Ernest T. Campbell is the former pastor of The Riverside Church in New York City, as well as congregations in Pennsylvania and Michigan. He has also taught at Garrett Evangelical Seminary and Union Theological Seminary. In this revised edition of his 1973 volume, the author presents congregational prayers crafted to meet the needs of parishioners living in Manhattan.
The paperback is divided into the four sections: As A Hen Gathers Her Brood, All Sorts and Conditions of People, Among You As One Who Serves, and Around the Christian Year.
Campbell is empathetic for the variety of people who comprise the city. He realizes how much everyone who lives there is dependent on the talents, the skills, and the kindnesses of others. In one congregational prayer he asks: "And, if it please Thee, God, let your saving grace so reach and ransom every heart, that our homes may be joyful, our streets safe, our laws just, our pleasures pure, and our will to make things right indomitable."
All of these prayers, in one way or another, ask for the guidance of God in restoring the soul of the city. This can happen only when people stop being indifferent to the plight of the poor, when young and old alike respect each other, when drivers stop blocking traffic by thinking only of themselves and creating gridlock, when the rich stop looking down their noses at the poor, and when the powerful decide to look out for the homeless and the unemployed.
What does this mean specifically? Campbell hints at this mutuality in the following prayer where he says:
"We pray today for those in our society who have direct personal contact with men and women, and boys and girls, weighted down with problems:
"the social worker, trying to build solvency and hope into
"families that cannot make it on their own;
"the police officer, called at the eleventh hour to a scene of strife
"and danger to settle a dispute he did not cause;
"the judge in her chambers quietly interpreting to children the
"meaning of a divorce just granted;
"the librarian attempting to awaken an interest in serious
"reading in young minds addicted to TV;
"the guidance counselor pleading with a would-be dropout to
"give it another try;
"the doctor nurturing the will to live for patients in the sunset
"years;
"the church school teacher using every skill of mind and
"imagination to bring students to faith in Jesus Christ.
"Encourage them in their work, O Lord, lest in a world of complex systems and distorted values they should feel their work in vain.
"Through Jesus Christ our Lord."
These congregational prayers are very contemporary, and touch on some of the major issues and challenges faced by every Christian who either lives or works in a large city.
