New Year, Same God - A Wesley Covenant Service of Renewal

The Wesley Covenant Service offers a powerful way to refresh our spiritual lives and deepen our relationship with God as we enter a new year. This more than 300-year-old tradition helps us remember that our lives belong not just to ourselves, but to God and our community. Just as Jesus taught that He is the vine and we are the branches, we must remain connected to Christ through prayer, worship, and obedience to bear spiritual fruit. Making a covenant with God means recognizing that He has already claimed us, loved us, and called us into a life of purpose. This involves living as the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities, caring for others, and working for justice and righteousness.

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Transcript

How many of you guys have ever been to Community Brookside on the very first Sunday of the year before? Should be quite a few of you, right? If you have been to Community Brookside on the first Sunday of any year, you probably recognize that we do something that's a little bit different on this particular Sunday because we do what is called a Wesley Covenant Service of Renewal. So for many of us, we have been Christians our whole lives. Some of you were baptized as infants.

Anybody else baptized as an infant? Right. So lots of us probably don't remember the time that we were baptized. But the great news is baptism is kind of this covenant that we make with God, a covenant that. That invites us into relationship with God and one another to be his church.

And so today we have an opportunity to remember that covenant and to renew that covenant with God, to uphold our baptismal vows and to be people who work to bring about the Kingdom of God here and now. So today, we're going to step back into a practice that reaches back more than 300 years. The Wesley Covenant Service is a practice that shaped the earliest, earliest Methodists and still has the power to impact us in our lives today. In 1663, long before there was a United Methodist Church, believers gathered in small covenant groups or societies to be in unity with one another, to remind themselves that their lives didn't belong just to them, but to God and to the community. They prayed the same covenant words that we will pray today, not as a burden, but as a freeing truth for us.

They weren't making resolutions or vowing to try harder. These people weren't naming the reality. They were naming the reality that God has already claimed them, that God has already loved them, and God has already called them into a life of purpose. That same call is for us today. When John Wesley, who was the founder of Methodism, adopted this service into the Methodist tradition in the 1750s, he did so because he saw how deeply people longed for moments of clarity, simple moments of recommitment, or moments when the noise of the world could fall away.

Early Methodists, many of them were poor or working class. They had been overlooked by the established church. But in this covenant, they found a way to say, my life matters to God and my choices matter in God's world. For many United Methodist and Methodist Christians, this particular service became a spiritual anchor. It became a way of renewing their baptismal identity and their shared ministry and their shared mission together.

And we stand here together today in 2026, in a world that John Wesley could have never imagined. Right. Think about the ways that our world is different from the 18th century world that John Wesley lived in. In his time, the world was powered by horses and steam. It was built on streets made of paving stones and lighted with the flickering light of gas flames.

Their world was built on foundations of layered bricks and human ingenuity. While our world today is powered by nuclear fission and AI, no matter how different our technology has become, the truth still remains that it is our human nature. It's in our hearts to long for connection to one another and a connection to our Creator. We still, as people of the cross, we desire direction. We still sometimes wrestle with what our purpose is.

We still ache for a life that's bigger than our fears and more grounded than our anxieties. And, you know, we still need moments like this, moments that kind of pull us back to center, moments that remind us who we are and who we belong to.

Across the century, Methodists all around the world have returned to this particular service at important points in their lives. Wesley Covenant services are held traditionally at the beginning of new years, sometimes at the founding of new congregations, sometimes during revivals or in seasons of national upheaval, and in quiet retreats where people still seek to align their lives with God's call. Bishops and circuit writers, missionaries and lay ministers, Sunday school teachers and choir members, youth groups and class meetings have all prayed these words for longer than 300 years.

John Wesley himself prayed this covenant every single year. So did Francis Asbury, who was the first Methodist bishop who helped shape what American Methodism looks like. So did countless unnamed saints, our spiritual mothers and fathers whose faithfulness built the church that we get to stand on the shoulders of today. And for a congregation like ours, a community that seeks to live out the call of Jesus, every day that we live, this particular covenant becomes more than just words. It becomes a posture.

It becomes a way that we live in response to what God has already done and already doing in our lives. A way of saying that our faith isn't just nostalgia. It's not a performance. What we do today is not just on a checklist of all right, it's the beginning of the year. We do it again.

Check it off the list. The Wesley Covenant Service reminds us of our relationship with the God who keeps showing up at the margins and is inviting us to continue to do the same today.

So as we prepare to pray these words again, these words of recommittal and renewal, ancient and all at once, new here in 2026, I invite you to breathe deeply today. There's going to be A lot of responses that I'm going to invite you to participate in along our service today. I want you to let the noise of the past year fall away. I invite you to be here fully. Let the pressure to fix yourself fall away.

