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We follow our forbears and founders of this church and are dedicated to truth, to liberty and to religion. The privilege we enjoy is from the lives and labours of the men and women who have worshipped in and served this Presbyterian and Unitarian church, and sought to spread its witness to the community. May our awareness of our spiritual kinship amongst ourselves, and with the community beyond, inspire us to strive in our day with equal faithfulness. May we spread light and wisdom and uphold the traditions and values so inherited in this church, and evolve to develop more for the future. For these traditions are but only vessels for the essential gospel of the worthiness of human personality, and for the critical and uplifting message behind all that is the hope for our humanity and freedom in the future. We pray that we do not fail in the task before us and that this may continue to be a temple of truth, where faithful and earnest thought and prayerful search for the ways of the human spirit may find a rich reward.
We say all this mindful of our past evolution, the present sea of change and our unknown future, in the purpose and witness of this house of prayer and thought. Amen.
O God of the light that never sets and love that never fails, we are in your presence with grateful hearts, mindful of the blessings bestowed on the founders of this church, dedicated to truth, to liberty and to religion, and continued with their successors until this present hour. We look at the privilege we enjoy and look back upon the lives and labours of the men and women who have worshipped in and served this Hull Presbyterian and Unitarian church, and sought to spread its witness to the community. We pray for blessing upon the minister, his wife and all people here. May our awareness of our spiritual kinship amongst ourselves, and with the community beyond, inspire us to strive in our day and generation with equal faithfulness to build on the good foundations left to us. May we spread light and wisdom and uphold the values so inherited in this church, that of the Presbyterian, Unitarian Methodist, Unitarian Baptist, biblical Unitarian, Free Christian and humanist traditions, and in our wider movement also with the Arian, Socinian and Free Catholic traditions, and evolve and develop more for the future. For these traditions are but only vessels for the essential gospel of the worthiness of humanity and personality, and for the critical and uplifting message behind all that is the font of hope for our humanity and freedom in the future. We pray that we may not fail in the task before us and that this may continue to be a temple of truth, where faithful and earnest thought and prayerful search for the deep things of the spirit may find a rich reward.
We say all this to our past, the present and our future in the purpose and witness of this house of prayer and thought in God's name. Amen.
(Loosely based on the freely reproduced prayer by The Rev. Principal Drummond on the 'Dedication Service of Manchester College', Oxford, 'Devotional Supplement' in Faith and Freedom Summer 1986)