Being that it’s a new year — 2026 — I figured we needed some good news today — perhaps a Sunday service aimed at renewing faith.  

Edenton United Methodist Church answered that prayer — wonderful service.  

Before we get into the story about faith and renewal to inaugurate a New Year, here are a few bullet points:   

• 9 a.m. Contemporary Praise and Worship at the Family Life Center
• 10 a.m. Sunday School (adults and children)
• 11 a.m. Traditional Worship in the Sanctuary — that’s the worship service that I’ve written.  

EDENTON — On a quiet Sunday morning at Edenton United Methodist Church, the first Sunday of a brand-new year unfolded not with haste or novelty, but with reverence, memory, and promise. 

Worshipers gathered knowing they were stepping into something historic — a service that reaches back through centuries of Christian history to the days of John Wesley himself. Wesley was an English theologian and evangelist who was a principal leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism.

“This morning, we will be celebrating a historic service,” Pastor Elizabeth Polk told the congregation as the service began. “It’s one that goes back to the days of John Wesley and it’s called Covenant Renewal, especially appropriate at the start of this, a brand new year.”

For many in the pews, the Covenant Renewal service was both familiar and fresh — familiar in its roots, fresh in its invitation to begin again. It is a service centered not on spectacle but on commitment: a deliberate pause to reflect on God’s faithfulness and to recommit one’s own life, heart, and will to Christ.

Polk gently prepared the congregation for what lay ahead, explaining that the order of worship would be different from a typical Sunday. Even the hymns were woven intentionally into the Scripture readings. Worshipers were asked to keep a finger placed in their hymnals at “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” singing specific verses in response to the Word of God — a reminder that faith is not only heard but voiced, not only believed but sung.

Before the Scriptures were opened, Polk offered a prayer that set the spiritual tone for the morning. “Lord, we pray that by Your Holy Spirit, once again You open Your Word to us and that, Lord, You embolden us, You enable us to open ourselves to fully receive Your Word,” she prayed. “Lord, all this we pray in Your name and for the sake of Your kingdom. Amen.”

The first reading came from the prophet Jeremiah, a passage steeped in promise and hope — words spoken to a people who had failed, wandered, and yet were not abandoned.

“The days are coming,” Polk read, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.” This covenant, God declared, would not be like the old one that had been broken. Instead, God promised, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

As verse two of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” rose softly from the pews, the ancient promise lingered in the sanctuary air — a reminder that God’s desire is not merely obedience, but intimacy.

The second reading, from First Peter, shifted the focus from promise to identity. Polk read words that describe the church not as a building, but as a living structure made of people bound together in Christ.

“Like living stones, you are being built into a spiritual house,” she proclaimed, “to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The passage culminated in a declaration that resonated deeply with the Covenant Renewal theme: “But you, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.”

Once, the Scripture said, “you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” Once, “you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

By the time the congregation joined in verse three of the hymn, the service had already traced a powerful arc — from God’s promise, to God’s people, to God’s call.

That call was sharpened in the Gospel reading from Matthew 25, where Jesus describes the final judgment, separating sheep from goats not by creed alone, but by compassion lived out in action.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” Polk read. “Whatever you did for one of the least of the brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

In that moment, the Covenant Renewal took on flesh and bone. Faith, the Gospel reminded the congregation, is not abstract. It is seen in meals shared, doors opened, burdens carried, and love extended to “the least of these.”

When Polk began her message, she addressed the congregation as “brothers and sisters in Christ,” grounding the service in shared baptism and shared belonging.

“The Christian life is redeemed from sin and is consecrated to God,” she said. “Through baptism, we have entered this life and have been admitted into the new covenant of which Jesus is the mediator.”

The covenant, she explained, is not one-sided. God promises new life in Christ, while believers pledge “to live no more for ourselves but only for Jesus, he who loves us and gave himself for us.”

“From time to time, we renew our covenant with God,” Polk said, “especially when we reaffirm our baptismal covenant. Today, we meet as generations before us have met, to renew the covenant that binds us to God.”

What followed was the heart of the service — a careful, demanding, and deeply honest call to surrender. Polk made clear that covenant is not casual.

“Christ has many services to be done,” she said. “Some are more easy and honorable, others are more difficult and disgraceful.” Some works, she acknowledged, align with personal comfort, while others require denial of self.

“It is necessary therefore that we consider what it means to be a servant of Christ,” she said, inviting the congregation into prayer: “Let me be your servant, under your command. I will no longer be my own.”

The language of the Covenant Prayer was unflinching. “Put me to doing, put me to suffering,” Polk prayed aloud. “Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing.”

In a culture that prizes control, comfort, and self-determination, the words landed with countercultural weight. “Christ will be all in all or he will be nothing,” Polk said plainly.

She offered practical guidance for making the covenant real: set aside time alone with God, examine one’s sins honestly, approach the commitment with reverence, rely on God’s grace rather than personal strength, and resolve to be faithful.

“With God’s power, never go back,” she urged.

Then came the prayer itself — a long, sacred confession spoken slowly, deliberately, inviting worshipers to kneel inwardly if not physically. It was a prayer of renunciation and trust, of humility and hope.

“I here acknowledge you as my Lord and God,” Polk prayed on behalf of the congregation. “I take you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for my portion, and vow to give up myself, body and soul, as your servant.”

The prayer acknowledged weakness without despair. “For my own righteousness is riddled with sin, unable to stand before you,” Polk said. Yet it clung firmly to grace: “Through Christ, God has offered to be your God again if you would let him.”

As the prayer concluded, the covenant was sealed with praise. “So be it,” Polk said. “And let the covenant I have made on earth be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

But the service did not end there. Faith, Polk reminded the congregation, is meant to be lived and remembered.

Inside the bulletin was a covenant card — a tangible symbol of an inward promise. Worshipers were invited to sign and date it, then keep it somewhere visible. “Tuck it in your Bible, put it in your daily devotional,” Polk said, “so that it will be a constant reminder to you throughout this coming year.”

The congregation was also invited to come forward to remember their baptism — to touch the water, gaze upon it, or mark themselves with it. Polk shared her own practice of touching her head, mouth, and chest, symbolizing covenant made “in my mind, in my words, and in my heart and soul.”

As she prayed over the water, Polk connected baptism to the entire story of salvation — birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

“For we make the covenant with you, dear God, in our minds, by our words, and in our heart and in our soul,” she prayed. “And all God’s people say, amen.”

In that shared “amen,” the ancient met the present. A new year began not with resolutions easily broken, but with a covenant renewed — a people once again saying yes to God, trusting that the One who calls is faithful, and that mercy, once received, is meant to be lived out in love.

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