Let the fear of not being enough fall away. And let this moment of a new beginning, rooted in God's steadfast grace, here grounded in community of believers who love you and desire the best for you, and here in this moment, be held by God who has already. Count. Sorry. Already covenanted with us.

Let these words set a tone for 2026 in our lives. I'm going to invite you to participate a lot this morning, so be ready. All right. We're going to say an opening prayer together, invite you to say these words. Oh God, searcher of all our hearts.

You have formed us as a people and claimed us for your own. As we come to acknowledge your sovereignty and grace and and to enter anew into covenant with you, reveal any reluctance or falsehood within us. Let your spirit impress your truth on our inmost being and receive us in mercy for the sake of our mediator, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. Friends, you will have parts to say this morning.

Let us give thanks for all of God's mercies. Oh God, our covenant. Friend, you have been gracious to us through all the years of our lives. We thank you for your loving care which has filled our days and brought us to this time and place. We praise your holy name, O God.

You have given us life and reason and set us in a world filled with your glory. You have comforted us with family and friends and ministered to us through the hands of our sisters and brothers. We praise your holy name, O God. You have filled our hearts with a hunger after you and have given us your peace. You have redeemed us and God, you have called us to a high calling in Christ Jesus.

You have given us a place in the fellowship of your spirit and the witness of your church. We praise your holy name, O God. You have been our light in darkness and a rock of strength and adversity and temptation. You have been the very spirit of joy in our joys and the all sufficient reward in all our labors. We praise your holy Name, O God.

You remembered us when we forgot you. You followed us even when we tried to flee from you. You, you met us with forgiveness when we return to you. For all your patience and overflowing grace. We praise your holy name.

O God. Friends, we bow with me, Almighty God, you search our hearts and you see every part of us. All of our desires are known to you and from no secrets are hidden from you. By the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, cleanse our hearts so we may perfectly love you and glorify your Holy name. We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord Church.

Let us now pray together the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Amen. Church if you have your Bibles with you this morning, I'm going to invite you to open up to the book of second kings. We're going to read starting in chapter 23, and then hang on to your Bibles, because we're going to go right into the Book of John, chapter 15. Hear now the word of the Lord from 2nd Kings 23:1 3.

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all of his heart and all of his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

Now reading from John 15:1 8. This is the word of the Lord Jesus. He says, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. If you do not remain in me. You are like a branch that is thrown away and withers, such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

So, friends, it is 2026.

I don't know yet what 2026 is going to bring. Right? It could be one of those years that's just the best ever, or it might be tough. But I expect 2026 is going to be like many years that contains some of both. But 2026 is a new opportunity for us to reflect on who we've been, on who we have the chance to become.

We have an opportunity to reflect on what we've experienced, to look forward to what we might experience in the year ahead. But I want to talk specifically for a minute about what we've experienced together as a church. Right. So as a church, over the last 12 months, we've experienced pretty powerful worship. We've seen growth in our youth ministry program.

We've worked to plan for our new building in meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. We've seen new families join us in worship. And we've had to say goodbye to some families who no longer want to call community Brookside home. We've prayed for one another through surgeries, through cancer diagnoses, and we've experienced joy with one another through birthdays, anniversaries, and for some of us new children or grandchildren.

We have seen, for the first time in our church's history, and we've experienced a little bit of stagnation in our growth without being attributed to a denominational split or a worldwide pandemic. But meanwhile, this last year, we still welcomed 13 new members into our congregation. We've experienced, for the first time since COVID one full year of relative elevator reliability, which is exciting for us. We ate as a congregation roughly 1200 donuts together, and we've drank more than 1500 cups of coffee. As a church, we've raised thousands of dollars for the poor.

We've sorted groceries and Thanksgiving meals for those in need, and we've blessed our local school families with food and Christmas gifts for their children. In 2025, church, we were the hands and feet of Jesus to our neighbors and to Tulsa. In 2025, we experienced highs. Thank you. No, we listen, I'll always take an Amen.

In 2025, we experienced highs and lows as the body of Christ. And in all of these things we've experienced together in the last 12 months, all of these things have made us stronger, they've made us different, they've made us better. And here we are welcoming another new year as a church. By the way, this is our eighth time to celebrate the new year together as a congregation.

And every new year, we try to celebrate by renewing our covenant with God and with one another and to vow to do our very best for the next year, to live in response to God's love for each one of us. So today in our special worship service, we will once again have time to focus on what God is doing in our lives, what God is doing in the life of our church, and what God wants to do in and through us. For the communities that we live in.

Through this refreshed focus here on this first Sunday of 2026, I hope that it makes this brand new year a year where some of our greatest positive changes happen for each one of us as individuals and for us as a church.

