Locals mocked his children, burned the family crops, and damaged the rectory of the Epworth Anglican Parish in Lincolnshire , England. Beginning in , he participated in the Holy Club, a religious study group organized by his brother Charles Bound by covenant, they worshipped, prayed and studied-and visited prisoners and cared for the poor, orphans and the sick, emphasizing both personal and social holiness.
Other Anglican clergy refused to follow his example, so Wesley allowed lay people to preach and teach. Some scholars credit the Wesleyan movement with preventing civil war in England , especially as it crossed class lines and allowed women to share in leadership. They became the nucleus of the Methodist Discipline. The breach between Wesley and the Church of England gradually widened, but he never considered his societies to be outside the Anglican Church.
Wesley's stay in Georgia was, however, not without benefit. Both on his trip over and during his two-year stay, he was deeply influenced by Moravian missionaries, whose sense of spiritual confidence and commitment to practical piety impressed him. In England, Wesley continued to keep in close touch with the Moravians.
At one of their meetings—in Aldersgate Street, London, on May 24, —he experienced conversion while listening to a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
Through this personal commitment Wesley, though he later broke with the Moravians, became imbued with the desire to take this message to the rest of England.
Finding the bishops unsympathetic or indifferent and most clergymen hostile to the point of closing their churches to him, Wesley, following the example of such preachers as George Whitefield, began an itinerant ministry that lasted more than 50 years. Forced to preach outside the churches, he became adept at open-air preaching and, as a result, began to reach many, especially in the cities, about whom the Church of England had shown little concern.
A small man he was 5 feet 6 inches in height and weighed about pounds , Wesley always had to perch on a chair or platform when he preached. He averaged 15 sermons a week, and as his Journal indicates, he preached more than 40, sermons in his career, traveling the length and breadth of England—altogether more than , miles—many times during an age when roads were often only muddy ruts.
A contemporary described him as "the last word … in neatness and dress" and "his eye was 'the brightest and most piercing that can be conceived. Preaching was not easy; crowds were often hostile, and once a bull was let loose in an audience he was addressing. Wesley, however, quickly learned the art of speaking and, despite opposition, his sermons began to have a marked effect. Many were converted immediately, frequently exhibiting physical signs, such as fits or trances.
From the beginning Wesley viewed his movement as one within the Church of England and not in opposition to it. As he gained converts around England, however, these men and women grouped themselves together in societies that Wesley envisioned as playing the same role in Anglicanism as the monastic orders do in the Roman Catholic Church. Classes met weekly to pray, read the Bible, discuss their spiritual lives, and to collect money for charity. Men and women met separately, but anyone could become a class leader.
The moral and spiritual fervor of the meetings is expressed in one of Wesley's most famous aphorisms: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. The movement grew rapidly, as did its critics, who called Wesley and his followers "methodists," a label they wore proudly.
It got worse than name calling at times: methodists were frequently met with violence as paid ruffians broke up meetings and threatened Wesley's life.
Though Wesley scheduled his itinerant preaching so it wouldn't disrupt local Anglican services, the bishop of Bristol still objected. Wesley responded, "The world is my parish"—a phrase that later became a slogan of Methodist missionaries. Wesley, in fact, never slowed down, and during his ministry he traveled over 4, miles annually, preaching some 40, sermons in his lifetime. A few Anglican priests, such as his hymn-writing brother Charles, joined these Methodists, but the bulk of the preaching burden rested on John.
He was eventually forced to employ lay preachers, who were not allowed to serve Communion but merely served to complement the ordained ministry of the Church of England. Wesley then organized his followers into a "connection," and a number of societies into a "circuit" under the leadership of a "superintendent.
In , Wesley was required to register his lay preachers as non-Anglicans. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the American Revolution isolated Yankee methodists from their Anglican connections. To support the American movement, Wesley independently ordained two lay preachers and appointed Thomas Coke as superintendent.
With these and other actions, Methodism gradually moved out of the Church of England—though Wesley himself remained an Anglican until his death. An indication of his organizational genius, we know exactly how many followers Wesley had when he died: preachers, 71, British members, 19 missionaries 5 in mission stations , and 43, American members with preachers.
Today Methodists number about 30 million worldwide. Sections Home. Bible Coronavirus Prayer. Yet on the voyage to Georgia Wesley met some German Moravians and he was deeply impressed by them.
In Afterward, he became a great preacher. In Wesley moved to Bristol but he soon began to travel to other parts of England. In he traveled to Newcastle Upon Tyne and in to Cornwall. In he traveled to Ireland and in to Scotland. John Wesley never intended to form a new church separate from the Church of England but his followers soon began to form their own organisation.
The Methodists placed great emphasis on living a holy life and they had many travelling preachers.
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