We invite you to join the Circle of Support with a donation to the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement.
The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture continues the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray through:
- Training programs – We equip faith leaders to transform their communities, just as Rev. Murray did.
- The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. Murray Archive – We preserve Rev. Murray’s prophetic preaching. Your support will allow us to produce a book of Rev. Murray’s sermons and commentary reflecting on its significance today.
- The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. Murray Lecture Series – Your support will allow CRCC to bring prominent scholars and theologians to USC to engage in Rev. Murray’s vision for a socially engaged Christianity.
To give, visit the secure “giving to USC” page. Please make sure to check the “USC Murray Center for Community Engagement” box.
A Message from the Rev. Dr. Cecil L. Murray
The Rev. Dr. Cecil Murray composed the following message to his Circle of Support before he retired.
To get where it needs to go, a straight line curves into a circle from time to time—actually from time to eternity. This is the circle of life.
Life lived to its fullest potential depends upon a circle of mutuality, a circle of support. Note how a family gathering invariably includes a circling of all—all ages, all sexes, all hands and hearts together, all drawing strength from the circle.
At this moment our hands reach out to your hands, asking you to share in the circle of support. The circle of life tells us that living is giving, and no circle is complete without it.
We are asking that you give to a program that provides bread for the hungry, housing for the homeless, clothing for the naked, hope for the hopeless. This is the calling of the leaders from churches and other faith-based organizations whose capacities for community engagement we build through our training programs.
This is the calling that forms the circle in the first place—an outreach where each of us says to the other, “Let us join our giving to give life to the living.”
You do this when you make a contribution to the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. We have trained hundred of community leaders, who help to lift up some of the fallen in our nation: the three million who are homeless; the two million confined in prison; the 30 million who go to bed hungry each night; the 120,000 under the age of 18 who are jailed each year; those who suffer from various addictions that can only be curbed when they are embraced with the circle of support. I prayerfully hope that circle will include you as a donor.
No matter what you can give, your gift will multiply itself beyond calculation. And you may trust that every single penny will be strictly accounted for and dedicated to helping our faith leaders lift up of the fallen. Still, the more abundant and frequent your gifting, the greater our uplifting.
Thank you for giving. You may know that your name as a donor will be glorified in our Catalogue of the Caring.
–Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray
Click on the “Give Now” button, and you will be taken to a secure “giving to USC” page. Please make sure to check the “USC Murray Center for Community Engagement” box to ensure that your gift is designated properly.
The University of Southern California generously hosts the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement at the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. Murray Center programs are all independently supported by grants and donations. Your gift will allow the Murray Center to equip faith leaders to transform communities on an ongoing basis.
Rev. Murray and his team thank the center’s sponsors. The precious resources granted to the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement ultimately improves the lives of people suffering from poverty, unemployment and limited public services.
Murray Center’s major sponsors have included, among others:
The California Endowment
CIT/One West Bank
Wells Fargo Bank Foundation
Comerica Bank Foundation
Union Bank Foundation
James Irvine Foundation
California Community Foundation
Ford Foundation
Weingart Foundation
State Farm Insurance Foundation
Manufacturers Bank
Operation Hope and John Hope Bryant
Richard Rozman
The Rev. Roosevelt Lindsey and Kaye Lindsey
Please join the Circle of Support today: