A Family Holiday Prayer

Praying with your family is not always the easiest or most comfortable moment. Family can be familiar and distant. Family can know you in ways that it challenges your spiritual veracity. Family can be tough on your spirituality. Family can expose every hint of hypocrisy. So when it’s time to lead your family in prayer you may need some help. Here is another PrayerEverywhere.org spiritual resource that may help you get through the holidays. This prayer may ease some of the pressure off of your prayer. This may not be your prayer word for word, but let it be a pattern. Let it bless you and your family!

Heavenly Father, in the Name of Your Blessed Son Jesus the Christ, we thank You for this time that we have come together. We seek the blessing of Your Spirit. Grant us hearts of gratitude and thanksgiving. Thank You for Your goodness and Your grace to every person here. Thank you for the family You have made our friends and for the friends who have become our family. Thank You for being our Sole Provider. You have provided for all our needs abundantly and sufficiently. We give You praise! 

We pray over every member of this family—those seated among us—and those who were not able to gather here today. We thank You, Father God that Your will is good, acceptable and perfect. We thank You that You are our Saviour and Healer. You are our strong tower and shield.  You have healed us of sickness and disease. We receive healing right now in Jesus’ Name. We agree and bind every weapon of the enemy against any and every member of this family right now in the Name of Jesus. We agree and release favor and increase.

We apply, by faith, the blood of Jesus over every person connected to our generations. We break every generational curse and establish our covenant blessings. We declare protection from disaster and death. We declare angels assigned to intervene on their behalf.

For those who do not know You, we pray right now that Your love, mercy and grace would overwhelm them—that they might know Your love for them. We thank You that You bring, You draw and You will add souls that we know into Your kingdom. Thank You for choosing us to share Your love with others.

We thank You for blessing us! Thank you for our faith, our family and this food. Bless all in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

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40 Preachers To Remember

The earliest years of preaching ministry I was exposed to preaching greatness. If exposure is expansion, I was expanded early. Here is a list of 40 Black “pulpiteers” who became to me the original standards of a craft I was willingly to give all my effort to engage. As a teenager I honorably imitated, immaturely plagiarized and incessantly studied their manners and methods. I am profoundly blessed to have been put in their proximity early in ministry.

Pastor John H. Green (Richmond, CA)

Dr. Robert T. George (Oakland, CA) 

Dr. Alvin C. Bernstine (Richmond, CA)

Dr. Fleetwood E. Irving (Vallejo, CA)

Dr. Melvin V. Wade (Los Angeles, CA)

Pastor Harry R. Fort (Oakland, CA)

Dr. C. E. Richardson (Richmond, CA)

Dr. E. V. Hill (Los Angeles, CA)

Dr. A. H. Newman (Richmond, CA)

Dr. Manuel Scott, Sr. (Dallas, TX)

Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. (Oakland, CA)

Dr. Frederick Haynes, III (Dallas, Tx.)

Dr. M.T. Thompson (Berkeley, CA)

Evangelist M. L. Scott, Jr. (Los Angeles, CA)

Dr. C.A.W. Clark, Sr. (Dallas, Texas)

Dr. E. K. Bailey (Dallas, Texas)

Dr. Lloyd C. Blue (Oakland, CA)

Dr. C. E. McClain (Shreveport, LA)

Dr. A. Louis Patterson, (Houston,TX)

Pastor Otha Johnson (San Pablo, CA)

Pastor Daniel O. Tolliver (Berkeley, CA)

Pastor A. R. Robinson (San Francisco, CA)

Pastor A.L. Cobbs (Oakland, CA)

Dr. J. R. Richardson (San Francisco, CA)

Dr. Ralph. D. West (Houston, TX)

Pastor Henry L. Hudson (Oakland, CA)

Dr. Charles G. Adams (Detroit , MI)

Pastor Samuel Williams, Sr. (Oakland, CA)

Pastor Arthur L. Moore (Oakland, CA)

Dr. S. M. Lockridge, (San Diego, CA)

Dr. S. J. Scott (Oakland, CA)

Dr. Floyd G. Purdy (Palo Alto, CA)

Dr. C. J. Anderson (Oakland, CA)

Dr. Marvin T. Robinson (Los Angeles, CA)

Dr. M. J. Williams (Oakland, CA)

Pastor Lester L. Cannon, Jr (Oakland, CA)

Dr. E. Paul Perkins (Marin City, CA)

Pastor T. J. Prince (Oakland, CA)

Dr. R.A. Williams (Los Angeles, CA)

Dr. F. G. Sampson (Detroit, MI)

*I did not distinguish living from “late” because they are all apart of my kergymatic eschatos.

On The Fence or In The Faith?

There was a large group of people. On one side of the group stood a man, Jesus. On the other side of the group stood Satan. Separating them, running through the group, was a fence.

The scene set, both Jesus and Satan began calling to the people in the group and, one by one – each having made up his or her own mind – each went to either Jesus or Satan. This kept going.

Soon enough, Jesus had gathered around him a group of people from the larger crowd, as did Satan. But one man joined neither group. He climbed the fence that was there and sat on it. Then Jesus and his people left and disappeared.

So too did Satan and his people. And the man on the fence sat alone.

As this man sat, Satan came back, looking for something which he appeared to have lost. The man said, “Have you lost something?” Satan looked straight at him and replied, “No, there you are. Come with me.”

“But”, said the man, “I sat on the fence. I chose neither you nor him.”

“Oh, I know,” said Satan. “But I own the fence.”

(Anonymous)