The Healing Power of Prayer

The Surprising Connection between Prayer and Your Health

by: Chester Tolson, Harold Koenig

• Format

  E-Book

  ISBN

  9781441244109

  Pub. Date

  Sep 2003

  SRP

  $12.99

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About

Prayer can heal you. It's not just hype or hope or a spiritual cliché.There is actual scientific evidence to support this. Recent medical and psychological studies claim that prayer can relieve stress, improve attitudes, and mend bodies. Prayer generates peace, power, and health-a triple preventative that guards against anxiety and disease. It's a simple act that heals.

According to Chet Tolson and Harold Koenig prayer helps people function at their best when life serves them the worst. Even on good days, it enhances the mind-body-soul connection. In The Healing Power of Prayer, these authors explain the nature of prayer, what happens when we pray, the restorative benefits of prayer, how to organize prayer, and much more. Their facts and insights will encourage believers to increase, the fainthearted to revive, and skeptics to begin a life of prayer.

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Endorsements

"One of the best books on prayer ever written! Combines the latest scientific findings with personal anecdotes and inspirational guidance. Informs while making for great reading at the same time."--Naomi Judd

"Chester Tolson and Harold Koenig offer convincing reason and rationale to something we have intuitively known for years, that there is a definite connection between prayer and healing. Their fresh, insightful approach to the subject of prayer also shows the tremendous influence of prayer on a healthy, stress-free lifestyle. Complete with guidance to develop a more effective prayer life, it's a book on prayer we have all been waiting for!" --Dr. Ray Cotton, senior pastor, New Hope Community Church, Portland, OR

"At last! An excellent work that brings faith and science together in a way both compelling and readable. Drs. Tolson and Koenig are men of prayer, and their holistic approach to the unity of body, mind, and spirit encourages us all to believe that prayer can and does, indeed, make us whole and holy. In a day when scientific research into the power of healing prayer is literally exploding, this book gives us all an accessible, friendly, down-to-earth entry into this topic. Chapters on the interweaving of faith, grace, the mind, and serenity are worth reading again and again. With this book, Drs. Tolson and Koenig have given the Christian faith community a gift and a blessing. I will surely recommend it to members of my congregation." --Rev. C. Lou Martin, pastor, The Catholic Faith Community of St. Anthony of Padua & Most Precious Blood, Baltimore, MD

"A truly wonderful book demonstrating the power of prayer in helping us to live more balanced and effective daily lives. The authors' personal testimonies to prayer's efficacy as well as the powerful stories of others healings have once more convicted me that prayer is not merely a preparation for ministry - it is our ministry! Prayer works! It positively changes things because, through it, God changes us!" --Rev. Michael Ward, senior pastor, Central United Church, Calgary, Alberta Canada

"In 1947 God's Spirit awakened me! Yet in prayer I was frustrated and discouraged, but determined. Slowly they became clear--the dynamics of effective prayer. Now I have discovered them afresh in The Healing Power of Prayer." --Louis H. Evans, Pastor Emeritus, National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C.

"This book could not be more timely. We are becoming increasingly more aware of how the body, mind, and spirit work together in keeping us healthy. Prayer is an important part of the healing process. This book explores how prayer works and you may use it in your own lives. I recommend you read it carefully." --Dr. Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor, The Crystal Cathedral Ministries, Garden Grove, California

"With deep knowledge born from study, experience and active prayer, the Rev. Dr. Chet Tolson and Dr. Harold Koenig have combined their extraordinary ability to create an influential and important guide to help us further connect our lives and the spiritual life. 'Prayer is medicine for the soul!' state the authors. It is true! It speeds recovery in illness, it connects our bodies, minds, and psyches to God's great Presence, it brings us into a closer relationship with the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. As a parish pastor who has seen the power of prayer at work, The Healing Power of Prayer captures precisely what members of my church can find most beneficial in their daily lives. I look forward to sharing it with my congregation and colleagues." --Steven E. Berry D.D., D Min, pastor, "The Meetinghouse," Manchester,Vermont

"A rich banquet of clinical, pastoral, and personal experience that highlights the healing power of prayer and nourishes the mind, body, and soul." --Dale A. Matthews, MD, author, The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer

"I am persuaded that the authors of this book The Healing Power of Prayer present a positive and constructive view of God's plan for a balanced view of Christian living. As a Pentecostal pastor for over 40 years, I would highly recommend it to the world of full Gospel believers." --Dr. Fulton W. Buntain, senior pastor, Life Center, Tacoma, WA

