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Methodists around the world—some 30 million strong—have been celebrating John Wesley’s 300th birthday this year. Such occasions call us to both thanksgiving and rededication to the challenges facing the church in our time.

Early in my Christian experience I became a Methodist by hierarchical fiat. Leaders of my church, the United Brethren, first decided to link with another church and I became an Evangelical United Brethren. Later on, this rather tiny denomination decided to join forces with the much larger Methodist church, and that was that.

I knew nothing about John Wesley. While doing a college history research paper on the Moravians and their extensive early missionary work, I stumbled onto Wesley. He himself had set out for the New World to be a missionary to the English colony of Georgia.

On a return trip to England, however, Wesley’s ship was engulfed by a fierce storm. He noticed the remarkable calm exhibited by some Moravians on board and vowed to discover their secret. Thus it was that Wesley was “strangely warmed” at a gathering of Moravians in Aldersgate Street in London in 1738. The rest, as they say, is history.

Apart from what John Wesley contributed to the church, historians generally agree that his revivals spared England from a bloodbath like that of the French Revolution.

Although my parents and some relatives remained faithful Methodists, after college I left town and my church membership dwindled away. However, for three years I taught an adult Sunday school class in a Methodist church in a Dallas suburb while studying in seminary. And I was always welcomed back to preach and teach at my original Methodist church in Pennsylvania.

Of course, Wesley’s heritage extends far beyond the United Methodist denomination. Many other denominations, mission societies, colleges, seminaries and publishing houses in the Wesleyan tradition claim John as their spiritual father as well.

All of us, regardless of our denominational traditions, can learn well from Wesley’s example. Simply reading a bare-bones outline of his life is enough to make me feel something like a draft dodger. What have I been doing for Jesus all these years?

Sweeping aside the prevailing Anglican way of doing things, Wesley took to the fields at Bristol in 1739 and preached there. Then he bought a deserted gun foundry near London for a preaching site. Five years later he held the first conference for his converts and followers.

Talk about mission work. By horseback he crisscrossed England, Ireland (42 trips) and Scotland (22 trips). Wesley also went to bat for the poor, using the proceeds from the sale of his books for various charitable causes, including health clinics.

Remarkably, he found time for scholarship as well. He translated works from Greek, Latin and Hebrew; wrote histories of Rome and England, an ecclesiastical history and biblical commentaries; compiled an English dictionary; and published 23 collections of hymns. Today Wesley’s Journal (1735-90) still offers a veritable gold mine of spiritual truth.

Beyond the discussions that still go on about Wesley’s doctrines and church polity we have to seize the core of his commitment to evangelism and discipleship. He shattered the molds of traditional religion, and the people responded like kids following an ice-cream truck.

Wesley’s systematic approach to what we call follow-up, or discipleship, guaranteed that his converts would stick. His use of hymns enabled ordinary people to praise God and to learn theology at the same time.

Wesley’s class meetings were still in vogue when I was growing up. Today in many churches they have been replaced by small groups, some of which founder because they lack Wesley’s structure.

Perhaps the most significant lesson we can take away from John Wesley is the simple truth that there’s no limit to what one person can accomplish for Jesus anywhere in the world. We need more like him in God’s global mission. Copyright © 2003 Jim Reapsome. All rights reserved.