Reverend Dr. Cheryl J. Sanders
Third Street Church of God
Washington, DC
Sponsor: Rep. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, (D-DC)
Date of Prayer: 03/20/2001
One Minute Speech Given in Recognition of the Guest Chaplain:
Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, it is especially appropriate during this Women's History Month that we have welcomed for prayer a distinguished young woman, an ordained minister of the Church of God, the Reverend Dr. Cheryl Sanders. Not only is Reverend Sanders the senior minister of one of the District's oldest and most distinguished churches, the Third Street Church of God, she is professor of Christian Ethics at Howard University.
Not only does Dr. Sanders minister to the poor as a gifted preacher, she is a woman of extraordinary intellectual range. She has written and taught broadly on subjects ranging from biomedical ethics to the Holiness Pentecostal experience and African American religion and culture. I am proud to note that she has a special interest in feminist ethics.
Madam Speaker, I am particularly proud and pleased to celebrate Women's History Month by having the prayer offered this morning by a woman who, like me, is a native Washingtonian, who attended D.C. public
[Page: H963] GPO's PDFschools, where she was well prepared to achieve her BA at Swarthmore and her masters and doctorate at Howard University Divinity School, where she now teaches.
Dr. Sanders' life as a Christian minister includes her husband and two children. The Church is blessed when such an able and dedicated woman is called to teach and preach in the Nation's Capital.
Opening Prayer Given by the Guest Chaplain:
Eternal God, we lift hearts full of gratitude to You on this day that You have made, thanking You for the invitation to rejoice and be glad in it. We give thanks for the women and men of this House of Representatives.
Make Your presence and Your purpose come alive in their deliberations and debates today. By Your spirit, please empower their leadership and legislative process. Through them extend Your blessing to every family and community represented here today, Your grace to those without representation, Your equity to the poor, Your peace to the troubled, Your light to those in despair.
Grant us all full access to the healing resources and reconciling justice You have ordained for our Nation.
In Your name we pray. Amen.
To learn more about Members who have sponsored a Guest Chaplain, please visit the Congressional Biographical Directory