"Bringing together a rich assortment of credentials and life experiences, Tolson and Koenig masterfully blend faith and medicine. In an age when there is such a great hunger for the spiritual, it is helpful to see how the spiritual and the physical work together in harmony. This book is a must read for people in the helping professions." --Jim Capps, senior pastor, Southport Presbyterian Church

"A powerful and beautiful book on the power and beauty of prayer - resulting in a happier, healthier life. The documentation is impressive. It's all there - for the reading and the living!" --Donald W. Morgan, Minister Emeritus, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, CT; Pastoral Mentor, Vision New England; Author, When Your World Is Coming Apart and Share the Dream, Build the Team

"The message of The Healing Power of Prayer is MAGNIFICANT! This book is both practical and profound. I was both inspired and informed! After my own heart attack and six by-pass surgeries I was eagerly searching for a great book on prayer and healing. I found it!" --Dr. Walt Kallestad, senior pastor, Community Church of Joy, Glendale, AZ

"This is a superb book on the holistic nature of prayer. Holding to the central principle that prayer is conversation with the One who loves us most, Tolson and Koenig then, with both breadth and depth of understanding, proceed to share the psychological, emotional, and sociological benefits of a consistent, healthy prayer life. In my 15-year friendship-journey with Chet Tolson, I can honestly say he 'walks the talk.' This is heart stuff--good medicine for the entire soul!" --Blair K. Anderson, senior pastor, Lord of Life Lutheran Church, Ramsey, MN

"Every day I receive heart-breaking letters and phone calls from people who have lost all hope because they have been diagnosed with cancer. Frightened, helpless and scared, they--and their families--often have resigned themselves to a difficult and painful death. They should not! With surrender to God through sincere prayer, I have seen literally thousands of people conquer cancer. That is what this wonderful and inspiring book is all about. The Healing Power of Prayer is more than a book about positive thinking. It is a roadmap to positive living. This work inspires, instructs and gives hope. In that sense, it truly heals. The Healing Power of Prayer should be required reading for anyone interested in health enhancement and life enrichment. I predict this book will become a classic for people going through illness...a true 'gift with a lift' to the human spirit." --Greg Anderson, Founding Chairman, Cancer Recovery Foundation International; author, The Cancer Conqueror and Cancer: 50 Essential Things to Do

"Many of us have experienced the power of prayer to make a difference in our lives. Nevertheless, our prayers for healing do not seem to be always answered. These two authors have written a most helpful book, offering concrete ways in which God's healing power can be appropriated. It is sure to increase your faith and strengthen your prayer life." --Dr. Bruce Larson, Pastor Emeritus, University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington

"The Healing Power of Prayer brings together the expertise of two established authors - a clergyman and a physician and leading research scholar. Together they present an informative, readable and practical work on the effects of religion and prayer on stress, health and healing. With a particular focus on the Christian tradition, they have coupled scholarship, experience and personal reflection to produce a work that is unique among its kind. It should find an important place in the library of clinicians, clergy and others who are interested in the efficacy of prayer." --Margaret M. Poloma, Ph.D., The University of Akron, Author of (together with George H. Gallup, Jr.) Varieties of Prayer

"What an excellent balance between human responsibility and divine intervention in this matter of man's need and God's supply. As a Pentecostal, our focus has been on the mighty power of God to meet human need, but sometimes we neglected human responsibility, as well as human ability. Thank God for the great strides that continue to be made by science, and thank you authors for bringing all this information to us in this excellent book." --L.H. Hardwick, Jr., senior pastor, Christ Church, Nashville, TN

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Reviews

"At times this book, co-written by a pastor and a physician, seems like two separate treatises. The first third convincingly lays out evidence from dozens of medical studies about the mind-body connection, while the rest is a fairly generic guide to prayer in the Christian life: "what it is, how to pray, what happens when we pray, and how to pray more effectively." However, the book's first part alone is worth the price of admission--it is filled with astonishing facts and statistics about the need for spiritual awareness in maintaining and regaining health. There is, for example, startling evidence of how stress disables the immune system, and how individuals with a strong religious orientation are statistically more likely than other patients to recover from a life-threatening illness. Prayer, according to the authors, 'has the potential to produce healing along with drugs, surgery, and other therapies,' and should be considered a vital component of recovery."
--Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline