John Wesley 2003: anniversary events

2003 events index

2003 WESLEY ANNIVERSARY EVENTS

Global webcast for John Wesley 300th anniversary celebration: The national Service of Celebration to mark the 300th Anniversary of the birth of John Wesley is being held in Lincoln Cathedral, England, on 17 June 2003, at 13.30 GMT (14:30 BST). Log on to www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire and join in this historic event.

SERVICE OF CELEBRATION FOR THE 300TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN WESLEY

Lincoln Cathedral, 17 June 2003, 2.30pm

The Methodist Church offers grateful thanks to the Dean and Chapter for the use of the Cathedral for this service

Organ Voluntary Organist: Mr Charles Harrison, Deputy Director of Music, Lincoln Cathedral

All stand to welcome the procession from the Chapter House including representatives from the Cathedral, the Diocese of Lincoln, and the Lincoln and Grimsby District of the Methodist Church. Then the President and Vice-President of the Conference enter. Remain standing as Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant for Lincolnshire, preceded by the Civic parties, is escorted to her seat. Then everyone is seated.

The children, who are from Lincolnshire Church of England and Methodist Primary Schools, come to the crossing and, in turn, address each group who stand at the microphone. Group one is the Vice-President and President; group two, the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral and the Chair of the Lincoln and Grimsby Methodist District; group three, two of the representatives of the Methodist Church overseas.

Children: Why is today so special?

Group one: Today it is three hundred years since the birth of John Wesley, and we have come to celebrate and to praise God for him.

Children: What shall we do to help us celebrate?

Group two: We shall listen to good news from the past, worship with love in the present, and set out with hope for the future.

Children: Who is here to share our stories of love and hope?

Group three: We are here from all around the world, from everywhere Methodist people live and work and praise.

Children: In asking and answering,

Group one: celebrating and praising,

Group two: listening and hoping,

Group three: connecting and travelling,

All four groups: loving God, fill us with your Spirit,

All: enabling our wonder, love and praise.

HYMN: O for a thousand tongues to sing (Tune: LYDIA. Words: Charles Wesley (1707-88))

The Dean offers a welcome, and the President responds.

PRAYER OF ADORATION

President: Gracious God, your patient love prepared the path to faith, created, called and connected our lives, led us through ways and words and works of devotion to that surprising simplicity: the discovery of love and of being in love.

For the grace that has searched for and found us, we praise you, gentle God. And then with hearts warmed and wakened you stirred in us a share in your desire to speak for you, and think and work, in faith set free from anxious fears, knowing at last the depth of your love.

For the grace that has touched us and healed us, we praise you, generous God. Now day by day you open up to us horizons of hope and pathways of faith, assurance of love as gift and demand, with friends to travel beside us, your presence and promise to guide us.

For the grace that nurtures and holds us, we praise you, living God. Before faith, by faith and there at faith’s end; from everlasting to everlasting, you are God: beside, within and beyond us; love without limit making perfect in love.

‘The best of all is: God is with us.' For the grace that transforms and unites us, we praise and adore you, holy God. Amen.

ARGENTINE SANCTUS (The Iona Community)

PRAYER OF CONFESSION: Led by the Rev Dr Christina Le Moignan, Chair of the Birmingham District

John Wesley spoke of God’s gift of Assurance - unshakeable confidence in the redeeming love of Christ who died for us. In that assurance, or because we hope for and look for that gift, let us confess our sins to God.

Silence

We confess that though we have celebrated the story of John Wesley’s warmed heart, our own hearts have often been cold towards you and our neighbours. Our faith has become fear of failure, and our hope timidity about tomorrow. Lord, have mercy.

All: Lord, have mercy.

As we give thanks for the life of John Wesley, who looked upon the whole world as his parish, we confess the narrowness of our own vision. We believe that the Gospel is for all, but have often excluded those who are different from ourselves. We have claimed and cherished gifts of grace that were meant for sharing, and have been suspicious of those same gifts in others. Christ, have mercy.

All: Christ, have mercy.

And we confess our unwillingness to be changed by you. In place of the journey into perfect love we have settled for respectability. We have tried to preserve what we have rather than receive all that you promise. Lord, have mercy.

All: Lord, have mercy.

May God grant us forgiveness and healing for the past, guidance for the present, and assurance to take us into the future. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

COLLECT

God of mercy, who inspired John and Charles Wesley with zeal for your Gospel: grant that all your people may boldly proclaim your word and evermore rejoice in singing your praises; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

OLD TESTAMENT: Ezekiel 37: 1-14 Read by Deacon Jane Middleton, Westminster Central Hall

EPISTLE: Romans 1: 8-17 Read by Mr Kevin Mooney, Epworth Trust

We listen to a recording of this version of Psalm 139

O God, you search me and you know me. All my thoughts lie open to your gaze. When I walk or lie down, you are before me: ever the maker and keeper of my days.

You know my resting and my rising. You discern my purpose from afar, and with love everlasting you besiege me: in ev’ry moment of life or death, you are.

Before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you have known its meaning through and through. You are with me beyond my understanding: God of my present, my past and future, too.

Although your Spirit is upon me, still I search for shelter from your light. There is nowhere on earth I can escape you: even the darkness is radiant in your sight.

For you created me and shaped me, gave me life within my mother’s womb. For the wonder of who I am I praise you: Safe in your hands, all creation is made new.

