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Name:
John Wesley
Dates:
Born: June 17, 1703 in Epworth, England
Died: March 2, 1791 in London, England
Ordained: September 22, 1728
Missionary work in Georgia: 1735
Biography:
John Wesley was educated at Oxford and ordained as an Anglican minister, but he
became dissatisfied with his attempts to find religious satisfaction through
strict adherence to the rules and doctrines of the church.
While still attending Oxford University, John and his brother Charles founded the "Holy Club". Members of this group arranged for themselves a rigorous daily schedule which included specific hours for visiting the sick, teaching the poor, and observing religious services in church. In addition, they prayed out loud three times each day and stopped for a silent prayer every hour. One of the kinder epithets used about this group was "Methodists," and this name stuck to Wesley and his followers because of his stress upon following rules when it came to personal conduct and religious observances.
Between 1735 and 1738 Wesley spent time in Georgia as a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. While here, he learned a number of uniquely American practices which would later come to distinguish Methodism from other Christian denominations. Among them were extempore prayer, outdoor preaching, and the creation of new hymns to sing. He also became influenced by the Moravians who were there - the Moravians were a group of German Pietists.
His work in Georgia did not go well and he even had to flee due to a lawsuit which grew out of a love affair with the niece of an important local politician. During a prayer meeting on May 24th, 1738, he had a religious experience where he learned that it was not so much through rules but rather through faith in God's mercy that a person would achieve salvation. When he preached his ideas, he found many people who were interested in what he had to say and the movement spread quickly throughout England, Ireland and later America. Unlike typical Anglican ministers, John and his brother Charles traveled around the countryside and preached to spontaneous groups in fields and along roadsides.
Wesley was not trying to create a new Christian sect, but rather simply societies within the established Anglican church. He was not a systematic theologian and did not try to create a new set of religious doctrine. His focus was, instead, upon reaching out to the general public and bring them to a personal feeling of the love of God. The local leaders were not ordained and members were always supposed to receive sacraments from the Anglican church. He did not, however, receive a lot of support from the Anglican hierarchy - the group's leaders were not to be ordained and the meeting places were not to be consecrated.
Even worse, after the Anglican clergy fled America during the Revolution, Wesley was faced with the problem of finding some means to care for some 15,000 followers there. Because the Bishop of London would not ordain any ministers for him, Wesley took the unusual step of ordaining some ministers on his own authority - this step was key in the creation of the Methodist church and the first Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Baltimore on December 24, 1784.
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
Related Resources:
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