Update 7/3/2014 - A reader commented that the links below have gone dead. You can hear Bishop Mason praying at a number of YouTube sites.
(Original Post): A Black friend of mine has taught me a great deal about Black American culture . He has also been a helpful tutor in bringing me up to speed (I still have a long way to go) on the history of the Black Church in America. Recently he sent me an e-mail with a web address to an audio recording of a famous prayer within Black American Pentecostal circles. It is a prayer by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Mason offered this prayer at St. Paul's Church of God in Christ in 1948 when he was 82 years old. To hear the prayer, click here, and then click on the link to the "Bishop's Prayer Part 1" and advance it to 10:33 on the clip. I found the prayer instructive, full of interest and inspiration. It's just under 12 minutes long.
My friend writes,
Bishop Mason (1866-1961) was born just after the ending of American slavery in Arkansas. He was converted as a small child in a Baptist church pastored by his brother after surviving a serious childhood illness. Later, Bishop Mason was expelled by the Arkansas State Baptist Convention for preaching John Wesley's understanding of sanctification in Baptist churches.
Bishop Mason was one of the attendants of the famed Asuza Street revival. It was there that he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Bishop Mason was well respected in Pentecostal circles, Black as well as White, and presided over the Pentecostal World Fellowship conference in London in 1952. Bishop Mason not only founded the Church of God in Christ but was its leader from 1907-1961.
If you want to find out more about Bishop Mason, a good source is J. Ciemmons' work entitled "Bishop C H Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ" which is available through major booksellers. Incidently, the pastor of St Paul's COGIC, Louis Henry Ford, later became the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Ford was miraclously delivered from a long term coma when a woman entered his hospital room praying in tongues, declaring "this man will live". Many miracles have been wrought through the hands of Black Pentecostal pioneers such as Bishop Mason, many of which have been lost from history due to the oral nature of Black culture. I hope that this prayer, which is an authentic example of the Black prayer tradition dating back to slavery, will edify you as it has edified me.
UPDATE 10/31/06 - My friend points me to a website that contains a short biography of Bishop Mason.