A Brothers’ Revival:

The Story of the Wesleys

by Ryan Krauss, 2003

editor’s note: Ryan Krauss is presently a senior at Bedford High

School, a member of the Bedford United Methodist Church, and an active
member of the Conference Council on Youth Ministries. While his educational
plans had not been finalized when our journal went to press, he reports that he
plans to attend college and seminary. The paper was originally written as an
assignment for a junior English class, and we thank Ryan for permission to
reprint it in this format.

Churches litter the United States. In almost every town across the
country, steeples rise into rural and urban skylines. Catholics, Baptists,
Presbyterians, and others number among the multitudes that worship every
Sunday. Another denomination, and also one of the largest Protestant groups,
is Methodism. In 1969, with a total of eleven million people, Methodists
boasted the second largest population of Protestant worshipers.1 In 1961,
ninety-five senators and representatives in Congress listed affiliation with
Methodism – and this count was only three shy of the number for Roman
Catholicism.2 But Methodism has not always been so popular or so
prominent, and its humble beginnings can be traced back to a religious club in
eighteenth century England.
At this point in history, faith was utterly stagnant in Great Britain.
Occurring at the same time was an industrial revolution that ushered in
horrendous working conditions. Even the Church of England, a place that
should have been a sanctuary from the harshness of English society, was
“infected with indifference.”3 The priesthood was lax, and the church was
little more than an empty political play.4 George Whitefield, an ordained
Anglican priest, said that congregations were dead because the clergymen
themselves were dead, spiritually speaking.5
As ordained priests in the Anglican faith, the Wesley brothers sought to
change the stagnant churchmanship of their time. John Wesley’s own opinion
toward Anglican spirituality was that parishioners were ignorant in that
common worshipers thought that salvation amounted only to forgiveness of
1
Paul Williams, What Americans Believe and How They Worship, New York: Harper (1969),
page 286.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid, pages 287-288.
4
Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England, New York: Abingdon Press (1970),
page 3.
5
Victor Shepherd, The Life and Art of Charles Wesley, www.victorshepherd.on.ca (29 Nov
2003), page 3.

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sins and eventual entrance into heaven.6 This was not surprising, as this
attitude dominated English society. The Wesleys, through intimate conversion
experiences that happened within days of each other, knew that salvation as
declared in the Bible was given only by the grace of God. But the road of the
Wesleyan Revival was not easy, and United Methodism is deeply indebted to
both John and Charles Wesley for their courageous contributions to the
founding of the denomination.
From boyhood, John Wesley, whom most revere as the founder of
Methodism, seemed set for ecclesiastical greatness. He and all of his siblings
had a very structured, religious home life. John was born in Epworth on the
seventeenth of June in 1703 to Samuel and Susannah Wesley. The couple
raised three sons, and Samuel’s intention was that all three should grow up to
be scholars and clergymen.7 Mrs. Wesley played the initial role in helping to
direct her boys on this course. She was in charge of the children’s early
education, which was highly religious in nature. The Lord’s Prayer was
memorized as soon as the children could speak, the Bible was their first and
major source of reading, and everyone followed devotions as prescribed by the
Book of Common Prayer. 8 In addition, Mrs. Wesley set aside a time in the
week in which she would discuss general religion and social issues with each
child. Later in life, John expressed much gratitude for these “Thursday
meetings” with his mother.9 John’s spiritual growth was reinforced by his
attendance at Charterhouse school and, later, Oxford University. At Oxford,
he plunged himself into an extensive reading list which included Imatio
Christi, Christian Perfection, The Homilies, and Holy Living and Dying – all
of which were written by prominent Christian writers. In 1725 John was
ordained deacon and elected a Fellow of Lincoln College, a very prestigious
title. In 1727, as his father had desired, John was ordained a priest of the
Anglican Church.
After returning to academia from a stay at Epworth in 1729, John
stumbled upon the beginnings of Methodism. While he had been away, his
brother Charles, who at the time was attending Oxford, had come together with
other students at the college and formed the “Holy Club.” John has often been
given credit for starting the group, but since he was away at the time he could
not possible have been the founder. His brother Charles founded the club.
Being more organized and the better leader, however, John was soon
recognized as the club’s head. Fellow students at Oxford gave the group other,
derogatory names – like “Bible Moths,” “The Enthusiasts,” and “The

6
Randy L. Maddox, “Vital Orthodoxy: A Wesleyan Dynamic for Twenty-first Century
Christianity,” Methodist History 42:1 (2003), page 10.
7
Alan C. Clifford, Charles Wesley (1707-1788), www.christian-bookstore.co.uk (29 Nov
2003), page 1.
8
Baker, pages 8-9.
9
Ibid, page 10.

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Reforming Club.”10 The most memorable and most lasting nickname, though,
was “Methodists.” All of these names point to one thing: the members of the
Holy Club were very structured and methodical in their quest for religion.
Individually, for example, members were expected to pray three times a day,
pray silently every hour, visit the sick, teach the poor, and visit the imprisoned.
Even with all his fervor, John could not find religious peace. His
search was vain; he could find no satisfaction in strictly following the rules and
ordinances of the Church.11 One promising enterprise arose in October of
1735. Along with his brother Charles, John had been asked to accompany
James Oglethorpe on a trip to Georgia. The small colony had recently lost its
minister, so this was a great opportunity for John to minister to a distant
community. Here he put his parishioners into methodical habits similar to the
Holy Club’s activities and engaged in two controversial practices. For the first
time ever, John prayed extempore and preached without any prepared notes.
Both acts were unheard of to the Anglicans. It was from the German
Moravians in Georgia that he learned to practice extemporary prayer and was
introduced to personal piety.
After returning to England in February 1738, John was still distressed
as to his own spiritual condition. Peter Bohler, one of John and Charles’
Moravian friends, said of this period in John’s life, “John is a good-natured
man; he knew he did not properly believe in our Saviour, and was willing to be
taught.”12 On May 24 of that year, however, John’s outlook changed. At the
historic meeting on Aldersgate Street, he “felt his heart strangely warmed…
felt for the first time that God truly loved him and had forgiven him.”13 In that
moment, the Methodist movement was born.
After his conversion, John began a revival by preaching under the
conviction that it was possible to intimately experience God. Shortly after
Aldersgate, he set up his first society at Fetter Lane in London. The essence of
societies, small bands of like-minded worshipers, was that they should “pray
together… and watch over one another in love.”14 As the revival continued,
John and his helpers set up many more societies. For his pointed message of
conversion, John was marked by most other Anglican clergy as an “enthusiast”
and many pulpits were closed to him. As a result, John began to imitate his
friend George Whitefield and preach out of doors to the poor and unconverted.
Even though opposition by the Church of England continued, John remained
an Anglican priest and never wished to break ties with his mother church. His
aim was not to reform doctrine in the Anglican Church, but to revitalize its

10
Warren C. Sweet, Methodism in American History, Nashville: Abingdon Press (1961), pages
30-31.
11
Leo Rosten editor, Religions in America, New York: Simon (1963), page 122.
12
Clifford, page 2.
13
Ed D’Agostino, e-mail interview (21 Nov 2003).
14
Rosten, pages 122-123.

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“deadness.”15 John took his message all over Great Britain, and it wasn’t until
after his death in March of 1791 that the Church of England severed ties with
the Methodist movement.
In all this history, Charles was also a prominent figure who was no less
important than his more famous brother John. As previously stated, Charles
was raised for scholarship and ordination. Born December 18, 1707, he was
Samuel and Susannah’s eighteenth child. He attended Westminster school and
won their noted “Challenge” – a scholastic competition based on stumping
one’s opponent on Greek grammar. For this he was named “King’s Scholar.”16
Like John, Charles also attended Oxford and was ordained an Anglican priest.
Since he was the 1729 founder of the Holy Club, he was arguably the first
Methodist. In company with John, Charles also went to Georgia to help
General Oglethorpe administer his colony. This excursion was a disaster for
Charles, and he wrote in his journal of those times that “life is bitterness to
me.”17 He returned to England in December 1736 and remained rather
disheartened until his own conversion experience. In the company of
Moravian friends, Charles “found rest for his soul” three days prior to John’s
conversion.18 Thus empowered, the Wesley brothers began the revival.
Even though they worked side by side, the Wesleys each had their own
strengths and special contributions to the Methodist movement. John was
definitely the more able leader and better organizer. The entire organization
was his idea, including name the Methodist.19 Noteworthy, too, is that even
though Charles started the Holy Club, John became the established leader.
Charles, on the other hand, is most famous for his poetry and hymn writing.
He wrote about nine thousand works, including six thousand hymns. This
count is three times that of William Wordsworth.20 When inspiration hit,
Charles would become insanely preoccupied; if he was on horseback, he you
yell “Pen and ink!” until he had written his verse down.21 Written largely after
his conversion, his hymns played an important role in the Wesleyan Revival.
Charles would take his “message” and place the lyrics to pub tunes.22 The
songs were sung lustily and courageously; in fact, an old saying maintained
that “you could tell a Methodist was coming by his singing.”23
Neither were the Wesleys always of a like mind. John and Charles
often had different opinions. One instance of this occurred when some
extremists arose within the movement. These “prophets” believed in their own

15
Maddox, page 4.
16
Shepherd, page 2.
17
Clifford, page 2.
18
Sweet, page 35.
19
Jeff Welsch, e-mail interview (22 Nov 2003).
20
Shepherd, page 1.
21
Ibid.
22
D. Guy Carrigan, telephone interview, 12 Dec 2003.
23
Clifford, pages 3-4.

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sinless nature and continually predicted the apocalypse. John brushed them
aside, predicting their following would fizzle. Charles, however, directly
confronted the extremists and warned Methodists to guard against the false
doctrines.24 The brothers also sharply disagreed on the issue of lay preaching.
Because very few Anglican clergy supported the Methodist movement, the
whole revival seemed to be without ecclesiastical help. Into this gap, however,
stepped dedicated lay men. Though unordained and unschooled, they provided
the backbone for the movement. John readily accepted their help, but Charles
was of a different mind. Regardless of the vigor with which they preached, the
younger Wesley found the messages to be hollow “nonsense” with “no
doctrine at all.”25 But despite their differences, the brothers truly did “work in
perfect harmony.”26
Beyond his hymnology, Charles was also a devoted pastor and
excellent preacher. John himself made the comment that his brother’s “least”
talent was his poetry.27 Based this comment, Charles must have had
exceptional preaching and pastoral talents to complement his considerable
poetical abilities. Indeed, Joseph Williams, after hearing the younger brother
preach, said that the sermon was like nothing he had ever heard before.28
Charles was so enthusiastic in his delivery that he was accustomed to getting
nose bleeds while preaching, and there is evidence that the crowds would
become thoroughly wrapped up in his words.29 Surely his speaking must have
been powerful. He was also a dutiful pastor, addressing most of his
congregations out in the open and making particular points to visit people on
their deathbeds. Eventually the life of an itinerant minister became too
stressful for Charles, and he married Sarah Gwynne in 1749. His traveling
ministry ended in the fall of 1759.
Not surprisingly, the works of these two men are easily identifiable in
the present day workings of the United Methodist Church. John’s methodical
ways are an integral part of Methodist practice and belief. His early writings
indicate that sermons, scripture reading, prayer, fasting, love feasts, and the
Eucharist are all essential to Christian life.30 These same writings indicate the
job of pastors should include visitation, scripture study, sermon preparation,
funerals, weddings, and administrative duties.
Present United Methodist Church structure also follows the Wesleys’
patterns. From the very beginning of the revival, societies were grouped into
circuits with itinerant ministers traveling within a certain area for a specified

24
Kenneth G.C. Newport, “Charles Wesley and the Articulation of Faith, Methodist History
42:1 (2003), page 38.
25
Shepherd, page 5.
26
Clifford, pages 3-4.
27
Newport, page 33.
28
Ibid, page 46.
29
Ibid, page 45.
30
Maddox, pages 12-13.

