(John Wesley) 1703 - 1791

John Wesley was one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the Christian Church. A preacher of great power and an organiser of genius, he founded Methodism in the face of intense opposition and laid the foundations of future world-wide expansion.

The cry heard from a Church of England rectory in the small Lincolnshire town of Epworth in northeast England heralded the arrival of the 15th of 19 children of the Rev. Samuel and Susanna Annesley Wesley. John Benjamin Wesley was born June 17, 1703-the second son after 13 girls.

On a wintry night, February 9, 1709, a fire raged through the Epworth rectory. Susanna, braving the fire, scorched her legs and feet while helping to rescue her family. When the family reached safety, they discovered 5-year-old John was missing.

Fearing his son had died, Samuel knelt down and commended Johns soul to God. But when his mother called his name, the child, apparently awakened by the flaming heat, light and noise, appeared in his second-story bedroom window. Two quick-minded villagers rescued him seconds before the rectory roof collapsed.

From then on, Susanna had a particular sense of destiny about John. She saw him not just as a child of the parsonage but a child of Providence-a brand plucked from the burning.

At age 11, John was enrolled as a charity pupil at Charterhouse School in London. Six years later he applied for a scholarship at Oxford, and in 1721, entered Christ Church College. In 1726, he was elected a fellow of Lincoln College and returned to Epworth to assist his father as a parish priest.

Returning to Oxford in 1728, his brother Charles, a student at Christ Church, invited John to lead a small group of students, including George Whitefield, who met for daily prayer and Bible study, visiting prisoners in Oxford jails and caring for the poor. They were ridiculed and mocked by their classmates as Bible bigots, Bible moths, the Holy Club and Methodists because of their methodical approach to spiritual disciplines.

Founder of Methodism. John Wesley was converted to Christ at the age of 35. Before his conversion, he had done missionary work among the American Indians as an Anglican minister. He was cast out of the Anglican Church and spent the rest of his life preaching in the fields and on the streets. He was up each morning before 5:00 for prayer and Bible study, and rode on horseback 15 to 20 miles a day, preaching four or five times daily.

Amazingly, Wesley preached about fifteen sermons a week for 53 years! He preached over 40,000 sermons and traveled on horseback 220,000 miles to preach open air! How many preachers work this vigorously for Gods kingdom today?

John Wesley was sparked to intense open-air Biblical preaching through another evangelist, George Whitefield. On February 17, 1739, the fire of the First Great Awakening was sparked. Whitefield said, I have now taken the field. Some may censure me, but is there not a cause? Pulpits are denied, and the poor colliers are ready to perish for lack of knowledge. Whitefield needed help with his ministry, so he called on his beloved friend, John Wesley. Wesley observed Whitefield preaching open air and said, I can hardly reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields...having been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church.

Wesley studied Jesus Sermon on the Mount and said, one pretty remarkable precedent of field-preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also. This experience was the beginning of his evangelistic fervor and the beginning of the First Great Awakening!

When Wesleys voice fell silent, when his eyes closed for the last time that March morning, he left behind a movement of 71,463 Methodists in Great Britain and more than 80,000 in the United States. He had launched an evangelical revival that would, in time, girdle the globe and offer Christ to the nations. The global Wesleyan community today numbers more than 76 million persons in 138 countries.


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References:
(*) Christian Connection: [http://www.webzonecom.com/ccn/bio/bio99.txt]
(*) The John Rylands Library [http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/methodist/jwol1.html]
(*) Faith & Values [http://www.faithandvalues.com/channels/wesley.asp]