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Prayers
DR. DORSEY ODELL BLAKE, Pastor
Presence that envelops and permeates all that we are we give thanks for this special season. One dedicated to taking inventory of ourselves – what we have spent, what has come to us, what is still in stock, what needs replenishing. We give thanks for the order we do have in our lives that our motivations and being do hold together in some ways, do have some sense of integrity. Yet, we want more. We seek to move beyond the deceptions and compromises that too often punctuate our actions and define our days. The confusions of this world and our own egos lead us to retreat from our high resolve to create more and more space for you to dwell in us. Forgive us our treachery, for being allured to lesser ways while paths of righteousness are before us. Brood over us that we might feel your breath warming the cavernous timidity that imprisons us to littleness. Draw us nearer to choosing your way as our way -- your trust as the balm for our woundedness, your love as the light on our paths.
Bestow upon us courage – the courage to look inward, upward, and outward. To see what needs to be seen and to act in ways we need to act. Bring to our altars our brothers and sisters from every walk, every social strata, every station of life into fields of concern and ethical commitment that we may find ourselves more fully as we hold them in sacred view. May our time here cause greater generosity to flow beyond the walls and doors of this place into the larger world that awaits our ministries. And may the world we dream find greater residence in the world we now inhabit. Endow us with deepened receptivity of your spirit within us and call to us. And, may our prayers strengthen us to do the work before us with confidence and clarity.
Amen.
Prayer for the New Year
Ancient and abiding truth, that reveals itself again and again in our innermost being and calls us to venture into unexplored realms of imagination and illumination, we are aware of the passing of this year, 2009, a year we have been privileged to journey, a year of trials and joys, shakiness and grounding, doubt and faithfulness, great anxieties and blossoming confidence.
We give thanks for those in the past whose legacies created sanctuaries for us, pilgrims of the spirit in search of authentic encounter with the All Pervading Presence. May their continued “aliveness” in us encourage us to author even more inspired and effective narratives of hope, daring, grounding, and dedicated service. May we audaciously build upon what they have bequeathed, spreading upon the ordinary the sheen of transfigured living -- hearts, minds, souls in rhythmic accord harmonizing dissonance, composing new melodies of freedom.
Yet, remind us that the past is the past. Tutor us with it as we anticipate the dawning of something we have not yet experienced, the year, 2010, a new year with all its scintillating promise and accompanying pain. The present and future now require the commitment of our whole hearts. For something desperately needs to be born, something that would demonstrate that you are incarnate in our lives, real, tangible, and yet beyond our understanding. You have given us the wisdom to parent what must be achieved. Impregnated with seeds of the realm of God, we find ourselves in fertilizing environments expecting fruition with the Expanding Immensity. O Fathomless Mystery, leave us neither ashamed of who we are nor timid about who we are meant to be. Guide us, Jehovah, into vineyards of action. And, let the work we do speak for us and to a world in need of compassion and reconciliation, O Creator and sustainer of our galaxy and all the constellations within.
While high and lifted up, may we not forget those in our community, the whole community, those in flatlands and crooked places, those on mountaintops, those with mountains to climb, valleys to tread, hills to negotiate, islands of loneliness to traverse. Keep them and all who are in need of special prayer, of being caressed by us, of being held in our love and trustworthy companionship, keep them and their needs aflame upon our inward altars. Let their embers burn brightly and steadily. And, assure them without reservation that you and we seek to be balm for their wounds and peace for their turbulence.
We give thanks now for these precious moments in which we have turned aside from the activities of our daily rounds to focus our selves on you, longing to grow into greater intimacy and personal acquaintance, seeking the way we should go. Open our souls to hear the still small voice instructing us as we face the New Year with an ancient question: “What shall we render unto you, O God, for all your blessings?”
-- Amen
Source and Ground of Our Being, we bring our whole lives to you: our weakness and strength, our faith and doubt, our deception and authenticity. For those who have been too hurt, too bruised to open themselves to the pain of others, we request your balm of healing to attend their way. May our lives sooth places that are hurt and keep our hearts mindful of beatific vision.
Ever Present Spirit, lead us from dim understanding of what is possible in the world. Let us not shrink from our high calling that would have us beacons of hope and freedom, harbingers of justice, love, and peace even in these times when violence stalks our globe and the masses of the peoples of the earth languish in poverty. Though we sometimes feel insignificant, we can and must stand for the greatest and noblest truths. Give us courage that we may live with such integrity that those things of imagination and spirit critical to the uplifting of humanity may be embodied in our presence. Unbind our obsession with ourselves that we may discover our true selves by serving something much greater than the pettiness that traps us in anxious and unfulfilled living.
