Hope for Methodism

On this day in 1703 John Wesley was born as the fifteenth child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley.  While only nine of her children lived beyond infancy, Susanna was a strong spiritual influence on each of her children.  His father was an Anglican priest and John would follow in his footsteps although his journey with the church would be far different than those who came before him.  On his way to becoming a spiritual giant who would create a movement still in existence today, he came to the colony of Georgia in 1736 as a missionary and to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in 1738 which changed the trajectory of his life.   

Before the experience of having his heart strangely warmed by the love of God and a deep awareness that his sins were indeed forgiven at Aldersgate, Wesley had lacked the fervor and focus that gave birth to spiritual movement which has reverberated with power for over three hundred years.  Wesley was an ordained member of the Church of England and never intended for the Methodist movement to be anything more than an instrument of reform and renewal within the church.  There are few people within the church today who would deny the need for renewal within the church as we know it today.  Though the centuries it has endured all kinds of battering and splintering, but still it remains.  

The stream of of Methodism remains strong today even though the institutionalizing of it has brought to it great and serious compromise, but it is a faith of the heart.  It is a tradition of faith which expects the Holy Spirit to work to bring about change in the human heart.  As long as the Holy Spirit has freedom to work and there are hearts hungry for that work, Methodism will survive as it already has these past three hundred years.  The institutional unity may be severed, but the core of Methodism is strong because it requires not an institutional framework, but a heart open to the Spirit.