Brief History of Methodism -John Wesley

A Brief History of Methodism John Wesley (1703 - 1791) is known as the founder of "Methodism". While students at Oxford in 1729, John Wesley and his brother Charles (1707 - 1788; wrote hymns, many of which appear in the United Methodist Hymnal such as 240, Hark the Herald Angels Sing) began a Holiness Club. They were such a serious group and did everything in such a methodical way that people began to call them "Methodists".

Methodism began as a holiness movement within the Church of England. Wesley did not plan on starting a new church and he never left the priesthood in the Church of England. Wesley appointed the first preachers to America on August 4, 1769. As a result of the Revolutionary War the Anglican State Church of Britain was no longer in America. On December 24, 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland. Francis Asbury (1745 - 1816) was ordained by Thomas Coke(1747 - 1814) as a General Superintendent, by 1788 Asbury was referring to himself as Bishop. The Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1784. In 1828 the Methodist Protestant Church split away. In 1844, the Methodist Episcopal South Church split away. In 1939 these three bodies merged.

In 1800 the Church of the United Brethren in Christ was organized with the early founders being Phillip Otterbein (1726- 1813), Martin Boehm (1725 - 1812) and George Adam Geeting. (1741 - 1808). (The first United Brethren Church was the Geeting Meeting House in Keedysville, Maryland with George as its pastor, 1800. The first Methodist church was the Robert Strawbridge House in Maryland, 1766). This tradition came from the German Reformed Church of the Presbyterian Reformed Church. The Evangelical Association was founded in 1803, with Jacob Albright (1759 - 1808) being the key figure. The roots of the Evangelical Association are in the German Lutheran Church, which came from the Lutheran Church resulting from the Reformation of 1517. In 1946, the Evangelical United Brethren Church was created by the merger of the two churches. In 1968, the decision was made that the religious and theological beliefs were so close that the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church should merge and become the United Methodist Church.

John Wesley's Teachings, Requirements & Beliefs Wesley told his preachers that they should preach simply, freely, fervently and believingly. He also told them they had to own a horse. There were four main things that Wesley felt should be preached:

• All people need to be saved
• All people can be saved
• All people can know they are saved
• All people can be saved to the uttermost (Christian Perfection *).
• God is already at work in the hearts of the people.

* "Christian Perfection" means a perfection of motive and maturity. It means to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. If everything we do and say is motivated by love of God and love for others, then we have attained Christian Perfection.

These four terms were extremely important to Wesley:

1. "Justification" (pardon)
2. "Sanctification" (gift of being just and righteous)
3. "Faith" (belief)
4. "Good Works" since our faith calls us to be in service to one another. Salvation comes from our belief in Jesus Christ. We can be assured that our sins have been forgiven and that we have eternal life.

Wesley viewed Jesus as three things:

• Prophet -- revealing God's will
• Priest -- giving himself as a sacrifice for us all
• King -- reigning in the heart of all and ruler of the universe.

Wesley also had four criteria which he used for making the best decisions:

1. Scripture -- What does the Bible tell us? (and all things are based on Scripture)
2. Tradition -- What has the tradition of the church been?
3. Reason -- What do I perceive through logical thinking?
4. Experience -- What has been my experience of God through the Spirit? These four guides have come to be known as "Wesley's Quadrilateral" although Wesley never used the term himself.

Interesting Facts

John Wesley rode over 250,000 miles by horseback and preached over 40,000 sermons during his ministry. His brother Charles wrote over 6,500 hymns.

The reason that Wesley required his preachers to have a horse was so that they could reach the people. The Methodist church's ordained preachers were known as Circuit Riders. Each preacher had a number of churches that he was responsible for and due to the distance between some of them a horse was necessary. The Methodist Church also had people called Lay Ministers which were qualified to meet the needs of the congregation in the absence of the preacher. Lay Ministers still exist today and like the one's in Wesley's time they are able to meet the needs of the congregation in the preacher's absence. As for Circuit Riders they still exist in a few rural areas.