Adriana Caldara is executive director of the Support Network for Battered Women in Sunnyvale, Calif. Since 1998, the network has been working with local faith leaders to improve their response to domestic violence.

Thomas Ryan is director of the North American Paulist center in Washington, D.C.  He is the author of Prayer of Heart and Body: Meditation and Yoga as Christian Spiritual Practice. He is also the editor of Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality.

Celia Rothenberg is an assistant professor of religious studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She contributed an article on three forms of Jewish yoga practiced in North America to the November 2006 edition of the journal Nova Religio.

P. Aneesah Nadir is founder of Dr. Aneesah Nadir and Associates and a retired professor of social work at Arizona State University in Tempe.

The Rev. Nancy Roth is an Episcopal priest in Oberlin, Ohio, and author of several books on unusual forms of Christian prayer, including Spiritual Exercises: Joining Body and Spirit in Prayer and An Invitation to Christian Yoga, both published in 2005.

Sybil MacBeth is the author of Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God, published in 2007. She conducts workshops in drawing and painting as prayer.

Liz Lerman is a choreographer, founder of the  Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and MacArthur Fellowship recipient. Among her most recent works is 613 Radical Acts of Prayer, which takes its name from the Talmudic laws and explores the nature of prayer. The dance company is based in Takoma Park, Md.

Beliefnet and U.S. News & World Report posted an online survey about the frequency, purpose and results of prayer.  Read the accompanying article, posted Dec. 12, 2004, at U.S. News & World Report.

Beliefnet and U.S. News & World Report posted an online survey about the frequency, purpose and results of prayer. See the results.