The Methodist Church of Great Britain is the fourth-largest Christian denomination in Britain and the mother church to Methodists worldwide. It participates in the World Methodist Council, the World Council of Churches and other ecumenical associations.
Early beginnings
Methodism began primarily through the work of John Wesley (1703–1791), who led an evangelical revival in 18th century Britain. An Anglican priest, Wesley adopted unconventional and controversial practices, such as open-air preaching, to reach factory labourers and newly urbanised masses uprooted from their traditional village culture at the start of the industrial revolution. His preaching centred upon the universality of God’s grace for all, the effect of faith on character and the possibility of perfection in love during this life. He organised the new converts locally and in a ‘Connexion’ across Britain.
Following Wesley’s death, the Methodist revival became a separate church and ordained its own ministers; it is called a non-conformist church because it does not conform to the rules of the established Church of England. In the 19th century, the Wesleyan Methodist Church experienced many secessions, with the largest of the offshoots being the Primitive Methodists. The main streams of Methodism were reunited in 1932, forming the Methodist Church as it is today.
Organisation and statistics
Methodist ‘Circuits’, containing several local churches, are gathered into thirty-one districts. The supreme governing body of the church is the annual Methodist Conference; it is headed by the President of Conference, a presbyteral minister, supported by a vice-president who can be a local or ‘lay’ preacher, or deacon.
In July 2014 the Methodist Church had approximately 202,000 members in 4,650 congregations, and 575,000 adherents in total. The Methodist Conference in June 2017 noted that membership had declined to 188,000 but wider outreach brought the church into contact with 490,000 to 500,000 people each week.
John Wesley
Born in June 1703, John Wesley was the fifteenth child and second son of the Revd Samuel Wesley, the Anglican Rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire, and his wife, Susanna. He was educated at Charterhouse School in London and at Oxford University.
Ordination
Wesley was ordained as an Anglican deacon (1725) and priest (1728) at Christ Church Cathedral, and became a tutor and Fellow of Lincoln College. He joined like-minded friends in the so-called ‘Holy Club’, whose disciplined piety attracted the nickname, ‘Methodist’.
Spiritual experience
On 24 May, 1738 John Wesley opened his bible at about five in the morning and came across these words: “There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should partakers of the divine nature.” That evening he reluctantly attended a meeting in Aldersgate, London. Someone read from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to Romans.
“At about 8:45 p.m., while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart 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.”
Following his spiritual experience in May 1738, John Wesley began to preach that salvation was available to everyone, and in 1739 a fellow member of the Holy Club turned Methodist preacher, George Whitefield, invited John to start open air preaching in Bristol. There John established the very first Methodist building, called ‘the new room’.
Charles Wesley
Wesley’s brother Charles lived near the ‘new room’ in Bristol. Charles was also an Anglican priest and later became an influential Methodist preacher too, as well as a prolific hymn-writer. His best-known works include the words that became the carol, ‘Hark! The Herald-Angels Sing’.
Over 50 years, Wesley is estimated to have travelled 250,000 miles, much of it on horseback, to preach the gospel. He started his work in London in 1739 and eventually built a new London chapel in 1778. He died at Wesley’s Chapel (shown above) on 2 March 1791.