AT THE START of the new year, Methodists make a distinctive resolution.
The Covenant Service is often celebrated on the first Sunday of the year. It is at the heart of Methodists’ devotion, discipleship, and dedication to social justice. In the service the Church joyfully celebrates God’s offer of loving relationship.
Last January I began attending a Methodist Church. I experienced the Covenant Service for the first time and found it deeply moving. It affirmed my decision to join the Methodist Church in May 2022.
The closest experience I have found in other churches is the renewal of baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil, which takes place in many Roman Catholic and some Anglican churches. The Covenant Prayer at the heart of the service is similar to St Ignatius of Loyola‘s prayer of receiving, and St Charles de Foucauld‘s prayer of abandon. Both have influenced my faith journey.
So this year, I decided to look into it more deeply. This is what I found, summarised from the Methodist Church website:
The Covenant is not a contract. It does not involve God and human beings agreeing to provide particular goods and services for each other!
It is not something that we have to do to create a relationship with God. God has freely and graciously already made it possible. Rather, the Covenant is the means by which we accept the relationship, then seek to sustain it.
God’s gracious offer to us is also a challenge. If God is committed to us, are we prepared to accept that as reality? Can we commit ourselves in return to God? If we choose to accept it, how can we manage to live out our commitment adequately?
Origins of the Covenant Service
This idea of Covenant was basic to the understanding of Christian discipleship of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. He compared the relationship with God in Covenant to a marriage. This marriage was between human beings, both as a community and as individuals, and God in Christ. His original Covenant Prayer echoed traditional Christian marriage vows, taking Christ as
‘my Head and Husband, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions, to love, honour and obey thee before all others, and this to the death’.
This understanding of covenant was particularly interesting to me. My husband and I were the first couple in the UK to register a civil partnership in a place of worship, in May 2012. We wrote our own service. Since it was not legally possible for a same-gender couple to marry in the UK at that time, we avoided using any language associated with traditional marriage. We made promises, not vows. We made a covenant to one another. This was based on ancient rites of adelphopoiesis or ‘brother-making’. These rites date back to the early Christian church.
Wesley recognised that people needed not just to accept but also to grow in relationship with God. He emphasised that God’s grace and love constantly prompt and seek to transform us. So, we should continually seek and pray to grow in holiness and love. Wesley saw the need for a regular ceremony to help people to hear God’s offer and challenge ever more deeply, and to allow God to prompt and help them to respond.
In 1755 Wesley created a service adapted from the Puritan tradition of pastoral and spiritual guidance. Wesley’s Covenant Service took place within a framework of pastoral care, preaching and guidance. It linked personal devotion with collective worship, caring for particular Christian community, and the individuals within that community.
The service was originally offered during a communion service after a day’s retreat for people to prepare themselves. Wesley thought that the sacrament of communion made real all that was said in the Covenant. He urged Methodists to put Communion at the centre of their spiritual life and share in it often.
The process did not end with the Covenant Service. People were encouraged to understand how the renewal of their relationship with God affected their lives. Pastoral guidance was offered to both groups and individuals in the weeks that followed the service.
The Covenant Prayer:
The Covenant Prayer was first used in 1755, at a service in London with 1800 people present. Since then, the Covenant Prayer has often been used in Methodist services worldwide. It is usually recited on the first Sunday of the year, or another Sunday in January. The prayer points to deep surrender of ourselves in complete trust to God. At first, the words of the prayer can seem jarring and demanding. The language of the original prayer has been updated – here is one of the versions used by the Methodist Church in Britain today:
I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.And now, glorious and blessed God,
The Covenant Service, Methodist Worship Book 2022
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
And here is another version in more contemporary English:
I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me,
in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me
and when there is none;
when I am troubled
and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued
and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfilment
and when it is lacking;
when I have all things,
and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
all I have and am
to serve you,
as and where you choose.Glorious and blessèd God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
be fulfilled in heaven. Amen.
The Covenant Service, Methodist Worship Book 2022
Hard words to pray with a full understanding of what they might mean in practice. But then, the same could be said for marriage vows. There is something to be said for reflectively renewing this commitment each year.
1 ping
[…] Woolton, where I have attended regularly since January 2022. On my first visit, it was the Covenant service, the first time I had experienced that Methodist tradition. I found it deeply moving, and it […]