Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Rite For Sending Leaders + TPL Meeting January 7, 2017

This rite was prepared by Rev. Tom Gaulke of First Lutheran Church of the Trinity in Bridgeport, Chicago, for a meeting of The People’s Lobby in Chicago, Saturday, January 7, 2017. It is meant to be used as a commissioning and a benediction of organizers and leaders. 

Posted at the request of TPL Leaders. 

(Please use only by permission: FirstTrinityPastor@gmail.com)


As we prepare to leave this place, let us remember our commitment, and our collective. 

A brief silence for centering

Family in the struggle, let us go forth strengthened by one another and ignited by love. 

On our way,  

may our desire for a just and liberated world
outweigh our inclination toward complacency. 

May our shared plans become shared action,

And may our bodies, filled with hope, and encouraged by these people who surround us, 
march toward the promise of a better tomorrow, 

knowing, together, the path becomes wider, and we never march alone. 

+++

As we go from this place, will you commit to your family here?

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Will you march with them, side by side, toward the hope of a better world? 

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Will you encourage them when they get tired, care from them when they are wounded, and all the while carry on, carrying them if you have to, that we all might arrive in hope together?

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

On the way, will you agitate one another in Love; will you hold one another accountable, reminding one another that the system that caused your pain and gave rise to your oppressions is the same system that afflicts each person in this room: 
and that together that system is the common enemy which which we engage? 

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Will you fight all forms of oppression, engage the principalities and powers, knowing that without struggle, without power, without uprising the world gets worse, or simply stays the same? 

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Will you care for one another here and now, seeking to live out the justice and liberation we work for in this community, in your relationships, that this collective might be a glimpse of that for which we hope: imperfect, yet proof that a better world is possible? 

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Will you build power to fight powers, instigate the desire for liberation in the world, inviting your friends and neighbors to join in this work, trusting that together, united, we will rise victorious? 

We will! And we will not do it alone. 

Trusting then that, together, united, no barricade, no blockade, no principality or power is going to stop our movement, our motion, our march toward a liberated world, 
a Reign of Love and Justice,
where all hold value and everyone is able to eat; 

Let us be bound together, for the sake of Justice, and in the Spirit of Joyous Rebellion.

May the Spirit of Joyous Rebellion inhabit our hearts and fill us with an unending desire for liberation, knowing as we go forward together, we go forward in love, we go forward in power, and we widen the path that those who love justice and desire liberation have marched for centuries before us, marching toward the hope of a liberated world. 

And as we go, we go together, 
in power and in love, 

nobody, 

nobody, 

nobody, 

will ever be able to turn us around. 

Amen. 


Song, lead by Brianna Tong: Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around

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