—Amen
Lord, we give you thanks for shepherding this sacred venture we call Fellowship Church. Continue to sustain and call us to ever higher, deepening, nobler trysts into unknown territories of human and spiritual encounter. Birth us anew for the times ahead and the new earth we must create. Give us heart -- your heart -- large and juicy enough to hold the pain and promise of the world, all the Adams and Eves, the Cains and Abels; strong enough to lift us from weakened resolve; courageous enough to answer defeat with renewed vigor and stubbornness; trusting enough to perceive a way out of what appears dead end; permeable enough to massage our shortcomings into passageways of hope; and, open enough to feel the hastening of common ground and the Beloved community.
May the totality of our being experience that all things are possible to those who truly believe that we are anointed for such a time as this.
In the name of the One who calls us to be one, we pray.
—Amen
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DR. HOWARD THURMAN, Co-founder of Fellowship Church
The New Year
[Something] very important belongs to the New Year. It is the chance to relate to something beyond our families, our cares, our responsibilities – some cause, some purpose, or some kind of human need. Suppose this year you select one thing outside the needs of your family and your responsibilities about which you will be concerned. This you try to understand and to relate to so that you will feel yourself being extended beyond the boundaries of your little world and its responsibilities.
In addition to all the things that you are doing as a part of your responsibilities as a husband or wife or daughter or what have you, there is something else, some independent something out here, some people, some causes, some purposes, something to which you will give part of yourself. Now this may be done in terms of the repairing of fences that broke down in your relationships during the past year, so that as you move into the New Year, you will have a sense of being present and accounted for in every minute, in every hour, in every day.
*
The Christmas Candles
(from The Mood of Christmas)
I will light a candle of fellowship this Christmas.
I know that the experiences of unity in human relations are more compelling
than the concepts, the fears, the prejudices, which divide.
Despite the tendency to feel my race superior, my nation the greatest nation,
my faith the true faith, I must beat down the boundaries
of my exclusiveness until my sense of separateness
is completely enveloped in a sense of fellowship.
*
Blessings At Year's End
I remember with gratitude the fruits of the labors of others, which I have shared as a part of the normal experience of daily living.
I remember the beautiful things that I have seen, heard, and felt—some, as a result of definite seeking on my part, and many that came unheralded into my path, warming my heart and rejoicing my spirit.
I remember the new people I have met, from whom I have caught glimpses of the meaning of my own life and the true character of human dignity.
I remember the dreams that haunted me during the year, keeping me ever mindful of goals and hopes which I did not realize, but from which I drew inspiration to sustain my life and keep steady my purposes.
I remember the awareness of the spirit of God that sought me out in my aloneness and gave to me a sense of assurance that undercut my despair and confirmed my life with new courage and abiding hope.
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DR. KATHRYN L. BENTON, Assistant Minister
“To become human one must make room in oneself for the immensities of the universe. Unless we do so, we cannot find our true nature. We will wander in pain and loneliness. We will never learn how the Old One thinks. Caught in fragments of our nature, we will attach ourselves to one fragment after another, each taking us further away from our center.” ~ Brian Swimme
God of the Universe… God of the human heart, we make room today for the immensity of You. To make room, we must clear away all that keeps us from the experience of this immensity… the experience of ourselves as a part of the Universe. We search, O God, for vision… the vision that allows us to see the whole, not only our tiny fragment.
May this vision give us the courage needed to work through the fear and uncertainty that haunts our days… the fear and uncertainty that clouds the vision of the whole… the vision of the immensity of the Universe… the fear and uncertainty that keeps us from standing up and speaking our truth… the truth about what we see around us.
We search, O God, for compassion… the compassion that reminds us of the sacredness of all life… the compassion that reminds us of our responsibility as part of the Universe to care for each other and care for our earth home.
We search, O God, for peace… peace in our hearts and peace among people and all living things. We seek this peace even as we must come to terms with our violent natures.
Fill us, O Spirit of the Universe with Your vision, Your compassion, and Your peace, that we may share in the immensity of the Universe, coming back to the center of our being… where we are whole.
Amen.
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FELLOWSHIP CHURCH MEMBERS
Offertory Prayer: 1/17/09
Clara Allen
Oh Great Spirit
Heavenly Father
Creator of all-
We give thanks for the blessings You have given to us
and we give thanks for the challenges
that help us grow closer to You.
Bless the offerings that we share today-
that they may be used to promote the principles of peace
justice and compassion.
Guide us to see opportunities where we can make a difference
and open our hearts to act in loving ways.
Amen.
