Wesley's World

My experiences have given me a bit of insight into John Wesley's world view. Wesley was ordained in the Church of England (called Anglicans outside of England and the Episcopalians as they came to the colonies). Wesley was true to the Church of England throughout his life and never wanted for the Methodists to separate, but the rift made separation eventually inevitable. We are staying in a very traditional, liturgical, high church Church of England residence hall in Oxford. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the community gathers together for morning and evening prayer daily. The prayers are predetermined and often chanted. The liturgy has changed little since Wesley's day. This is the rigor within which he was trained. I find it interesting that Wesley and his cohorts were negatively referred to as "Methodist" because they were so methodical. However, the entire church liturgy was quite methodical, meaning Wesley was really methodical!

I have also observed a few sermons so far. Each sermon has been very well done with a very similar style. Preaching here is very well prepared with the message clearly manuscripted, complete with thesis statement followed by approximately twenty minutes of defense and discourse on the topic. This type of preaching was also common for Wesley's day.

I did some reading this week from a biography on Wesley and some from Wesley's personal journals. A few points struck me in light of the above cultural observations. Let me share the points, then expound on them later. (1) There was a time (for those familiar with Wesley's life, after spending time with the Moravian Peter Bohler) when Wesley gave up pre-prescribed prayers because he found the freedom of heartfelt expression to God through his own praying. (2) Wesley remained quite reluctant about open air preaching, but eventually gave in to George Whitefield's encouragement. (3) His brother Charles experimented with extemporaneous preaching, John was again reluctant, but found it effective.

Reflections: Wesley was raised and trained to be a liturgical, orderly, sophisticated churchman. However, at so many points he (although with hesitation) willingly set his interests aside for the greater good. Wesley was willing to preach in the open air, outside of the comforts of the beautifully constructed cathedrals and churches in order to bring the message of God's love, forgiveness, grace, and holiness to those neglected by the church. He willing set aside his training of presenting a thesis type homily (although not completely) in order to present a clear, understandable message to the unlearned. He set aside the structures of what he knew of prayer in order to connect with God more intimately.

What is more important, the comfort of what we know and like, or setting that all aside to connect more intimately with God and to connect others with God? I hope we would agree on the latter!