How Many are Healed?
A few times now, I have come across comments like we see more people healed now than we ever used to and so-and-so has one of the most effective healing ministries I know. But these statements are vague, to say the least. I mean, we could be talking about one in seven hundred (Seven hundred is the approximate count of how many people evangelist Todd White prayed for before anyone was healed, according to Randy Clark on chapter 11 of The Essential Guide to Healing. Now, says Clark, "Not everyone is healed, but [Todd] sees a higher percentage of healings than most people I know."), or it could mean one in five, or four out of every five. In fact, the more than ever before statement could simply mean an increase in throughput rather than in effectiveness. In other words, we're still only seeing a small percentage healed, but we're praying for a whole lot more people. And while that is still wonderful, I would like to have some idea what might be considered "normal." So, something a little more concrete would be helpful.
Thankfully, I am also beginning to come across indications of the actual portion of those prayed for who are healed. For example, on Ian Andrews' website, he claims that, "During our ministry nowadays over 80% of the people that are prayed for receive healing, when we teach how to pray effectively and then allow the congregations to pray for each other and we have seen this happen across all Christian denominations" (quote originally copied on 2/10/2018 from Andrews' previous website location: ianandrews.homestead.com). I have no way to validate the claim, so you'll have to decide for yourself what to do with it, but I am more comfortable (perhaps satisfied is a better word) with a claim of a specific percentage than a claim of more than before or more than most.
A second example, with a much lower rate, but exciting nonetheless, is given by Phil Moore, lead pastor of Everyday Church, a church with multiple campuses in London as well as an online option. In his message "Why & How to Heal," Moore says that if he were an outsider studying his church, he would level the charge that "For every person you've prayed for and seen healed there must be at least two people you've prayed for who haven't been healed!" This is an observation he considers legitimate. As with Ian Andrews' claim above, I have no way to validate this estimate of efficacy, but as Moore is addressing his own congregation (in the linked video), I would imagine he would need to keep his estimate within the bounds of those people's experience, otherwise he would lose credibility with them rather than gain it, which is surely the purpose of mentioning this number to begin with. A similar rate, 29 percent, is attributes to C. Peter Wagner. Craig Keener, however, comments that this rate "would be quite high."1
A further, though slightly less encompassing source of percentages (in that it is broken down by ailment) comes from a video I found online that includes some comments from Heidi Baker. The video, "How to Pray for Healing - Heidi Baker & More," is on Youtube here (the link is queued to the relevant point in the video). Baker states that over a three and a half year period, the rate of healings experienced by her ministry for deaf people in Mozambique was "like 100 ... in Cabo Delgado" (the northernmost province of Mozambique) while for blindness it's "probably been 70%."
Against these three, I would like to contrast a number purported to come from John Wimber. In an article (linked here), Wimber is quoted as saying that 3-8% of blind people were healed, and the tenor of the article suggests this is the high end of the success range. He is also said to have spoken about praying for 200 people with Down syndrome and only seeing only one, partial healing. So, the numbers purported to come from Wimber (albeit in a closed door meeting) are significantly lower than the other three examples.
Still another example comes from Sid Roth who, in an open letter dated August 18, 2017, reports that at an evangelist event in Ukraine, "Leaders estimated 60 percent were healed in their seats." Missing from the letter is any information regarding the size of the crowd, but one supposes there must have been at least five people (in order to allow an estimate 60%, which is the same thing as three out of five). I don't know about you, but if I prayed for five sick people and three were instantly healed, I'd be ecstatic.
I also recently came across a historical number (while reading Craig Keener's excellent work, Miracles). Oral Roberts apparently reported that about ten percent of those he prayed for were healed (quote in Google Books here).
I mentioned Randy Clark parenthetically above, but I'll mention him again here as a Google search just turned up some figures from him. In the book Anointed to Heal: True Stories and Practical Insight for Praying for the Sick, which Clark coauthored with Bill Johnson, he says: "If there were a thousand people in a service, at least one hundred would be healed. If there were one hundred attending, ten would be healed. If we had a really good meeting, it would be 20 percent healed. If we had a great meeting, it would be 30 percent. And sometimes—on our last trip, for example—100 percent were healed! In a smaller meeting, every single person they prayed for got healed. In one meeting it was 90 percent." That quote is available through Google Books here.
Another example Google turned up of a claim of 100 percent being healed on a specific occasion is in a sermon by Curry Blake posted on YouTube here. Blake is another person I am completely unfamiliar with, and he has detractors (but then so does everyone I've mentioned above and, indeed, Jesus himself).
