Happy New Year! The folks at United Methodist Communications have animated a Watch Night themed Wesleys Take the Web. Be sure to share the youtube link with your church and friends!
The Moravians started the Watch Night service (probably in 1733 under Count Zinzendorf in Germany) as a way to bring in the Rockin’ New Year with prayer, repentance, and a renewal commitment to a deeper faith in the year to come. John Wesley picked up the concept from his close friendship with the Moravians and began to practice Watch Nights with the Methodists in 1740. Watch Nights were not strictly reserved for New Year’s Eve, but would also be held monthly by some on nights of the full moon, with an emphasis on being “ready,” for no one knows the hour of Christ’s return. Over time, the Methodist tradition came to call this the “Covenant Renewal Service,” repeating the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
On December 31, 1862, the freedmen and women in the black church in the American North united with the enslaved black men and women in the South in a Watch Night preparing for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to be signed on New Year’s Day, 1863, earning this night the title “Freedom’s Eve” for many communities. For many African-American church communities, the Watch Night service carries the double meaning of freedom from slavery and the renewed effort to diligently live out one’s discipleship.
My Charles Wesley Advent playlist was so popular I decided to get up with him and give you guys a New Year’s playlist themed around the Watch Night hope for freedom in a fallen world. The songs are full of the reality of sin, the struggle of discipleship, the wonder of God’s incredible love, and the vacillation we all feel between loneliness and community as we pursue God on our own and with the Church.
May you be well in the New Year. God loves you, yes, even you. And what’s more, God empowers you to be a partner in this crazy plan to reconcile all things through Jesus Christ. As you renew your commitment to deeper living, may you find, beloved, that even if the winter lasts forever, the pursuit of God will thaw us enough to spark new freedom fires. The darkness will never, never overcome the light. Be well.
Check out the guys behind the animation! Left to right: Henry Haggard (the voice of John Wesley, looking much younger without that beard), Jonathan Richter (the incredible animator and visual concept guy for the animations), and Joshua Childs (the voice of Charles Wesley and famous Chuck Knows Church guy who is really not a pastor). Special thanks to Fran Walsh, Joe Iovino, Chris Fenoglio and all those at UMCommunications for the dream and the writing behind these web shorts!