WASHINGTON -- The Rev. Ken Carney of Arkansas opened the U.S. Senate's session Thursday with a request for divine grace, wisdom and mercy.
Carney, the lead pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Hot Springs, was invited to give the morning prayer by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today asking you for a new touch of grace to fall on all of our elected leaders. You told us in your word to ask for wisdom, and I humbly ask today for everyone who governs and makes decisions concerning our great country to be filled with your divine wisdom. Please Father, remember mercy for those who are weak and struggling," Carney said with his head bowed. "I close my prayer by asking that you protect all of our elected leaders and their families from harm and danger. This I pray in your holy and matchless name, amen."
Carney's invocation was broadcast live on C-SPAN 2 and will be printed in the Congressional Record, along with the rest of the day's official proceedings on Capitol Hill.
Carney said he was glad to accept the invitation.
"We just wanted to come and be a part of the history," he said afterward. "It's an honor to do it."
Carney said he put a lot of consideration into what to say.
"I had really thought about my prayer and prayed about it for a long time," he said. "I prayed for wisdom and protection." Those "were the two things I really, really wanted to cover."
Carney has been pastor at the Hot Springs church since 1997 and serves on the board of the Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs, Colo. He is married to Hot Springs Mayor Ruth Carney, who accompanied him to Washington.
After the prayer, the Carneys toured the Capitol and met with U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Hot Springs.
Cotton and Carney have known each other for years, the senator's spokesman Caroline Rabbitt said.
"They met before Tom was in Congress, and he's a fixture in the Hot Springs pastoral community," she said of Carney.
Clergy members are invited to give the Senate's opening prayer at the request of a lawmaker.
According to the Senate chaplain's office, those nominated to give the prayer must be ordained clergy members. The regular Senate chaplain is Barry Black, the first black person to hold the post and the position's first Seventh-day Adventist. At most, a guest clergy member fills in twice a month.
The office doesn't keep a detailed record of guest chaplains, and a staff member couldn't recall the last time an Arkansan was the Senate guest chaplain or who it was. Staff members for U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said Boozman has not invited a clergyman to give the invocation since joining the Senate in 2011.
The House of Representatives chaplain is the Rev. Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest.
House members also can invite guest chaplains.
U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., invited the Rev. Timothy Crumpton of Cleburne County Baptist Church to give the opening prayer in March. In 2014, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., invited the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Cross Church in Springdale.
The chaplains open the daily sessions in each chamber with a prayer; serve as spiritual counselors; conduct Bible studies, discussion sessions and prayer meetings for lawmakers; and even officiate at lawmakers' weddings and funerals.
In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the chaplains' prayers in Marsh v. Chambers, in part because prayers have occurred consistently at the opening of legislative sessions since the 1774 Continental Congress.
Metro on 07/24/2015