Of course, the numbers for Heidi Baker and those purported to come from a closed door meeting with John Wimber are related to specific ailments, which is possibly a whole other topic. I came across another example of that recently (here), this one supposedly coming from Kathryn Kuhlman: "When I get to heaven, I'm going to ask Jesus, 'Why do two wheelchair cases get up and walk off, and ten don't?'" It is interesting to observe that some people seem to see a higher ratio of healing for particular conditions, although this does make it difficult to identify reliable healing rates. By that I mean, if someone commonly sees 80% of people with a specific condition healed but only 10% of those with other conditions, is it accurate to take an average?
From these examples (gathered over several months of reading and researching) we can see a broad range. Really, if we're asking the question, what rate of healings might be expected when praying for the sick, the answer could be anything from 1-in-700 to 100 percent. There again, I'm not sure that I'm overly comfortable with any of these sources. Some of them I am suspicious of because I am not comfortable with either their theology or their methodology. Some of them are from sources I have no personal knowledge of and am, due to a generally skeptical nature, biased against. Even in the case of John Wimber—who I have tremendous respect for—I am uncertain of the veracity of the source itself, being purportedly from a closed door meeting, and therefore completely unverifiable. Lastly, while Craig Keener is currently my favorite theologian and is someone I would love to meet, his number comes from another source, and I have no knowledge of the veracity of that source.
Even so, I think there are some general guidelines we can pull from this information:
FOOTNOTES
1. Keener makes this comment in a footnote in Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts where he cites a 1994 Ph.D. Thesis from Fuller Seminary: Peter Wagner: A Critical Analysis of His Work by Arie C. van Brenk. I contacted Keener for clarification regarding whether he meant the rate sounded high for Wagner specifically or for healing more generally. He responded that he probably meant in general for the West. (I am very grateful to Dr. Keener for taking time out of his very busy schedule to respond to my inquiry, especially for an obscure question about a footnote in a book he wrote several years ago). I will endeavor to contact van Brenk to find out what his source was for the number.
ADDENDUM
I wrote this article (just for this blogsite) about two years ago now. Based on what I had already found at the time, various quotes I have come across since then, and conversations I have had with people who commonly see the sick healed, I think anywhere from 30%-80% is a "normal" healing rate. However, Jesus' rate was 100%, and I agree with Bill Johnson that Jesus is the only example worth comparing ourselves against. Also, I just came across a quote from David Hogan on his success rate for raising the dead, which he said was "around ten percent." I wanted to record that here along with what he said after that: "[Ten percent] is low in God's kingdom. I'm trying to get it pushed up. We will get it
Thankfully, I am also beginning to come across indications of the actual portion of those prayed for who are healed. For example, on Ian Andrews' website, he claims that, "During our ministry nowadays over 80% of the people that are prayed for receive healing, when we teach how to pray effectively and then allow the congregations to pray for each other and we have seen this happen across all Christian denominations" (quote originally copied on 2/10/2018 from Andrews' previous website location: ianandrews.homestead.com). I have no way to validate the claim, so you'll have to decide for yourself what to do with it, but I am more comfortable (perhaps satisfied is a better word) with a claim of a specific percentage than a claim of more than before or more than most.
A second example, with a much lower rate, but exciting nonetheless, is given by Phil Moore, lead pastor of Everyday Church, a church with multiple campuses in London as well as an online option. In his message "Why & How to Heal," Moore says that if he were an outsider studying his church, he would level the charge that "For every person you've prayed for and seen healed there must be at least two people you've prayed for who haven't been healed!" This is an observation he considers legitimate. As with Ian Andrews' claim above, I have no way to validate this estimate of efficacy, but as Moore is addressing his own congregation (in the linked video), I would imagine he would need to keep his estimate within the bounds of those people's experience, otherwise he would lose credibility with them rather than gain it, which is surely the purpose of mentioning this number to begin with. A similar rate, 29 percent, is attributes to C. Peter Wagner. Craig Keener, however, comments that this rate "would be quite high."1
A further, though slightly less encompassing source of percentages (in that it is broken down by ailment) comes from a video I found online that includes some comments from Heidi Baker. The video, "How to Pray for Healing - Heidi Baker & More," is on Youtube here (the link is queued to the relevant point in the video). Baker states that over a three and a half year period, the rate of healings experienced by her ministry for deaf people in Mozambique was "like 100 ... in Cabo Delgado" (the northernmost province of Mozambique) while for blindness it's "probably been 70%."
Against these three, I would like to contrast a number purported to come from John Wimber. In an article (linked here), Wimber is quoted as saying that 3-8% of blind people were healed, and the tenor of the article suggests this is the high end of the success range. He is also said to have spoken about praying for 200 people with Down syndrome and only seeing only one, partial healing. So, the numbers purported to come from Wimber (albeit in a closed door meeting) are significantly lower than the other three examples.
