Hollywood is a place many Christians have condemned; Karen Covell has spent 25 years asking them to pray for the people who work there instead. She is the founder of the Hollywood Prayer Network and sees the town as her greatest ministry.
After all, screenwriters themselves have long preached the maxim “story is everything,” and if stories create meaning, influence emotions and shape identity, then Hollywood is the most influential mission field there ever was.
That’s what Covell was thinking when she began the faith-based organization that, along with her staff and now 170+ chapters in 42 countries, just celebrated its 25th anniversary with a Gatsby-themed gala in downtown Los Angeles.
Founded in 2001, the Hollywood Prayer Network, through prayer, community and resources, supports the entertainment industry’s storytellers and believes the next generation of actors, writers, directors and producers doesn’t have to maneuver Tinseltown alone.
The organization offers everything from intercessory prayer and professional discipleship programs to networking and Bible studies.
“We have a beautiful community here. You couldn’t get me out of this place for anything because the people that are here are wonderful,” Covell told Fox News Digital.
It was more than 25 years ago that Covell, along with her composer husband, Jim Covell, saw and felt the need for believers in Hollywood to have support.
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“It’s competitive, a lot of people look for work, we’re all freelancers, and we wanted to support the people of faith here who really felt like they had one foot in the church and one foot in the Hollywood entertainment industry and neither one liked each other,” Covell, who originally came to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California, explained.
While the two had already started a prayer group, they found that those coming to Los Angeles out of the church arrived in the city, as she put it, already “beat up.”
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“I knew Hollywood didn’t like the church because we were really terrible to them — we boycotted, we threw out our TVs, we burned their books — we wouldn’t go to their movies, you know, but I believed if you pray for somebody, you can’t hate them,” Covell said.
She recalled hearing stories from people in the group whose families, pastors and friends had warned them not to go to Los Angeles — that it was Satan’s pit and that they couldn’t live there.
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“And I said, ‘This is ridiculous. We should be storytellers, we should be creative. God created us to be creative.’”
So Covell decided to try to figure out a way to build a bridge between the church in America and Hollywood.
“I thought, ‘I’ve got to get the church to start understanding the beauty and the importance of Hollywood,’” she said.
Since then, whether someone is a believer or not, the HPN has prayed for people ranging from fledgling singers to the likes of Britney Spears during her periods of intense tabloid scrutiny and personal struggle. Paris Hilton has received intercessory prayer while Robert Downey Jr. was lifted up during his public battle with addiction. There have been many prayers for wildlife, crisis relief efforts and, recently, for celebrity blogger Perez Hilton following his distressing livestream and subsequent hospitalization.
Through its monthly Kids Prayer Calendar, “Ones2Watch,” members support child and teen actors in prayer before they face major industry pressures.
The organization has established numerous community groups geared toward directors, dancers, writers, comedians and people working in technology and AI. It has local chapters across the United States, each serving entertainment professionals through mentorship, networking and worship. It also has its own app, which lists its resources, local chapters around the world and community events.
“We have gatherings of people all over the city and all over the country and the world who say, yes, it’s important to be storytellers,” Covell said, noting that she has found what really attacks artists is isolation, discouragement and fear. “Those three things can all be combated in community.”
For her part, Covell credits her 42-year marriage to a husband who counts the days they’ve been together as a big part of her own success. The two, who recently finished a book titled “Confessions of a Hollywood Marriage,” as she put it, “pray together every day and walk with each other through the hard and good times.”
“It’s not a how-to book, it’s not anything to help people, it is just us telling the story of our marriage and how it’s been such a beautiful and amazing journey for the last 42 years,” Covell said. “It’s not because we’re any different or special… We know people see so many bad marriages that they lose hope that it’s possible. And we just let people know, this is the greatest gift.”
Just last year, Covell chose to step down from producing and instead devote herself fully to the Hollywood Prayer Network, which she said has been growing quickly of late.
It wasn’t that way at the start.
“I take credit for having, I think, the slowest-growing ministry on the planet. It was just one person at a time. Would you pray for Hollywood?” Covell quipped. “And I just kept going.”
Recently, staff and members posted a video on the organization’s social media showing Covell jokingly preparing for a “Netflix documentary” about what it’s like to be a Christian in Hollywood. The viral posts included disclaimers clarifying that the Netflix part was just a ruse based on a popular online video trend.
Covell just wants to keep supporting storytellers as they tell great stories and reminding them that they’re not alone in the process.
“… As a producer, I worked in Hollywood and in the secular industry. My husband is still writing music in the secular industry. We love the commercial industry of Hollywood. We love the people, we love the projects, we love the place,” she said. “This ministry started growing and I slowly started seeing other people come with the same feeling of, ‘Well, let’s build community. Let’s be together. Let’s love the people we’re here with. Let’s celebrate being storytellers.’”
“We want to tell great stories that inspire people, that encourage people. And we want to know that we’re not alone doing it. So, that’s my purpose with the prayer network.”
