Happy New Year – 2022!
Dear Fremont Family:
Today marks the beginning of a new calendar year. Thanks be to God! The last two years have been incredibly challenging, and I look forward to a different future more open-ended and filled with more possibilities than the last.
As Methodists, we have a wonderful annual New Year tradition that dates back to our founder John Wesley. Every New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, Wesley would encourage the people called Methodists to gather and recommit themselves to another year in relationship with God. The idea behind the “Watch Night” service was that some years would be hard, and some years would be gratifying, but regardless of what each year might bring, God was always to be praised. To honor the occasion, Wesley wrote the beautiful Covenant Prayer that Methodists have characteristically prayed at the start of every new year.
Tomorrow, January 2nd, we will gather in person (the temperatures will be warmer, but there will be rain) and on-line, and we will start our new year together with holy conversation in reflection with the scriptures around what the new year may hold for us as individuals and as a faith community. I look forward to our time in worship together.
But, today, I invite you in the spirit of John Wesley to take a moment and pray the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer with me:
Holy God, on this first day of a new year, may I remember;
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Happy New Year, beloved ones!
Grace and peace,
Pastor Erin
