wfn.org | At the Roots of Methodism: Wesley discovers field preaching

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March 28, 2003	 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71BPI{182}

NOTE: This is a regular feature on Methodist history prepared especially for
distribution by United Methodist News Service. An artist's rendering of John
Wesley is available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html.

A UMNS Feature
By John Singleton*

John Wesley would have certainly approved of the variety of ministries today
that take Methodism out of the security of its buildings and into the
communities that our worldwide movement serves. This includes our Methodist
chaplains to the armed forces - a ministry currently in the spotlight during
these troubled times and one staunchly supported by Wesley during his own
day.  

Wesley's practice of taking the message to the people began April 2, 1739, a
date of huge significance to the Methodist movement and one that, 264 years
on, surely resonates very much with the challenges facing our church. Two
days earlier, in response to fellow preacher George Whitefield's invitation,
John Wesley had arrived in Bristol, England. Although Whitefield was an
open-air preacher of great eloquence, who had built up a large following in
the area, he wanted to return to America and was keen for Wesley to continue
the style of work he had begun.  

The next day, having observed Whitefield preaching to the Kingswood tin
miners, Wesley became persuaded of the necessity of "field preaching" as the
means most likely to reach the great mass of people who had become virtual
outcasts from the elitism of much of the established church - untouched and
seemingly untouchable. 

It was not a conviction reached without some struggle, however. And Wesley's
own words, written in his journal, reveal the inner dilemma with which he was
confronted. 

"I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in
the fields, of which he (Whitefield) set me an example on Sunday; 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," he wrote. 

Later that same evening, with Whitefield having now left Bristol, Wesley
expounded to a small indoor congregation from the words of Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount - which he describes in the journal as "one pretty
remarkable precedent of field preaching." Less than 24 hours later, Wesley
was to let himself go and embark upon this great new venture. 

"At four in the afternoon," he wrote, "I submitted to be more vile, and
proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a
little eminence in a ground adjoining the city, to about 3,000 people." The
eminence, where he often spoke from, is thought to be Hanham Mount, still
viewable to this day.

His text for this, the first of many thousands of field sermons, was
prophetic of the great things ahead: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me
to heal the broken-hearted; to preach deliverance to the captive, and
recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 

Now, having made himself more vulnerable and preached his first field sermon,
Wesley was not only in possession of the central doctrine of his campaign,
but he also had discovered the chief vehicle of its expression. And from then
on, there was no stopping him.

On his travels throughout Britain and Ireland, Wesley preached to thousands
of ordinary people in market squares, under trees, on hills, in fields, on
the streets, from tombstones (including his father's in Epworth churchyard),
in yards, gardens, village greens, beaches or any open place where he could
draw a crowd. And if he was not in the open air, he could be found preaching
in houses, public buildings, military barracks, prisons - and in parish
churches, when he was allowed. One of the best times for drawing a crowd was
apparently at 5 a.m.

Across Britain, one can still find places where Wesley once preached. Not
surprisingly, many of these spots remain unmarked, but it is still possible
to come across places that have been handed down as being traditionally
associated with Wesley. These include such local legends as "Wesley's rock,"
"Wesley's thorn bush," "Wesley's lodging house," "Wesley's tree" and
"Wesley's steps." 

This kind of preaching was a tremendous novelty in the 18th century. Some
people - usually those in authority - were shocked and considered field
preaching to be vulgar and dangerous (for those who listened). Some even
stirred up violent persecution of the early Methodists, but many - especially
among the poorer sections of society - flocked to hear Wesley and Whitefield
preach and heard them gladly.

So from the earliest times it has always been a Methodist imperative to go
where the people are and not to wait for them to come to us. It is a ministry
that still continues today, in all sorts of ways.
# # #
*Singleton, a writer with the weekly Methodist Recorder in London, is
administrator for Methodist churches and social projects in the Tower Hamlets
area of East London. He can be contacted by e-mail at: john@towerhamlets.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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