10 Things You Need to Know about John Wesley John Wesley's preaching in America and England helped spark the Great Awakening, and changed American Christianity in ways we may not realize today. Here are some other things you might not know about him. BETTY DUNN CONTRIBUTING WRITER UPDATED MAY 13, 2022. https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-john-wesley.html

 

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10 Things You Need to Know about John Wesley

John Wesley's preaching in America and England helped spark the Great Awakening, and changed American Christianity in ways we may not realize today. Here are some other things you might not know about him.

BETTY DUNN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

UPDATED

MAY 13, 2022

10 Things You Need to Know about John Wesley

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John Wesley (1703-1791) was a dedicated minister who started as an Anglican minister, then established the Methodist Church in England and colonial America. Methodist doctrine prescribed finding the best way or “method” to follow God. The discipled faith that Wesley’s parents taught him as a child prepared John Wesley for a life of service to God. Prayer, Bible reading, and family devotions were a daily part of his childhood. During his adult life, he traveled as a circuit preacher, spreading the message of Methodists and The Great Awakening movement in Christian life.

10 Important Events in John Wesley’s Life

1. At age 5, he narrowly escaped death in his family’s house fire.

2. His mother spent one day each week with each of her estimated 15-19 children. She did lessons with and taught morals to each of her children one-on-one. John Wesley said, “I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.”

3. As a student at Oxford University, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley co-founded The Holy Club, a group of students who strived to be methodical about their personal holiness. Club members fasted, received communion, studied the New Testament, and visited prisoners and the sick.

4. In 1735, at 32 years old, he traveled to America by ship. He stayed two years preaching in the colonies. Though he was unhappy in America, the trip changed his life and the religious practices of many Americans.

5. On his ship to America, he became acquainted with 26 Moravians, whose joy and devotion to God inspired him. Originally from Bohemia in the Czech Republic, Moravians emigrated to America in its colonial period. Their fearlessness on board the ship to America influenced his spiritual life.

6. John Wesley was engaged to a young woman in America but broke it off, and she married someone else. John refused to serve her communion, and her husband sued him.

7. John Wesley struggled with a loss of faith and considered dropping out of the ministry in 1938. A Moravian friend advised him to “Preach faith till you have it.”

8. That same year, Wesley experienced a religious awakening—was “born again”—at a revival meeting Moravians invited him to in Aldersgate, England. While reading Martin Luther’s commentary on the Bible, Wesley described how his heart was strangely warmed. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

9. In England, John Wesley organized new converts to Methodism into fellowship groups, accountability groups, and Bible study groups. He also trained new circuit riders. Methodist societies were formed all over Great Britain. In America, he preached two to four times a day wherever he could assemble a group of people.

10. Wesley died in 1791, at 87 years old. He had made seven tours of the colonies and preached roughly 18,000 sermons.

10 Important Quotes by John Wesley

1. Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”—Letters

2. “Let your words be the genuine picture of your heart.”—The Works of the Rev. John Wesley: Forty-Two Sermons on Various Subjects

3. “In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church.”—The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A.M. (Anglican Minister)