Today’s Covenant service at the Methodist Church celebrates God is love and is a time of renewal, shares the Revd Tongayi Matamba. It is a time where we are called to focus on our journey ahead with God.
The Minister writes: “The covenant service is time of renewal where God forgives us and accepts us as His beloved. In today’s world we are experiencing various challenges. Immorality loneliness emotional breakdown. These and other challenges have led people to wander away from God. But through covenant renewal God is extending his love to us. We encouraged to remain in Christ always regardless of the situation.
“Let us focus into the future with a sense assurance that God is with us. Prayer and meditation should always be our daily food.”
Taken from the Covenant Service liturgy:
“From the earliest days of the Methodist societies, John Wesley invited the Methodist people to renew their covenant relationship with God.
“The emphasis of the whole service is on God’s readiness to enfold us in generous love, not dependent on our deserving. Our response, also in love, springs with pertinent joy from thankful recognition of God’s grace.”
We pray with the community in our town and in our The Methodist Church circuit.
What is The Covenant?
Thanks to The Methodist Church’s social team for sharing this information:
“The Covenant was key to John Wesley’s understanding of discipleship as a Christian. He believed that we need to not only accept a relationship with God but also to grow in that relationship. He saw a need for a regular opportunity for people to open themselves to God more fully. He looked for a way to help them to hear God’s offer and challenge ever more deeply, and to allow God to prompt and enable them to respond.
“Wesley’s original Covenant Services were set in a framework of pastoral care, preaching and guidance that would continue through ongoing support for individuals and groups, as they were adapted from the Puritan tradition of pastoral and spiritual guidance.
“Today, the service follows a set structure based on these original services including prayers, scripture, hymns, Communion, and the reading of the Covenant which the congregation say aloud together.
“All are welcome to these services – for the first time, the first time in a long time, or simply to watch what others do without taking part.”