As we saw last time, John Wesley’s first open air sermon was preached in
1739. Over the next 50 years John Wesley
would ride over 250,000 miles all over England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland
and preach over 40,000 sermons, usually preaching at least twice a day. Wesley preached in churches, (when he was
allowed) market squares, open fields, meeting halls, private homes, and later,
in Methodist meeting houses.
But Wesley did more
than just preach, he was also a prolific writer. He compiled a “Christian Library” from the
writings of the early church and the devotional classics of his time which runs
30 volumes in the most recent edition.
He published his sermons, excerpts from his journal, a set of notes on
the New Testament, and a magazine called The
Arminian. He even published a
natural health book entitled The
Primitive Physick. You can access
almost everything Wesley ever wrote, in addition to much more about Wesleyan
theology, for free online at The Wesley Center Online at http://wesley.nnu.edu/.
In addition to
preaching and writing, Wesley had a gift as an organizer. Everywhere Wesley preached he would organize
those who responded to his message into societies. Originally, these societies were not
churches. Members of the society were
expected to attend church on Sunday morning and meet with the society for
preaching, singing, and prayer during the week.
Wesley never intended to found a separate church and the Methodists in
Britain did not separate from the Church of England until after Wesley’s death.
The members of the
societies were divided into small groups of 12 people, called classes, for
Bible study, prayer, support, and accountability. Those who wished to go deeper could join even
smaller groups called bands. Each
society was overseen by stewards. Occasionally,
Methodists in a community would build a meeting house, which was cared for by
trustees.
As the number of
societies grew Wesley could not provide for all of the preaching needs by
himself. Wesley did have a few ordained
clergy among the Methodist, but they were still not enough. Finally, Wesley had to make a bold move. He began to assign lay persons as preachers
to the societies, he even eventually allowed women to be “exhorters.” These preachers would serve a society, or a
circuit of societies, or preaching stations, and reported directly to
Wesley. Preachers would also meet
together with Wesley in “conferences.”
Methodist preachers
were held to a very high standard. Not
everyone was allowed to preach and preachers who did not hold the doctrine and
discipline were dismissed quickly. Of
one preacher Wesley said, “He is a tailor who has made himself a preacher. I intend to make him a tailor again.”
Discipline also extend
to the members of the societies as well as the preachers. Members who continued in sin, disobeyed the
preacher, stewards, and class leaders, or disrupted the society would be encouraged
to amend their ways, but if they did not they would be expelled from the
society. Many times when Wesley would
visit a society he found that he would have to expel some of the members. After one such trip someone asked Wesley if
there were any additions to the societies.
Wesley replied, “No, but there were some blessed subtractions.”
Under Wesley’s
direction Methodist built and funded Kingswood school for children of coal
miners in Bristol, operated medial dispensaries, clothes closets, food pantries,
and a micro loan program, (before anyone else knew what that was) and otherwise
provided for those who were poor, sick, and in prison.
Next time we will talk
about Methodism in America and the end of Wesley’s life.
