METHODISM: THE MOTHER CHURCH OF IEMELIF PART 1

Important Highlights of the History of Methodism

          If there is one successful and ever growing evangelical protestant church in the world, this is the Methodist church. It’s reported to have reached seventy to eighty million in 2006 globally. It’s hard to imagine that they just started from few zealous young  people almost 300 years ago.

          Its origin is Great Britain and it started as a movement in response to spiritual and moral decay of their time. It broke away from the Established Church, the Anglican Church, to address the seeming hopeless condition of society in 18^th century brought about by obsessive beer drinking, gambling, and crime of all sorts. It is quite interesting that the Anglican Church was unable to address the problem despite enormous influence and power to the dismay of the Wesleyan Methodists. They found out that the Anglican Church had their share to this chaos as they were said to have invested a large amount of capital for gin-making. Drinking of alcoholic beverages was a profitable business and it generated a lot of income for the church. It was observed that one out of four houses was either a gin-maker or seller. The Established Church could have stopped this by introducing reforms first to their ranks, to parishes, and then to their respective localities; but it was hard to stop especially if it involves revenues.  

          The Wesleys responded with a strong call for individual holiness. They went from market to market, to plazas, towns, and to many places where people meet. Where people gathered there the Wesleys would put up a stage or would just utter a voice and preach God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. To make this more effective, they brought church music (hymns) outside the church and sang them to public places to get attention and gather a crowd. To John Wesley this was not difficult to do, because he was a trained and educated theologian, musician, and Anglican clergyman. With the help of his brother, Charles Wesley, the followers grew rapidly and called themselves the “Methodist.” When they are gathered publicly, people would often refer them, "Wesleyan Methodists" because of strong discipline and seeming fanaticism that they have. They concentrated to the study of the Bible and put up small groups from place to place. They would often tell the people about the importance of obedience and living a life that is worthy and acceptable with God.

          Through charismatic campaign and missionary activities, they literally covered the entire British Empire and soon reached the soil of United States. John Wesley taught his followers to abstain from living a luxurious life. His first followers were students and met regularly to fast, to study the Bible, to make testimonies, to encourage, motivate others to follow the Lord, and to observe communion every week. Often, they would visit the sick, the prisoners, and those who are bereaved, and imprisoned.

          Undoubtedly, many of church strategies Christians use today were actually  "Methodist" in form and structure. Theirs, the Methodists, were considered unorthodox, something non-traditional, thought provoking, or should I say unacceptable to norm. Was it? Well, look at how this movement reached this far in faith, in number, and in deed.

         The Methodists learned the value of professionalism, seriously; second, they learned to live-out their faith and stood for what they believed; third, they were very effective with their Bible study, fellowship, communion, worship, and community services to achieve personal community holiness; fourth, they targeted the young people and trained them well; lastly, the Wesleyan Methodist was revolutionary in nature. She conquered enemy territories, won sinners for the Lord, brought back morality in Great Britain, expanded to continents, and made the world its parish.