Black Prayer 3

Giving Thanks for Love & Salvation

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come -- thou art our shelter in the stormy blast, and our eternal home.

O God, my father, I thank thee tonight for thy loving kindness and thy tender mercies. Than you, holy father, for your blessed Word, a lamp unto our feet and a light along our pathway. We want to thank thee for for thy Word that brought salvation. I want to thank thee tonight, Lord God, that thou included me a long time ago.

Thee shed thy blood on Calvary's cross, and gave thy life that I might live! I want to thank thee tonight for it. You blest and enabled me to see thee out of thine word. I thank thee for giving thine manservant wisdom and power from his lips, for we have heard the gospel tonight.

O God, my father, , let your spirit ride, that the word may find its place in the hearts of men and women, that it might bring forth fruit unto thee. O God, let our coming not be in vain. Somebody needs you right now, O God, my father, would that you would convict and convert sinners that they might cry out, "What must I do to be saved!"

O God, let them not be satisfied until they've yielded their lives to be able to say, "I've fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith." I want to hear thy welcoming voice saying, "Enter into the joy of thy Master." Amen.

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

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update 23 June 2008

Harold A. Carter grew up in the 1940s, 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.