Daytime TV's Guiding Lights

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Jamie-Lyn Bauer: "I would pray for divine order on the set"

It's past midnight and the 23-hour-long shoot for a Days of Our Lives special has taken a dangerous turn. The script calls for a fire that forces Laura Spencer-Horton (played from 1990-1999 by Jamie-Lyn Bauer) to flee from the psychiatric hospital where she has been institutionalized.

The scene has been carefully choreographed, and firemen stand by to guarantee safety on the set. But something goes awry. A blazing 6-foot-long beam crackles and shimmies, then suddenly, ripping from its overhead moorings, plunges downward directly toward Jamie-Lyn and her co-star.

This predicament is not in the script. Instinctively, and almost audibly, Jamie-Lyn prays in tongues.

"By the grace of God, we were not hit," she says. "I know that God was there. I wouldn't be surprised if the enemy was, too. Satan probably was not very happy that I was on the show."

This was not the first or last time Jamie-Lyn sought God's presence while at Days' Burbank, California, studio. In fact, each day while she drove the short distance from her North Hollywood home to the TV lot, she interceded.

"I would plead that His blood would be everywhere I would go," she recounts. "This was my territory, God's territory. I would pray for divine order on the set. I prayed for His manifest authority to be present."

She sounds like intercessory leaders Cindy Jacobs, Chuck Pierce, or Frank Damazio firing up attendees at a spiritual warfare conference, not someone who has spent most of two decades acting in soaps, movies, and stage plays. But following the prodding of her spiritual mentors--who include Jacobs, Pierce and Damazio--Jamie-Lyn accepts her spiritual role in Hollywood.

As a Days cast member, her dressing room became her prayer closet, and God answered in a dramatic fashion.

She took spiritual authority over the psychic readings sought by co-stars and the horoscopes read each day in makeup. The activities disappeared.

She fervently pleaded for the salvation of every cast and crew member and asked God to bring more Christians to the show. Some were saved. More solid believers joined the cast.

She asked God to bless Days of Our Lives and its executive producer, Kenneth Corday. The show strengthened its reputation. It became known as being a good place to work, having a cast who were like family, exhibiting comparatively minimal in-fighting, and standing as America's favorite and most-watched daytime soap.

Jamie-Lyn has not been the sole evangelical on the program. Administrator and "show mother" Nancy Lewis and sound man Jim Thomas, both Christian, have gained respect and acceptance from their co-workers.

"At times I felt all alone [as a Christian on the program]," says Lewis, who is the assistant to the head writer and wife of film producer John Lewis. "But now it is great. There are so many Christians here. It is wonderful to be able to have someone who understands and who I can pray with."

In fact, in recent years the number of regular actors on Days of Our Lives who are believers has multiplied. They include Austin Peck (Austin Reed), though he is leaving the show this spring; Julianne Morris (Greta Von Amburg); Melissa Reeves (Jennifer Horton); Kirsten Storms (Belle Black); Brian Ditello and Suzanne Rogers.

"God has these people placed in the right places at the right time," Julianne Morris says.

Don't get the wrong picture. Days of Our Lives has not become a Christian soap, nor is this likely to happen. Kidnappings, switched babies, backstabbings, and the like remain show staples, as they have been for more than 30 years.

Yet many characters mention God, and miracles occur in the fictionalized Days city of Salem. Once, a baby rose from the dead. Habitat for Humanity has been worked into scripts. The character Eric Brady is part of a Bible study.

"While there is a lot of other stuff that goes on, characters pray, and there is always a sense of God," Julianne says. "There is a basis on God, and that is nice."

In fact, the show's name is drawn from Psalm 23: "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (NIV).

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