I.                   Who We Are – The History and Traditions

Fundamental to understanding any organization is an understanding of its history.   Very briefly, let’s look at the Christian Church, the Wesleyan Church and First Wesleyan Church’s histories.

A.    The Christian Church

1.      The church began on the day of Pentecost.

2.      In 325 AD, Constantine (c. 272-337) declared that every citizen of the Roman Empire was a Christian.  Thus the Roman Catholic Church was begun.  It preserved the Scriptures and theology of the faith throughout the Dark Ages but became corrupt in the process.

3.      The Reformation was an attempt to "reform" the Catholic Church's corrupt practices.  That reform was rejected and there began "Protestant" Churches.  Two leading figures of the Protestant Reformation were Martin Luther and John Calvin.

·         Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) was a preacher, popular writer and political advocate for the Reformation.  He taught that people were saved by faith alone and that the Bible was the only authority in a Christian's life.

·          John Calvin (1509 - 1564) was a theologian.  He wrote a set of books entitled, Institutes of Theology which forms the basis of "Calvinist" theology.  He taught that man was so utterly sinful that he could do nothing to save himself.  Thus God, in His wisdom and sovereign justice, chose who would be saved and who would be lost.  Those who would be saved were "irresistibly" drawn to Christ while those who were predestined to be lost had no hope of salvation.

4.      The Reformation had several emphases.  One of them came to be known as “Arminianism” – named for Jacobus Arminius.

·         Jacobus Arminius (1560 - 1609) was a uersity professor and pastor from Holland.  He was a student of John Calvin who disagreed with him about salvation.  He believed that Christ had died for all people and that every person had the free choice to repent and be saved or not.

·         Arminius struggled with other Church leaders in Amsterdam.  Church leaders wanted to control the Church and appoint the pastors.  Arminius believed that would lead to “episcopacy” like that of the Catholic Church. He believed the people and the elected  town council (Burgermeisters) of Amsterdam were responsible for peace and order in the Church.

5.      Arminius’ views on “state” control of the Church served the purposes of King Henry the VIII of England.  He wanted a divorce and the Pope would not grant him one.

·         King Henry had the works of Arminius translated into English.

·         These writings came to the attention of John Wesley’s parents.  While Wesley had little interest in the political aspects of Arminius’ thinking, his ideas on uersal atonement and freedom of the human will appealed to him.

6.       John Wesley (1703 - 1791) was a pastor, writer and church leader from England.

·         He was only 5 feet 3, weighing 128 pounds, yet he influenced the world. He had dark blue eyes with a penetrating gaze. He wore his hair long, shunning the use of a wig, which was the custom for educated men at that time.

·         His body was lean, but with muscles of steel. He could walk 30 miles a day or ride a horse up to 80 miles at a stretch. In fact, he averaged 5,000 miles a year on horseback, for more than 40 years—the equivalent to circling the globe at the equator eight times. He did not ride rapidly, for he read and prepared his sermons while in the saddle. He prepared 40,000 sermons during his lifetime.

·         Wesley was a disciplined man. His days were planned around strict schedules. He lived a simple lifestyle and ate little. No book was out of place in his study and no loose papers were found on his desk. One stands amazed upon realizing that Wesley wrote nearly 3,000 books and pamphlets on varied subjects such as theology, history, science, logic, medicine, and music. This was done without the use of a secretary, a typewriter, or a word processor. While riding horseback, he studied several foreign languages. All of this was done while preaching up to eight times a day.

·         Wesley, born June 17, 1703, in the Anglican parsonage at Epworth, was the fifteenth child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. John was greatly influenced by the Arminian theology of his mother and father. At this time, the theology of most Anglican clergymen leaned toward Calvinism, but young John heard Arminian theology in his father’s sermons, and was drilled in basic doctrine by his mother, who supervised the early religious and secular instruction of her eighteen (some historians say nineteen) children.

