“Invitation to Prayer.”
I wonder if you’re feeling some of the same, a rebound (sports term). As I have returned to in-person meetings, visits, and speaking engagements, across the region and beyond, I’m being asked more and more about how are congregations fairing in this “post-pandemic” period. This is a difficult question, because, it should be couched with, where was the community pre-pandemic? What was its response amid the pandemic? Were the needed changes addressed for the health, and future of the congregation? Many of our congregations adapted, and others implemented hybrid approaches. A variety of mixed strategies and efforts have had measures of growth in attendance and ministry reach (online and in-person). But this has not been every congregation’s experience. We are responding prayerfully and faithfully to an increase in calls for assistance.
I believe there is a rebound, but I would characterize it as a sense of urgency to the recovering of what has seemed to have been missed in our past effort/s. Those of us who are familiar with the sports term might be able to visualize, lots of people in the paint (court) rushing for the ball to put it back in the play or in the hoop. The rush or sense of urgency does not always provide the best results. Although, someone out there (a basketball enthusiast) may have a percentile to contest this notion.
Since I was installed as your Regional Minister, I have not stopped “working hard to ably break open this new season and chapter, which promises to continue strengthening our region’s ministry for many years to come.” We are seeing the fruits of this labor, and hope these will reap a harvest for us all. I appreciate many of our clergy, and leaders, who remind us to “Arise, Anew.” As we look to learn, develop, and respond to our congregation’s new/er needs. We also seek as well to live more faithfully our regional life, together. More to come. I invite us all, more earnestly, to this season of prayer for each other. Here is our prayer calendar.
On Saturday, April 1, 2023, Clergy, leaders, and churches joined together, at the invitation of Abundant Life Christian Church in an annual Community Prayer Breakfast. Several of our pastors (Rev. Dr. Darrell Haley, Pastor Ronnie Taylor, and Rev. Eddie Anderson) offered prayers for:
- the healing and wholeness of the world and international relationships,
- the healing and wholeness of the minds, bodies, and spirits, and
- the healing and wholeness of our communities and church.
Rev. Dr. Lisa Tunstall was the invited speaker, and charged the clergy and congregations present, as well as the African American Convocation (she presides), and our Pacific Southwest Region to “a consistent faith and persistent prayers.”
I would like to share with you the following beautiful invocation, prayed at this event, written, and offered by Rev. Sadie Cullumber. May it be our open opening, and continuing of this season of prayers:
God of the ancestors,
We come before you this morning with seeking and searching hearts. We come to you as we stand at the edge of newness, the edge of change, the edge of a new way, a new possibility in this world. Our hearts are tired, worn, beaten, broken, and yet, they are open. Our hearts are open, God. And we can feel you, your spirit moving in us, weaving us together as your people, your body. We can feel it, like a whisper, a soft breath.
We call your spirit into this space, we ask you to rise in each one of us today and every day, as we do your will. God we are still recovering as a whole world from so much trauma, so much isolation, so much abuse and harm. And God you know that this trauma is ancient. It is trauma born of violence, abuse, neglect and on and on and on, God.
But as your people, in the face of all this evil, we choose to gather in prayer and communion. We choose to join our hearts that are broken but wide open; we choose to lift up our voices in song and in prayer; we choose to place our vision on hope; we choose to reach out and reach in to find ourselves and one another. We choose to jump right into the living waters that surround us, that are offered to us in love and peace by your precious son, Jesus the Christ.
God we invite your Holy Spirit into this sacred space, this sacred moment. We feel our strong and aching hearts soften as you envelop us with your living waters. And we lay down our weapons, our pain, our anger, and our rage for a few moments as we are held in the lap of your generous spirit. In the peace of these moments, we remember to breathe and to connect to our bodies and to our spirits in the sacredness of breath. In these moments of peace, we are restored and renewed for the work.
We give thanks to you for all of it—for a moment to stand in the sun, faces upturned and hearts open; we give thanks for the lessons we are learning so that we can be your people, even when those lessons are hard; we give thanks for our own bodies that carry us through; we give thanks for the beautiful bodies that surround us and for the spirits too. We give thanks for the ancestors who came before and who are here now, an assembly of the Saints, encouraging us and believing in us, moving in us. We give thanks, we give thanks, we give thanks!!! Amen and amen.”[1]
Let us prayerfully, “Arise, Anew.”
Blessings,
Richie
[1] Cullumber, Rev. Sadie. Invocation Prayer, Abundant Life Christian Church Community Prayer Breakfast, Carson, CA, April 1, 2023.