62
number of months. Levels of administration were developed to keep lines of
communication open, and each year a General Conference was held to discuss
issues that pertained to the movement. Though old-style circuits are no longer
used, geographic regions are still divided into districts, conferences and
jurisdictions. As with the itinerants of old, ministers are appointed at each of
these levels. And the idea of a General Conference is still in place. Every four
years movement-wide issues of doctrine and polity are discussed and
determined.
Another direct idea of Wesley is the apportionment. Originally,
societies were separated into classes within which members would be able to
financially cover each other. The concept logically extended to all levels of
the movement. Apportionments are “monies used in all areas of need; with all
churches joining together to get things done [that] an individual church might
not otherwise be able to accomplish.”31
Another key feature of the Wesleyan movement still encouraged in the
United Methodist Church is lay speaking. As previously stated, little help was
given to the Wesleys by the Church of England. Without clerical aid, John
turned to lay speakers. They were common men with a desire to spread the
Wesleyan message. In the present-day, lay speaking in churches is encouraged
and arguably very important to the continuation of the United Methodist
Church.32 The local church is responsible for identifying laity suitable for this
level of involvement, and formal training of lay persons is provided by each
district.33
With respect to missions, United Methodists generally share John
Wesley’s view of the world. During the Methodist revival, Anglican clergy
labeled John and his helpers as enthusiasts. Consequently, a majority of the
priests closed their pulpits to the Wesleys and the movement turned to field
preaching. John defended this by stating that “I look upon all the world as my
parish.”34 All of this has made the United Methodist Church very mission-
oriented. Ministries like LOVE Inc, UMCOR, and Mission Central are active
in bringing aid, disaster relief, and the Gospel to the world. John Wesley’s
second General Rule for being a Methodist was to “do as much good as you
can for others,”35 and United Methodists still hold this as a high ideal for
missions. In the words of one of the denomination’s current pastors, “United
Methodists believe that we must live our faith… we get involved with
people… we ‘get our hands dirty’ working to make the world a better place.”36

31
D’Agostino.
32
Welsch
33
Carrigan
34
Baker, page 63.
35
Maddox, page 12.
36
D’Agostino.

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 Concerning faith, John said that religion, and Jesus for that matter, was
not a research topic or a theological puzzle – but a personal experience.37 He
“stressed the ‘witness of the spirit,’ an impression upon the soul given by the
Spirit of God that I am His child.”38 With “experience” at the core of
Methodism, revivals and personal testimonies assumed prominent roles in the
movement. This emphasis continues today in events such as Impact, The
Great Escape and summer church camps. Because theological trivialities are
not the focus, United Methodists enjoy much religious freedom. Local
churches exercise this liberty by adopting their own mission projects and
worship styles. Parishioners are encouraged to use this freedom in reading the
Bible for themselves and cultivating a personal relationship with God.
One aspect of Methodism of which John was especially proud was the
fact that membership required no tests of doctrine.39 There was only one
requirement. John said, “I do not impose…any opinions whatsoever… Let
them be churchmen, or dissenters, Presbyterians or Independents… It is no bar
to their admission… one condition and one only… a real desire to save the
soul.”40 United Methodists still take these words to heart, as reflected in the
denomination’s unofficial motto that “Our hearts, our minds, our doors are
always open.”
The influence of Charles Wesley, though arguably less extensive, is no
less important. History remembers him as “the greatest hymn writer ever.”41
What John and the other preachers could not say in sermons, Charles expressed
in hymns. Without that music, a number of people probably would not have
come to the revival meetings in the first place.42 Present United Methodists
and worshippers from other denominations are also indebted to Charles, for
many of today’s church hymns were written by him. His works include such
standards as “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,”
and “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”
Despite John’s desire to keep the Methodist revival as a renewal
movement within the Church of England, the Anglican bishops strongly
opposed Wesley and refused to ordain any of his laymen. Eventually, and
despite the strong disapproval of Charles, John authorized Anglican priest
Thomas Coke to assume the role of Methodist Bishop in the American
Colonies. United Methodism, though now separate from the Church of
England, still employs the office of bishop and retains many other parallels to
the mother church. In fact most Methodist beliefs and structure, and many of
the Articles of Religion, have their roots in the Anglican Church.43

37
Williams, page 292.
38
Rosten, page 129.
39
Sweet, page 41.
40
Ibid, pages 41-42.
41
Clifford, page 1.
42
Welsch
43
D’Agostino

64
 John and Charles are both deceased, but they continue to live in word
and song in the United Methodist Church. From a small club, the Wesley
brothers ignited a revival that still burns strong. Their church of more than
eleven million worshippers has become world-wide, reaching across the
oceans through such agencies as its Board of Global Ministry and the United
Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). Much has changed as the church
has adapted its ways over the years, and no one can predict what the future
holds for those people called Methodists. The main goal of United
Methodism, the goal of the Wesleys, however, will never change. The mission
of the United Methodist Church will always be “to make disciples of Jesus
Christ.”44

John Wesley Preaching in Gwennap Pit, Cornwall

44
Carrigan

65