Black Prayer 2 -- Prayer Tradition of Black People

Pleading for Mercy & Protection

Almighty! and all wise God our heavenly Father! tis once more and again that a few of your beloved children are gathered together to call upon your holy name. We bow at your foots-tool, master, to thank you for our spared lives. We thank you that we were able to get up this morning clothed in our right mind. For Master, since we met here, many have been snatched out of the land of the living and hurled into eternity.

But through your goodness and mercy we have been spared to assemble ourselves here once more to call upon a captain who has never lost a battle. O throw your round us your strong arms of protection. Bind us together in love and union. Build us up where we are torn down and strengthen us where we are weak. O Lord! O Lord take the lead of our minds, place them on heaven and heavenly divine things. O God, our captain and king! Search our hearts and if you find anything there contrary to your divine will just move it from us, Master, as far as the east is from the west.

Now Lord, you know our hearts, you know our heart's desire. You know our down-setting and you know our up-rising. Lord, you know all about us because you made us. Lord! Lord! One more kind favor—I ask you to remember the man that is to stand in the gateway and proclaim your Holy Word. O stand by him. Strengthen him where he is weak and build him up where he is torn down. O let him down into the deep treasures of your Word.

And now, O Lord, when this humble servant is done down here in this low land of sorrow—done sitting down and getting up—done being called everything but a child of God—O when I am done, done, done, and this old world can afford me a home no longer, right soon in the morning, Lord, right soon in the morning—meet me down at the river of Jordan—bid the waters to be still—tuck my little soul away in the snow-white chariot and bear it away over yonder in the third heaven where every day will be a Sunday and my sorrows of this old world will have an end. This is my prayer for Christ my redeemer's sake. Let all say amen and thank God.

Source: Harold A. Carter's Prayer Tradition of Black People (1985)

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update 23 June 2008

In the 1940s, Harold A. Carter grew up in Selma, Alabama. He was the third of five children (two boys and three girls) in the home of Reverend Nathan Mitchell Carter, Sr. and Lillie Belle Carter. His father--Nathan Carter--was a Baptist pastor and preacher, and also professor at Selma University, a Baptist School founded in 1878 by Baptists of Alabama. His father taught Bible and theology.

In the late 1950s, Harold Carter first earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary (Chester, PA). At some point between the mid 1950s and 1968, Harold Carter was for a full year a pastoral assistant to Martin Luther King. In 1987 (?), Carter earned a Ph.D. in Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry in the same month from Colgate Rochester Divinity School. He was (1959-1964) a pastor at Court Street Baptist (Lynchburg, VA) and has been pastor since 1964 of New Shiloh Baptist (Baltimore, MD).

. Dr. Carter led New Shiloh into a church and Family Life Center, Sunday, May 27, 1990. Over the years of his ministry, he has led citywide crusades in evangelistic ministry across America and in many countries abroad. Dr. Carter's first book "The Prayer Tradition of Black People" continues to be a standard work in the Black Spiritual Anthology. A more recent work, "Building Disciples in the Local Church," is being used by churches near and far, to build revival fires in the local church. His Book, "America, Where Are You Going?" has also proven to be a powerful call for America to examine where she is going in light of the Christian faith, so often compromised and even ignored in our present day world.

Harold Carter thinks of himself as a minister, "Determined to Live With Christ." Dr. Carter is married to Dr. Weptanomah W. Carter, noted speaker, author and founder of several ministries in New Shiloh Baptist Church.