Still another example comes from Sid Roth who, in an open letter dated August 18, 2017, reports that at an evangelist event in Ukraine, "Leaders estimated 60 percent were healed in their seats." Missing from the letter is any information regarding the size of the crowd, but one supposes there must have been at least five people (in order to allow an estimate 60%, which is the same thing as three out of five). I don't know about you, but if I prayed for five sick people and three were instantly healed, I'd be ecstatic.
I also recently came across a historical number (while reading Craig Keener's excellent work, Miracles). Oral Roberts apparently reported that about ten percent of those he prayed for were healed (quote in Google Books here).
I mentioned Randy Clark parenthetically above, but I'll mention him again here as a Google search just turned up some figures from him. In the book Anointed to Heal: True Stories and Practical Insight for Praying for the Sick, which Clark coauthored with Bill Johnson, he says: "If there were a thousand people in a service, at least one hundred would be healed. If there were one hundred attending, ten would be healed. If we had a really good meeting, it would be 20 percent healed. If we had a great meeting, it would be 30 percent. And sometimes—on our last trip, for example—100 percent were healed! In a smaller meeting, every single person they prayed for got healed. In one meeting it was 90 percent." That quote is available through Google Books here.
Another example Google turned up of a claim of 100 percent being healed on a specific occasion is in a sermon by Curry Blake posted on YouTube here. Blake is another person I am completely unfamiliar with, and he has detractors (but then so does everyone I've mentioned above and, indeed, Jesus himself).
Of course, the numbers for Heidi Baker and those purported to come from a closed door meeting with John Wimber are related to specific ailments, which is possibly a whole other topic. I came across another example of that recently (here), this one supposedly coming from Kathryn Kuhlman: "When I get to heaven, I'm going to ask Jesus, 'Why do two wheelchair cases get up and walk off, and ten don't?'" It is interesting to observe that some people seem to see a higher ratio of healing for particular conditions, although this does make it difficult to identify reliable healing rates. By that I mean, if someone commonly sees 80% of people with a specific condition healed but only 10% of those with other conditions, is it accurate to take an average?
From these examples (gathered over several months of reading and researching) we can see a broad range. Really, if we're asking the question, what rate of healings might be expected when praying for the sick, the answer could be anything from 1-in-700 to 100 percent. There again, I'm not sure that I'm overly comfortable with any of these sources. Some of them I am suspicious of because I am not comfortable with either their theology or their methodology. Some of them are from sources I have no personal knowledge of and am, due to a generally skeptical nature, biased against. Even in the case of John Wimber—who I have tremendous respect for—I am uncertain of the veracity of the source itself, being purportedly from a closed door meeting, and therefore completely unverifiable. Lastly, while Craig Keener is currently my favorite theologian and is someone I would love to meet, his number comes from another source, and I have no knowledge of the veracity of that source.
Even so, I think there are some general guidelines we can pull from this information:
- One hundred percent healing rates—although they are reported—are unusual, even for people with reputations for effective healing ministries.
- No one has the same "success" rate all of the time.
- God does heal, and as Wimber noted, if one hundred people receive prayer and only one is healed, it is better than if none receive prayer and no one is healed.
- Todd White might extend that to seven hundred.
These could, I think, be better described as encouraging than satisfying. But then, perhaps it is better for us to be encouraged than satisfied.
FOOTNOTES
1. Keener makes this comment in a footnote in Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts where he cites a 1994 Ph.D. Thesis from Fuller Seminary: Peter Wagner: A Critical Analysis of His Work by Arie C. van Brenk. I contacted Keener for clarification regarding whether he meant the rate sounded high for Wagner specifically or for healing more generally. He responded that he probably meant in general for the West. (I am very grateful to Dr. Keener for taking time out of his very busy schedule to respond to my inquiry, especially for an obscure question about a footnote in a book he wrote several years ago). I will endeavor to contact van Brenk to find out what his source was for the number.
ADDENDUM
I wrote this article (just for this blogsite) about two years ago now. Based on what I had already found at the time, various quotes I have come across since then, and conversations I have had with people who commonly see the sick healed, I think anywhere from 30%-80% is a "normal" healing rate. However, Jesus' rate was 100%, and I agree with Bill Johnson that Jesus is the only example worth comparing ourselves against. Also, I just came across a quote from David Hogan on his success rate for raising the dead, which he said was "around ten percent." I wanted to record that here along with what he said after that: "[Ten percent] is low in God's kingdom. I'm trying to get it pushed up. We will get it
pushed up eventually, but right now we're happy and blessed. But we do bury a lot: we're not successful a lot, but we are successful a lot, and I just want to bless you. In Jesus name, I believe it is the will of God for us to not accept face value of what just comes into our life. We go to God first and then we decide what's God what's not, in the name of Jesus."
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