Offertory Prayer: 1/24/09
Courtney Brown
Divine spirit of life,
divine will that calls us to this particular place and time,
We ask your blessing on this our offering today
and that with this offering we express appreciation
for the diligence of ancestors who preserved this place
in which we could affirm and discover our mission in the world.
With this offering we express our duty to preserve it
and the sustenance it will provide
for the lives and spirits which will follow us.
With this offering we express hope that the contributions and work
that we do now are sufficient to maintain the mission
of this church and its dedication to making manifest an
inclusive vision
of the world.
We ask that it be sufficient to enable actions
that express our beliefs of all peoples joined in a beloved community.
We ask that the intentions expressed by our presence here today
and demonstrated by our willingness to give
magnify our ability to give, just as we have been so richly given.
We ask that our actions be guided by the spirit of renewal
now as we are gathered for worship
and hence when we return to the world as we know it
with a clearer vision of what it needs to be.
In The spirit of abundance and appreciation, we ask, and we say
Amen.
Each Act of Love
A Meditation for The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples
By Courtney Brown
July 19, 2009
Each act of love prepares us for stronger more loving acts. This is a phrase that has been moving through my head for the last few months. It came to me during one of the meditative moments prior to service. This meditation is an effort to understand what these words mean. For those of you who have not experienced the silent meditation prior to service, I encourage you to do so. I have found it; when I get here on time, to be a very worthwhile and deliberative time.
In my experience, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples does not call sheep to its doors or into its service. This may be one of the reasons that we call ourselves a fellowship and not a flock. In trying to understand the phrase: "Each act of love prepares us for stronger, more loving acts." I may be trying to understand how the people drawn to this place and this moment came to be present. I am willing to live with an imperfect understanding and ask for your patience and guidance.
What is More Loving?
There is a need to grow beyond the "easy love" that comforts us. The easy love of puppies or kittens, babies and grown-ups, those known as near and dear: a need to grow into the hard kind of love for things marked by distance and fear, things called peculiar. Sitting in these pews I feel the legacy of a time when a person of a different race was one of things considered distant that made people fearful. It is a difficult thing to look at myself and wonder: What love am I capable of? What if someone finds out? Will they exhaust me? What if my flaws prevent me from reaching the goal of being more loving?
The question "What does more loving mean?" involves looking back at what your current legacy of love is. Faced with the possibility that it may be too meager, too skinflint, too full of tiny insignificant deeds, this look backward is potentially humbling. Being more loving may require stripping away the vanity with which we polish our slight and insignificant achievements. Then we can get down to the business of loving and acting out of love with awareness and commitment. If this were a poster, the title would read: "Leave your illusions behind and come do the real work of loving." It may be accurate but not enticing. I am not sure I would sign up for such a program, were it so bluntly stated, yet here I stand.
What is Stronger?
What is strength? Commonly it is considered bodily or muscular power. In a spiritual sense it is considered moral power, firmness or courage. How do we build strength? Bodily we do it by lifting a little more than we are capable of, running a little further each day. Tearing down the muscle so it rebuilds itself more capable of doing what we ask of it. If the body is a temple, then exercise is a form of home improvement. Spiritually the process seems to be very similar. To remain emotionally unexamined is do deny ourselves the opportunity to grow in strength. To remain unconnected, or in dishonest relationships is a means of avoiding soul improvement. Those who exit dishonest, destructive relationships often find they hold good relationships in more precious esteem.
What about strength in numbers? There may be some comfort and reassurance in having a large number of people around you. But there is also a diminished ability reason or move nimbly, and often a diminished commitment to purpose. And some people (dead weight) are just there for the party. There is small comfort in following a crowd or in leading one. So when I consider the kind of strength that numbers may bring, I do it with a skepticism that for me interferes with faith. The prophets and people who seek after truth and justice have always been outnumbered especially in their time. So on this particular journey, and in the company of this particular fellowship I don’t seek the comfort of strength in numbers. Rather I choose to understand the strength of the people called here and their particular expression of their calling.
Fellowship Church calls out to many people; people who through their life experience may feel having a community that addresses their needs, makes them a burden. Yet somehow through contact, and experience with this community, these folk come to understand their burdens are our blessings. Giving us, the beloved community the opportunity to grow in strength, and grow in love, and to do all this knowing we may be few, but we are not alone. When I consider some of the acts that have been accomplished, they seem like the work of a thunderous, crowded church rather than the accomplishments of a mighty few. In Strength untested, in love un-given are found the acts of unfulfilled living. An expansive, abundant life will never give that satisfying feeling of a glass that is full to overflowing. Each act of love creates for us a continuous life that we never outgrow.
The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples was founded in 1944 by Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Alfred Fisk as the nation's first interracial interfaith congregation.
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