Founder of Methodism.
Statue of John Wesley in St Paul's Catheral churchyard, London.
John Wesley was the 15th child of an English rector named Samuel Wesley and his godly wife Susanna. Educated in Oxford, John Wesley was ordained priest of the Church of England in 1728. He returned to Oxford for further studies and there joined, and eventually took over the leadership of what was nicknamed the "Holy Club," a gathering of undergraduates for the purpose of "methodical" prayers, Bible-study, self-examination, and charitable goodworks founded by his brother Charles.
Invited by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, John left in 1735 for Georgia, USA, to undertake a mission among the native Indians. The mission proved a failure, and within three years John was back in England. "I went to America to convert the Indians," he wrote, "but, oh, who shall convert me?" But something significant was already happening in his life; on the journey he had met a company of Moravians, whose simplicity of faith made a deep impression upon him. He developed a close friendship with another Moravian, Peter Boehler, and through their conversations, John became "clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved." Back in London he was invited to a reading of Luther's preface to Romans ☰ at a meeting in Aldersgate Street on the evening of 24 May 1738. As he listened, he would later note in his journal, he felt his heart"strangely warmed."
His kindled faith was further enflamed by his visit and encounter with Count Zinsendorf when he visited the Moravian settlement in Herrhut. He returned to England with a clear vision of his life's work; "to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread Scriptural holiness over the land," "to promote so far as I am able vital, practical religion; and by the grace of God to beget, preserve, and increase the life of God in the souls of men." Encouraged by George Whitefield, John took to open-air preaching, reaching out particularly to those whom the traditional churches do not seem able to accomodate. The spiritual revival sparked by his preaching eventually required the training and appointment of lay-preachers for the evangelistic missions, and their organization into "societies" and "circuits."
Though John never wanted to seperate from the Church of England, the departure of his movement from it became increasingly inevitable. In 1784 John registered in the Court of Chancery a Deed of Declaration, naming 100 preachers as constituting the "Conference of the people called Methodists." Eventually this conference was extended to include later preachers and lay-presons. The "Plan of Pacification," declared in 1795, made the separation with the Church of England complete; though this cannot be asserted as the birthday of the Methodist Church, the boundaries of the new denomination became explicit.
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