Books: A Prayer With Wings

Actually, even he didn't guess the book's potential. He says the reason for its surprise success is "the $20 million question" and testifies that the only one who thought it would hit more than 30,000 copies a year was his wife, who felt that "God would perhaps enjoy getting the message out." He suggests that although most Americans believe in prayer, they save it for emergencies, and Jabez's relatively low-key, daily program may be a welcome novelty. PW's Garrett agrees: "It's very evangelical and very American, this whole notion that if you know the right technique, the right form, that prayer will be efficient and effective. Kind of like golf."

There are other factors. The book is a bit of a genre-bender, packing a change-your-life message that evangelicals are used to seeing in 350-page tomes into an easy-to-read 93 pages. At $9.99, it can be bought in multiple copies for friends, like a literary W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. Wilkinson's editor David Kopp reports two influential boosters: James Dobson and his wife Shirley, who heard Wilkinson preach Jabez on a tape during a long drive. Dobson then featured the book on his immensely influential Focus on the Family radio show. Mark Tauber, a religion-book veteran now at the Beliefnet.com website, notes that Wilkinson's 30 years of preaching Jabez at rallies assures "a built-in audience of a million people who have been saying the prayer"--and wonders whether its sequel, based on a verse from the Gospel of John, will sell as well.

Wilkinson and Kopp claim that Jabez is attracting nonevangelical audiences, but that is hard to believe, given the book's use of loaded catchwords and concepts. And with some 20 million evangelicals in the country, it is also moot. Says Carolyn Henninger, a bookstore owner in Gainesville, Ga.: "Jabez has changed my life. I had never prayed for the Lord to bless me, to enlarge my territory. It's phenomenal that people I show the book to come back in and buy extra books they're sharing." Henninger has sold 2,300 copies, and says, "I hope I never run out."

--With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York