Editor's Note: The Rainer Scale identifies five "faith stages," or levels of responsiveness, among the unchurched: U1-highly receptive to hearing and believing the Good News. U2-receptive to the gospel and church; U3-neutral, with no clear signs of being interested yet perhaps open to discussion; U4-resistant to the gospel, but with no antagonistic attitude; and U5-highly antagonistic and even hostile to the gospel.

One of these days I would like to lead my research team on a quest to discern the prayer lives of active churchgoing Christians. One factor of which we are certain is that most of the unchurched are praying people. And they see little disconnect between an active prayer life and an incative church life.

For this project, we began with the simple question: Do you pray regularly? Though we did not provide a precise definition for "regularly," the U3s were quick to respond one way or the other. Nearly two-thirds, 63 percent, did indicate their practice of a regular prayer life.

Our next question asked the frequency of their prayer lives. In a simple open-ended question, we asked how often they prayed. The results were intriguing.

The "other" response included numerous comments of U3s who pray more than once a day. We even had one U3 who claimed that she prayed in her sleep!

We see the significance of this data on prayer as twofold. First, these U3s are not unspiritual beings. They believe in some type of God who hears and answers prayers. Their understanding of God and prayer may be far from orthodox, but their beliefs are at least a point of connection for the one who shares his or her faith.

Second, the prayer lives of many of the U3s are indications of men and women who are searching for answers. They realize something is missing in their lives. Many of them are praying to an unknown God with the hope, as Gina H. of Nebraska said, that "someone up there has heard something and can do something about it."

-- from Thom S. Rainer's book "The Unchurched Next Door"