wesley Archives - Jonathan Andersen

For countless years of my youth, I was at Conyers First United Methodist Church on New Year’s Eve.

Each year, the youth group at my home church hosted a lock-in on New Year’s Eve. These long nights were filled with lip-singing contests (I won many of these), games that involved us running through a huge dark church, pizza, and a pancake breakfast on New Year’s day. It seems like every year there was also a broken stained glass window discovered the Sunday after.

While vague memories of those fun times have lingered, I’ll never forget being in the sanctuary when the clock struck 12:00 each year.

We didn’t have a fancy service. We would gather in the sanctuary, which was always filled with a little more mystery without the sun-lit stained glass and loud organ present. Typically, we would sing worship songs played off of the latest WOW Worship CD. Our youth minister would give a short message. Then, we would sit in the pews and pray as the New Year arrived.

I don’t remember many specifics of my prayers on those evenings. But I always remember feeling the transcendent presence of God in the darkened space. I also remember asking myself this question each year: “Am I closer to God this year as compared to last year?” Some years this question was very convicting. Other years it led me to celebration.

Little did I nor the youth minister know that our gathering in the sanctuary on New Year’s Eve was a Methodist tradition that began years before.

In 1755, John Wesley began leading Covenant Renewal services. These services were times in which people would remember the covenant made at their baptism–a covenant to serve God with all one’s heart and soul. Wesley found that these services were very encouraging and powerful for everyone involved, and soon they began being held in numerous Methodist societies.

Over time, many British Methodist churches began to hold these services on New Year’s Day or the first Sunday of the year since these were natural times of renewing commitments. These services continue with regularity in British Methodism today. While only a small number of congregations in America hold these services each new year, the order of worship for a Covenant Renewal service can be found on page 288 of the UMC Book of Worship.

One of the most powerful aspects of the service is the “Wesley Covenant Prayer.” While John Wesley admitted that he was not the originator of this prayer, it has served as a powerful tool for spiritual formation in the Methodist church over the last two centuries.

Throughout my first six months of ministry I have prayed this prayer regularly in the mornings in order to help orient my heart for the day. I plan to continue to pray it throughout this new year, and I’d like to invite you to pray this prayer with me as well.

The Wesley 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.

Click here for a PDF of this prayer that you can easily print. This is a great prayer to have around, so cut it or fold it in half and place it in your bible or somewhere where you will see it regularly.

This is the first post in a new series: “John Wesley – The man, the myth, the legend “

If you’re a Methodist, you may have heard the phrase “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” thrown around. It probably wasn’t dropped in the middle of a dinner conversation. But perhaps your pastor has used it in the pulpit or a teacher mentioned to you that the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” was a method you could use “to do theology”—aka reflection on things pertaining to God.

If you’re not a Methodist, you probably have not heard the phrase “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” But you probably have used this method to handle theological questions.

The “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” is best described by a line from the United Methodist Church’s (UMC) Book of Discipline where it states, “Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.”

Think about how you may have used this method. Take the theological question, “As a Christian, is it okay to hurt someone I don’t like?”

To answer this, many Christians would first look to what the Bible says on the issue, for it is primary in any reflection relating to God.

They would then seek to understand what Christians throughout history have said. Here, they would be looking at tradition.

Next, they would use reason to interpret the Bible, understand tradition, and infer implications where these things may be silent.

Finally, they would think of the question in terms of theirs and others experiences involving violence against people in their community.

This method has its flaws (see the sources section below the interview), but I believe it can be helpful as a basic framework.

However, this four-fold method is not John Wesley’s. He never used the term “quadrilateral” or made a clear argument for the use of these four criteria. Rather, the quadrilateral is a modern attempt to understand how Wesley went about doing his theology that many believe is a good model for the church.

These reasons lead me to think that perhaps we should stop attaching Wesley’s name to it. Labeling it the UMC quadrilateral or the Albert Outler quadrilateral (after the scholar who formulated it) would be more accurate.

Another problem with attaching Wesley’s name to the quadrilateral is that it lends authority to a theological method that is often misused and misconstrued. These misrepresentations ultimately lead to a misrepresentation of Wesley and his beliefs. Since its formulation, the quadrilateral has taken on a life of its own. Its most egregious misuse occurs when people treat all four sources as being of equal authority, thus belittling scripture.

One day in my Methodism class a student mentioned the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” to Wesley scholar Dr. Richard Heitzenrater. He promptly responded, “Do you mean the Outler quadrilateral? The quadrilateral is not John Wesley’s.”

Many people in the class sat stunned as a myth about Wesley that they believed all their life was busted by the man who first cracked the code of Wesley’s diaries.

Recently, I sat down with Dr. Heitzenrater for an interview about Wesleyan myths. Below is the part of the interview regarding this moment in class:

A prayer for the new year: Wesley’s Covenant Prayer

The Myth of the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”