, etc. I believe they started to see giants in the land and they became afraid, thinking they were too big to conquer. It became obvious to my husband Jim and me that more Christians needed to be back here in this mission field, working and ministering so that we could "take back the land." Jim and I and some friends who also worked here truly believed that though there were (and still are) giants in the land – they are NOT TOO BIG. We believed that if we started asking people to pray, inviting God to come in, bring in solid believers and do a miracle here that we could see Hollywood be redeemed. We are now part of a community of over 5,000 Christians in Hollywood, there are 19 active ministries here (www.hollywoodconnect.com), there are believers in key positions in studios, TV networks, production companies, etc. and we are indeed seeing God doing miracles here. We are seeing answers to our prayers.
Secondly, I want Christians to pray for the people in Hollywood to change "the church’s" heart and perspective of this mission field. I want to have Christians around the world think about the media they are watching, listening to and downloading, and think about the people involved as children of God who
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