Words and music: Bernadette Farrell. From the CD ‘Christ be our Light’ catalogue no. 9917 © Bernadette Farrell.OCP Publications 1994 Administered in the UK by Calamus, used with permission

A dance group will interpret the theme of God’s formation of the life of John Wesley. They will depict the escape from the fire at the Epworth Rectory and the ‘warmed heart’ in a dance of the Holy Spirit that continues today. Arranged by Rachel Newton. Music: ‘Danse’ (Claude Debussey)

GOSPEL: Luke 4:14 - 30 Read by the Secretary of the Methodist Conference, the Rev Dr Nigel Collinson

HYMN: Jesus, thy boundless love to me. Melody by Robert King (1701) Tune: DAVID’S HARP. Words: Paul Gerhardt (1607-76) Translated John Wesley (1703-91)

SERMON: The Rev Ian White, President of the Methodist Conference

A time of reflection, during which we listen to J.S. Bach: Allemande, from Second Partita for Violin, BWV 1003 (Violin: Mr Peter Worrell, member of the Halle Orchestra)

‘NAMING INFLUENCES’ - THANKSGIVING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Led by the Rev Canon Dr John Newton, Canon of Lincoln Cathedral

‘You it was, Lord, who fashioned my inward parts; knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for you fill me with awe; wonderful you are, and wonderful your works. You know me through and through.’ Psalm 139

We thank God on this day for all that had been achieved and understood through the life of his servant John Wesley: for God’s grace at work in his preaching and thinking, praying and travelling: for the formation of one whose evangelising energy, sacramental devotion, social concern and innovative imagination have formed, in turn, generations past and those present who bring their praise to God today. We thank God, who has formed his servant John, through those who knew him, loved him, taught him and influenced him.

We listen to some of their voices:

Susannah Wesley - mother, educator, journal-writer (read by Mrs Rachel Newton)

Daniel Brevint - French Protestant minister, later Dean of Lincoln, writer on Holy Communion (read by the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral)

Peter Böhler - Moravian pastor and missionary (read by the Rev John Waller, Moderator of the General Assembly of the URC)

Charles Wesley - Anglican priest, poet, and brother to John (read by the Rev Harvey Richardson, Chairman of the London South East Methodist District)

Generous God, we praise you for all that you brought about in the formation of the life of your servant John. We thank you for those women and men through whom his life was influenced, formed or changed; for his openness to your Spirit; for his willingness to learn from and work alongside others; for the seeds which were sown of your call to teach and heal, worship and work; in the name of Christ. Amen.

We thank God, who used John Wesley, in what he said and what he wrote, in who he was and in what he did, to found a movement, later to be a Church, which carried on its part in Christ’s ministry to proclaim the good news of Christ to all, to make good news real for the poor, to break down barriers between God’s people wherever they were. We thank God that for many of us the impulse to do these things has come through Methodism and originated in Wesley’s faithful and inspired service.

We listen to some of his words:

Journal entry concerning Sarah Peters, member of a Methodist society and prison visitor (read by the Rev Liz Smith, Methodist minister in the Lincoln & Grimsby District)

An extract from the Sermon on the Catholic Spirit (read by the Rt Rev David Rossdale, Bishop of Grimsby)

An extract from the Sermon on the Marks of the New Birth (read by Mr Naboth Muchopa, Methodist Secretary for Racial Justice)

Journal entry concerning the annual Conference (read by Mrs Susan Howdle)

Generous God, we praise you for what you have called the Methodist people to be in past generations. We rejoice that you call us now, together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, to work and worship in our own time. We thank you for enabling us by your Spirit to continue in our calling to learn and to care, to worship and evangelise. Empower us to draw alongside our friends in the wider community of God’s people and so to catch the vision of your kingdom becoming present among us, in the name of Christ. Amen.

We thank God for those women and men, boys and girls, through whom each of our lives has been formed and changed and influenced for good. We call to mind now those who have known and loved us, formed us and enabled us to grow in faith and life, in understanding and commitment. As we record their names, we remember that they stand in the tradition of all God’s saints, such as those who influenced Wesley, as he in his turn changed a generation in the name of Christ.

You are invited to write on the coloured piece of card, which is in your order of service, one or more names of those for whom you now give thanks. They may be family members, members of the church or wider community, teachers, ministers - anyone whom you wish to acknowledge today before God as having helped you to live your life of faith and grow in love. As you leave the cathedral at the end of the service, please put your card into one of the boxes. The card will be formed into a large collage, a representative witness to those who have shown us God’s love in our own age, which will be taken, along with the banner of Wesley, to this year’s Methodist Conference, and displayed there. While we do this, we listen again to the music of Psalm 139.

God of love, you care for us with imagination and intimacy. We acknowledge what we owe to the lives of those we honour here. We know that within your grace, they and we stand alongside your servant John Wesley, and all your saints in every age, as those who in a particular time and place Christ asks to be his friends and ministers. Visit us here with the power of your Spirit, that all to whom we ourselves are teachers and leaders, colleagues and friends, companions and members of families, may know in us, as we in them, those in whom Christ speaks and loves. Amen.

HYMN: Lord, in every generation (Tune: EPWORTH RECTORY. Words: Brian Hoare (1935 - ))

PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION (Led by Professor Peter Howdle)

Great and gracious God, as we give thanks and sing this day, we pray for the Methodist Church. Throughout our world parish, we remember the life and mission of your faithful people of every race and language and in every culture and context. May your Spirit enable all these communities to respond to your call to love and praise, and to be signs of your presence and power.