A Vile Thing

As John Wesley moved away from that life changing Aldersgate Street experience, parish churches started denying him opportunities to preach.  Though he was an ordained Anglican minister, his church was threatened by his willingness to avoid religious protocols and his belief that the church was failing in its mission to call sinners to repentance.  Preaching outdoors which he had declared to be "a vile thing" was his only option if he was going to be faithful to God.  And so Wesley began a ministry to those masses of people who had been so forgotten by the church of his day that they would not even consider entering a church.    

The Methodist tradition was born out of this "do whatever it takes" to reach people for Christ attitude.  The sophisticated religious system into which Wesley had been ordained was failing in its most fundamental task and so this man of Aldersgate Street cast aside the mantle of priest for the cloak of an outdoor evangelist.  More than once he actually used his father's tombstone as his pulpit!   It would probably be a good thing for most churches if the doors were locked on at least one Sunday morning out of the month so that those who would sit in the pews and stand in the pulpit could go out into the places where people are gathering on Sunday mornings.  

Maybe worship gatherings in the parking lot of the shopping areas would be something which might enable Methodists and others as well to get involved in "doing whatever it takes" to get the message about Jesus out into the world.   Of course, before such a radical thing could be done, the church would have to be convinced that conversion in the name of the Christ of the cross is something which is absolutely necessary.