My Hope is that 2026 becomes the year that we as a congregation can see new life being breathed into the church. And not just our church, but into the church of Jesus Christ in our world alive today, where we have an opportunity to work really hard to become more financially stable and secure as a congregation. Where we as a church can move from focusing on fundraising to doing the actual ministry that we're called to do as a congregation, to be the hands and feet of Jesus at work in our world around us. My prayer for us is that for 2026, it becomes a year of focus on the fullness of our lives and what God wants to do in each one of us. I pray that this year we each intentionally have an opportunity to renew this covenant.

Not just on the first Sunday of the year, but every Sunday becomes for us an opportunity to renew our baptismal vows. Every Sunday is an opportunity to refresh ourselves and allow God to work in us and on us. Each Sunday for us has an opportunity to remind us who we are in Christ Jesus.

And I also pray that through the power of the Holy Spirit, we as a church continue to grow into the people that God has called us to become. So church, here we are on a first Sunday of a brand new year. I invite you to come alongside me, alongside this church and covenant to become better and closer followers of Jesus. I invite you this year to find a way to dive into something that grows your spiritual journey, that encourages you to go deeper in your faith. Ask questions and seek answers.

Pray relentlessly fast. Find ways to connect to God.

Most importantly, I invite you to live out faithfully the calling of Christ, to be his hands and feet at work in the world around you. I invite each of us to seek righteousness, to seek justice for those around us. And here in 2026, I invite you to live deeper, to be bolder and to love more authentically than you've done. Church we're gonna be the church this year. We're gonna grow into the people that God is calling us to be this year.

And by golly, we're gonna break ground on a building that's gonna change what looks like in the Tulsa area and around. So be excited for what 2026 is offering.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Christian life is redeemed from sin and consecrated to God through baptism. We have entered this life and have been admitted into the new covenant of which Jesus Christ is the Mediator. He sealed it with his own blood that it might last forever.

On the one side, God promises to give us new life in Christ, the source and perfecter of our faith. On the other side, we are pledged to live no more for ourselves, but only for Jesus Christ. And that is hard to do, to live for the One who loved us and gave himself fully for us. From time to time, we renew our covenant with God, especially when we reaffirm our baptismal covenant and we gather at the Lord's table for communion. Today, however, we meet as the generations before us have met, to renew the covenant that binds us to our God.

I'm going to invite you to participate as we make a new covenant of God Church Commit yourselves to Christ as his servants. Give yourselves to him that you may belong to him. Christ has many works to be done. Some are more easy and honorable. Others are more difficult and disgraceful.

Some are suitable for our inclinations and our interests. Others are contrary to both. In some, we may please Christ and please ourselves. But then there are other works where we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves. It is necessary, therefore, that we consider what it means to be a servant of Christ.

Let us therefore go to Christ and pray. Let's pray this together. Let me be your servant. Under your command. I will no longer be my own.

I will give up myself to your will in all things. Be satisfied that Christ shall give you your place and work. Lord, make me what you will. I put myself fully into your hands. Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and with a willing Heart, give it all to your pleasure and disposal.

Christ will be the Savior of none but his servants. He is the source of all salvation to those who obey. Christ will have no servants except by consent. Christ will not accept anything except full consent to all that he requires. Christ will be in all, or he will be nothing.

Confirm this by a holy covenant. To make this covenant reality in your life, listen to these admonitions. First, set apart some time more than once to be spent alone before the Lord in seeking earnestly God's special assistance and gracious acceptance of you in carefully thinking through all the conditions of the covenant and searching your hearts whether you have already freely given your life to Christ. Consider what your sins are. Consider the laws of Christ, how holy, strict and spiritual they are, and whether you, after having carefully considered them, are willing to choose them all.

Be sure you are clear in these matters. See that you do not lie to God. Second, be serious and in a spirit of holy awe and reverence. Third, claim God's covenant. Rely upon God's promise of giving grace and strength so that you can keep your promise.

Fourth, resolve to be faithful. You have given to the Lord your hearts. You have opened your mouths to the Lord, and you have dedicated yourself to God with God's power. Never go back. And last, be then prepared to renew your covenant with the Lord.

Fall down on your knees and lift your hands toward heaven. Open your hearts to the Lord as we pray to him this day. Friends, I'm going to invite you to kneel if you're able, or to bow your head in a way that we have an opportunity to pray these words together as a congregation.

Let us pray together.

O righteous God, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, see me as I fall down before you. Forgive my unfaithfulness in not having done your will, for you have promised mercy to me if I turn to you with my whole heart. Church, God requires that you shall put away all your idols. I hear from the bottom of my heart. Renounce them all, covenanting with you that no known sin shall be allowed in my life.

Against your will, I have turned my love toward the world. In your power I will watch all temptations that will lead me away from you, for my own righteousness is riddled with sin, unable to stand before you through Christ, God has offered to be your God again if you would let him before all heaven and earth. I here acknowledge you as my Lord and God. I take you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for my portion and vow to give myself, body and soul, as your servant. To serve you in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life.

