Word: jabez
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Skow begins every business day praying with the top officers at his Integrity Bank. At the main branch in Alpharetta, a wood carving of the Prayer of Jabez hangs over the entryway, and Bibles are stacked up in the boardroom. But to attract customers, Integrity doesn't rely on prayer alone; it offers higher-than-average interest rates on CDs and checking accounts and reimburses atm fees charged by other banks. Some 10% of the bank's real estate loans are to churches--which don't get a special deal. Integrity, with $590 million in assets under management, went public...
Titles that are more explicitly based on the Bible are also growing in popularity. The Prayer of Jabez for Teens (Multnomah Publishers) has sold more than 800,000 copies since it came out in July, while the Extreme for Jesus series (Thomas Nelson) is the largest brand of Christian teen books and Bibles in the world. Started in 1999, the company has so far sold 1 million books and Bibles. The books, including journals and fiction, are to regular religious literature what skateboarding is to skipping, and the imprint plays up the association with extreme sports. "Church has been made...
...LOTTERY LIT PW reports on the high rollers of 2001 in an article entitled "Few Surprises in the Winners' Circle." The top genre: Christian books, particularly the Left Behind and Jabez series...
More than 2,500 years ago, Jabez, the 35th son of Judah, asked God to bless him and enlarge his territory. He had no idea that his 32-word prayer, wrapped inside an inspirational book by evangelist Bruce Wilkinson, would become a No. 1 best seller. Publishers of the modern world, however, have seen the light. In addition to three spin-off books from Multnomah, the tiny publisher of The Prayer of Jabez, five other publishers have Jabez-inspired books out now or in the works. Among them: Praying Like Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco), I Just Wanted More Land (Xulon Press...
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...