One Faithful Promise: The Wesleyan Covenant for Renewal

By Magrey deVega

By making Three Simple Rules and Five Marks of a Methodist accessible for a current United Methodist and Wesleyan audience, Abingdon Press has reintroduced Wesley’s formative identity and boosted our way of Christian living in thousands of congregations.

The next most important document that Wesley delivered to the rapidly expanding societies and congregations was The Wesley Covenant Prayer and Renewal Service from 1755, which are crucial to Methodist identity. This service, a liturgical event in 1755, was preceded by several mornings of teaching from John Wesley about “the means of increasing serious religion.” Charles Wesley also wrote a hymn supporting the prayer – “Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine.”

Over the centuries since 1755, many Methodists have used this liturgy on New Year’s Eve – the Watch Night Service – as a service of renewal of the individual’s covenant with God for the coming year. More recently many churches have found other opportunities to provide this opportunity for the congregation.

Wesley’s covenant renewal can function now as an accessible church-wide campaign that culminates in the liturgical affirmation and faithful promise to love God and neighbor faithfully. The campaign could be:

1) Used during Advent and culminate on New Year’s Eve with the Covenant prayer committed to memory and resolve.
2) Used from mid-September, with emphasis on homecoming and harvest, and culminated with the liturgical event on All Saint’s Day.
3) Used prior to Lent and culminate on Ash Wednesday, or
4) Used during Lent and culminate on during holy week.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781501824937

Magrey deVega

Magrey R. deVega is the Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Questions Jesus Asked, The Christmas Letters, The Bible Year, Savior, Hope for Hard Times, Almost Christmas, and One Faithful Promise. He is also a contributor to numerous publications on preaching, worship design, and the spiritual life. He is the proud father of two daughters, Grace and Madelyn.

Book preview

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Half-Title Page

One

Faithful

Promise

Title Page

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Copyright Page

One faithful promise:

the wesleyAN covenant for renewal

Copyright © 2016 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., PO Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228, or e-mailed to [e-mail].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

ISBN 978-1-5018-2493-7

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Dedication

For Steve, Jack, Rich, John, and Jim;

for my parents, brothers, and their families;

and for Grace and Madelyn

Contents

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Preparation

A Case for Covenant Renewal

Step 1

Confide in God

Step 2

Compose Your Spirit

Step 3

Claim the Covenant

Step 4

Choose Faithfulness

Step 5

Connect to God in Prayer

Epilogue

A Complete Promise

Preparation

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If you’ve never heard the name Percival Everitt, you’ve certainly used his invention. He was a nineteenth-century inventor living in London, England, who in 1883 created the very first vending machine.

The first one was a simple device that sold postcards at railway stations and post offices, and soon it became a widespread mainstay all across England, dispensing enve-lopes, postcards, and notepaper. Now we use them to buy everything from candy to cappuccinos to consumer electronics.

Vending machines are pervasive in our daily life now, and we tend to approach God with the same expectations. Most of us imagine God as a vending machine.

You probably have not thought of it that way. Sometimes, the most harmful influences are the most subversive and the sneakiest.

This problem is diagnosed in Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church. The author, Kenda Creasy Dean, reveals much about the faith of American teenagers today. First, the good news. Despite our hunches, the typical American teenager is not losing faith. They are not walking away from churches and denominations. They still readily and willingly identify themselves as belonging to one faith group or another, most commonly the same as their parents. While they have not walked away from the faith, they have done something even more dangerous with it.

They have watered it down.

The technical term for this new faith system is moralistic therapeutic deism. It means that faith primarily encourages people to be nice. That’s the end goal. Just be a good person (which is the moral part of the phrase). As far as God is concerned, God is real and alive; but generally speaking, there really isn’t much interaction between us and God. There is so much suspicion of people who claim ability to hear God’s voice and