Women’s Home and Overseas



Women’s Home and Overseas

Missionary Society

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

February 2020

Second Mile Anniversary

Quadrennial Theme:

The Great Commission #MissionsMatter

Globally Committed to: Social Justice

Mary Gaither Meeks Agape Luncheon

Opening Selection: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

(James Weldon Johnson)

Scripture: Micah 6:8

Prayer:

Litany of Love:

Leader: In the beginning, directly from the breath of the One Who holds all power, God through love fashioned reality, time, place, and all creation. Therefore, let us love one another, because love comes directly from God and because God….is….love.

People: We serve love by reflecting light wherever we go so that others will come to know love and receive love….God’s love.

Leader: We must demonstrate love on behalf of the anguished, toward our neighbors and families, toward the stranger, toward those unlike us. We must feel love within and demonstrate love without because we are created in the perfect image of Love. It is in such Love that we live, move and have our being. We see Love because Love first saw us.

People: Love defines us. Love frees us. Love saves us. Love moves us to lean on one another. Love calls us and keeps us together. Love whispers in our soul and comforts us when our spirits are low. Love created us, and so we in turn, must reflect love. We must love in word and deed because Love first loved us.

All: May Love shatter us and rebuild us anew. May Love encompass us and protect us. May Love reform us from violence and power-seeking. May Love make us compassionate and humble. May Love teach us to walk in the new way, the beautiful way because Love is of God, and God….Is….Love….Amen!

History of the Agape Luncheon

Introduction of Presentation/Speaker:

Selection: “We’ve Come This Far by Faith”

Agape Love Presentation/ Speaker:

Agape Love Offering Appeal:

Blessing and Sharing of Meal:

Remarks:

Missionary Benediction:

History of the Agape Luncheon

The Agape Luncheon serves as a permanent means of raising funds for the Second Mile Project, Mrs. Mary Gaither Meeks, First Vice President (1971-1979), in 1973, during her first tenure in office, presented a resolution to the Executive Board asking approval of the idea of the Agape Luncheon. The resolution was adopted. In her first report to the Quadrennial Convention, May 1975 in Los Angeles, California.

In 1979, delegates to the 19th Quadrennial Convention voted to name the Agape Luncheon the Mary Gaither Meeks Agape Luncheon in memory of the First Vice President who had proposed the idea and had been a strong advocate of sacrificial sharing.

Contributions from Second Mile activities provide funds to be given based on needs – one year to Home Mission projects and the following year to Overseas Mission projects.

Program prepared by:

Angela Davis-Baxter

Connectional First Vice President

Mrs. Sandra B. Crowder

International President

Send all donations for Agape Luncheon/Second Mile Observance to your District President for remittance to the Executive Director.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,

Till earth and heaven ring.

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise,

High as the list'ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chast'ning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet,

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might,

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,

Shadowed beneath thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download