Church, God has given the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way and means of coming to God. Jesus, I do here on bended knee, accept Christ as the only new and living way and sincerely join myself in a covenant with him. O blessed Jesus, I come to you, hungry, sinful, miserable, blind and naked, unworthy even to wash the feet of your servants. I do here with all my power, accept you as my Lord and head. I renounce my own worthiness and vow that you are the Lord, my righteousness.

I renounce my own wisdom and take you for my only guide. I renounce my own will and take your will as my law. Christ has told you that you must suffer with him. I do hear covenant with you, O Christ, to take my lot with you as it may fall through your grace. I promise that neither life nor death shall part me from you.

Church, God has given holy laws as the rule of your life. I do here willingly put my neck under your yoke to carry your burden. All your laws are holy, just and good. I therefore take them as the rule for my words, thoughts and actions, promising that I will strive to order my whole life according to your direction and not allow myself to neglect anything I know to be my duty. Church, the Almighty God searches and knows your hearts.

O God, you know that I make this covenant with you today without guile or reservation. If any falsehood should be in it, guide me and help me to set it aright. And now, glory be to you, O God the Father, whom I from this day forward shall look upon as my God and Father. Glory be to you, O God, the Son, who have loved me and washed me from my sins in your own blood, and now is my Savior and Redeemer. Glory be to you, O God, the Holy Spirit, who by your almighty power have turned my heart from sin to God, Almighty God the Lord, omnipotent, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you have now become my covenant friend.

And I, through your infinite grace, have become your covenant servant. So be it. And let the covenant I have made on earth be ratified in heaven. Amen. You may be seated.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the sacrament of baptism, we are initiated into Christ's holy church. We are incorporated into God's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God's gift, offered to us without price. Through the reaffirmation of our faith, we renew the covenant declared at our baptism. We acknowledge what God is doing for us and we affirm our covenant and our commitment to Christ's holy Church.

And so I ask you, will you turn away from the powers of sin and death? You should have a response. We renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of our sin Church. Will you let the Spirit use you as prophets to the powers that be? We accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

Will you proclaim the good news and live as disciples of Jesus Christ, his body on earth? We confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace and promise to serve him as our Lord in union with the Church which Christ has opened to all people of all ages, nations and races. Will you be living witnesses to the Gospel, individually and together, wherever you are and in all that you do? We will remain faithful members of Christ's holy Church and serve as Christ's representatives in the world. Will you receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?

We affirm and teach the faith of the whole church as we put our trust in God, the Father Almighty, in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Let us join together in professing the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Believers, do you have faith in God the Father? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. Do you believe in Jesus Christ?

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, he rose again. He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. Church, I invite you to stand as you are able.

There will be a short response here. The Spirit of the Lord is with us. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus. Let us pray together.

Eternal Father, when nothing existed but chaos, you swept across the dark waters and brought forth the light. In the days of Noah, you saved those on the ark through water. After the flood, you set in the clouds a rainbow. When you saw your people as slaves in Egypt, you led them to fight freedom through the sea. Their children you brought through the Jordan on the Land which you had promised.

In the fullness of time, you sent Jesus nurtured in the water of a womb. He was baptized by John and anointed by your Spirit. He called his disciples to share the baptism of his death and his resurrection and to make disciples of all nations.

God, pour out your Holy Spirit and by this gift of water call to our remembrance the grace declared to us in our baptism. For you have washed away our sins and you clothe us with righteousness throughout our lives, that dying and rising with Christ we may share in his final victory. Amen.

Church Now I'm going to invite you to remember your baptism this day. And if you've not been baptized, then talk to me. Because we would like to invite you into baptism and the full participation of the work that God is doing through his church, through each one of us. So this morning I'm going to invite you to come forward and to touch the water. I'm not re baptizing you, just to be clear.

This is an opportunity for you to remember your baptism. So you may touch the water, you may put your hands fully in the water as like rinsing off the sin in your life. You may touch the water and make a cross as a sign of Christ in your life, on your forehead or on your hand. But friends, this is an opportunity for us to remember that through our baptism we are called to the work of the Church, which is not self seeking, it's a work of self sacrifice that in 2026 I recognize that many of us will be called to make sacrifices for not just our faith, but for the betterment of our world. Friends, as you're able and as you're willing, come now and remember your baptism.

Come.

Church May our God who establishes covenant relationship with those who seek to enter the kingdom, be with you always. May Jesus Christ, who seals the new covenant with his blood on the cross, bring you peace. May the Holy Spirit guide your life both now and forever. Go now in peace to serve the Lord. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and all God's people said Amen.

Amen. Go now in peace.