Page 151 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

The Gospel and New Beginnings

name and described his disciples as “the people called the Methodists.”
By emphasizing the word people, he indicated that his followers were
neither a church nor a sect; instead, they were a friendly organization of
followers of Jesus Christ.

After his father’s death in 1735, he went to Georgia in the United States
as a missionary to the Native American Indians. He was discouraged
from working with the Indians by the Anglican leadership and decided
to return to England in 1738. During his voyage on the ship, he met some
Moravians and was deeply moved by their faith. After arriving in England,
he met another Moravian minister who witnessed to him. Later, Wesley
testified that he was converted when
his “heart was strangely warmed”
while reading Luther’s Preface to the
Epistle to the Romans. It has been Wesley’s theology
said that what happened to Wesley had a powerful
in a place called Aldersgate, London,
changed the course of world history. emphasis on

universal atonement.
For reasons we do not fully
understand, Wesley did not join
the Moravian movement but chose
to begin his own United Societies, which eventually led to the Methodist
church. Wesley’s theology had a powerful emphasis on universal atonement.
He and his friend George Whitefield preached to thousands of common
laborers in open air meetings. Wesley rode thousands of miles on horseback
to establish churches in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and in the course
of his ministry preached more than 40,000 sermons. He was convinced
that everyone needed to hear the good news about salvation. His number
one objective was to “save souls.” According to Dowley, Wesley declared
that he had “only one point of view—to promote, so far as I am able, vital,
practical religion; and by the grace of God, beget, preserve and increase the
life of God in the soul of men” (448).

Methodism was a revival movement with a missionary vision.
Wesley’s famous manifesto was: “I look upon all the world as my
parish; thus far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet,
right and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear
the glad tidings of salvation” (quoted in A. S. Wood, 163).

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