More African American Special Days

15 Complete Worship Services

By Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan

 

Reviews

By blending the traditional statements of the worship service with African American culture, Kirk-Duggan once again provides a practical resource for planning more of the special Sundays that congregations celebrate throughout the year. Contains 15 services for special occasions, including Pastor's Day; Men's Day; Women's Day; Mother's Day; Father's Day; Kwanzaa; M.L. King, Jr. Day; Watch Night; Usher's Day; Homecoming/Family Reunion; Deacon's/Steward's Day; Deaconess'/Stewardess' Day; Youth Rite of Passage; Board of Christian Education; and Women's Missionary Society Day.--Book cover

 

Each service relies both on scripture and on the African American life expectancy, traditions, and history. The selected scriptures include a Hebrew Bible or Old Testament reading, a Psalm, Gospel, and an Epistle, with a focus on worship or service, love, trust or commitment, empowerment and transformation, as well as God's gifts to us.

Where possible, I use African American persons to illustrate an attitude or commitment. These services bring together the powerful ritual and liturgical drama of the worship experience and our heritage that emerges from the African diaspora, and are tools to instill self and communal esteem and inspiration for religious, spiritual, health, and general educational purposes.

Most of the prayers and others statements provide spaces to insert the names of the church, statements and prayers are to be tailored for your own church ceremony by including the names of honorees, the congregation, the community, or of helpful members where appropriate.--Introduction

 

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Contents

Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan is Director of the Center for Women and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and Assistant Professor of Theology and Womanist Studies. She is author of Refiner's Fire: A Religious Engagement with Violence (Fortress Press, 2000), Exorcizing Evil: A Womanist Perspective on the Spirituals (1997), and African American Special Days: 15 Complete Worship Services (1996). She is ordained in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. 

http://www.gtu.edu/faculty_directory.php?fid=88

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Ancient African Nations

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