Happy New Year! Or we can even say, Merry Christmas, until Jan. 6.
Among the early Methodists, the coming of the new year was a special time, a time of thanksgiving and an opportunity to re-commit one’s life to Christ. Unlike modern celebrations marked by parties, countdowns, or dropping objects in Time Square, early Methodists gathered in prayer.
These faithful believers would often use a service that came to be known as a watch night service. The name gives it away. The faithful gathered to watch, to pray, in something like a vigil. Watch nights were not uncommon in early Methodism, but it took some time for them to develop into the services we now know. In terms of holding this service on New Year’s Eve, it was the London Society that eventually led the way.
And within the service, we find the famous Covenant Prayer.
Inspired by Richard Alleine, a seventeenth-century Puritan divine, Wesley crafted the Covenant Prayer in 1755. It’s a prayer worth using throughout the year—but particularly at New Year’s—as it is prayer committing ourselves entirely to God and His ways, and thus a life of holiness.
The prayer reads:
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.
As we wrap up 2025, my prayer for you is that God fills you with His grace in 2026, a grace that overflows into a world yearning for the light of His truth.
P.S. IRD’s John Wesley Institute relies entirely on donations to make our ministry possible. As the year comes to a close, please consider a tax-deductible gift to the JWI. We’re close to ending our fiscal year in the black, but we have a way to go. Your help will make it possible to continue this ministry and help us craft a faithful Wesleyan future.
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Ryan N. Danker is director of the John Wesley Institute, Washington, DC. This is reposted from a weekly JWI newsletter that you can subscribe to here.
Comment by PFSchaffner on December 31, 2025 at 4:35 pm
Probably as a result of the mixing of Baptist and Methodist traditions during the revival and camp meeting era, watch-night services came to be a Baptist tradition as well as a Methodist one. Certainly it was one practiced every year in the conservative Baptist (CBA) church I grew up in in the 60s and 70s, in deliberate and advised opposition to secular celebrations.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on January 1, 2026 at 2:17 am
Thank you for this article. I just sent quote-tweeted the IRD’s tweet about it.
I think “a world earning for the light of His truth” should say “a world yearning for the light of His truth”.
May your prayer for us also be so for you. Happy New Year! Merry Christmas!
Note to readers: You may be interested to know that almost a year ago the online magazine *Firebrand* published an article entitled “I Am No Longer My Own But Thine: Wesley’s Covenant Prayer”, which was written by the author of this short article. At present, it is accessible for free at that magazine’s website.