·         Mrs. Wesley instructed her children in Greek, Latin, and French. Later in life, her sons had no problem in meeting entrance requirements in the best English uersities. Rev. Samuel Wesley taught his children to appreciate poetry and required that each compose their own poems.

·         Charles, John’s younger brother, later wrote fourteen volumes of verse; hundreds of which were converted into hymns for which music was composed or were sung using popular melodies of the day.

·         As a student at Oxford, one of John Wesley’s supreme desires was to be holy. Here, he joined the "Holy Club" which had been founded by his brother, Charles. Charles later turned the leadership of the club over to John. Although he prayed daily for hours, Wesley felt his spiritual goal was never achieved at Oxford.

·         The Holy Club encouraged Bible study, prayer, fasting and ministry to the needy.  Other students mockingly called them "methodists" because of the methodical way they did things.  The name stuck.

·         Ordained in the Church of England (Anglican) at age 23, he received the Master of Arts degree from Oxford two years later and became a uersity lecturer, majoring in Greek.

·         John and Charles Wesley, in 1736, went to colonial Georgia, as missionaries in the newly-established English colony. It was their hope to preach to the Indians, but after arrival, they discovered the Indians had little interest in listening to white men preach.

·         While on the trip to Georgia, Wesley encountered a group of German Pietists called Moravians.  A storm broke out which caused even the sailors to fear for their lives.  Wesley was amazed that even the children did not seem to be afraid to die.

·         John’s ministry was largely limited to a ministry among the English colonists of St. Simon’s Island, near Brunswick, Georgia. Wesley continued to seek a personal knowledge of sins forgiven, which he had not obtained. Upon returning to England, he was quoted as saying, "I went to America to preach to the heathen, but who shall save me?" Wesley never returned to America.

·         Back in London, Wesley reestablished contact with the Moravians he had met on the ship to Georgia. In London, a Moravian missionary, Peter Bohler, became acquainted with Wesley and prayerfully discussed basic Bible truths with this brilliant Oxford graduate. Wesley was still seeking security for his personal salvation.

·         Bohler asked Wesley, "Have you the witness of the Spirit that you are a child of God?"

·         All of Wesley's spiritual strivings to that point; his pious upbringing, his membership in The Holy Club, his call to the priesthood, his service as a missionary, his austere lifestyle, had been done to try to achieve an inner sense that God accepted him and loved him.

·         In the evening on May 24, 1738, this tired, lonely, and discouraged clergyman decided to attend a Moravian prayer service in a small chapel on Aldersgate Street.  The scheduled preacher did not arrive so a reader began to read the preface to the book of Romans. It is not known if the study was in English, Latin, or German, but Wesley understood all three languages. The Holy Spirit applied this Bible study directly to the heart of John Wesley. At last he saw the light that justification was by faith. Later, in his diary, Wesley wrote,

"In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins--even mine--and saved me from the law of sin and death."

·          Shortly thereafter, Wesley discovered that the holiness of heart he had been seeking did not come at conversion. It came after justification. The human vessel could not be filled with God's holiness until it had been cleansed. One had to be born before he could die. Thus, salvation, or justification, was to be secured before the work of entire sanctification.

·         The work of sanctification or Christian perfection was to be a basic element of Wesley’s sermons and writings during the Wesleyan revival that swept the British Isles.

·         Wesley’s sermon, "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," was inserted in the Discipline of the early Methodist Church.

·         Wesley preached his final sermon at the age of 87, while assistants helped him stand in the pulpit. Days later, on his death bed, he said, "The best of all, God is with us." On March 2, 1791, he waved his hand in final farewell and entered into God’s presence.

·         Following this great man’s wishes, the funeral was very simple and with a minimum of ceremonies. One of his biographers, William Henry Fitchett, wrote of Wesley, "He was carried to his grave by six poor men, leaving behind him nothing but a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman’s gown, a much abused reputation and the Methodist Church."

·         Some historians report that the Wesleyan Revival saved England from a tragic revolution such as France suffered. Wesley was the most influential man of his era in the English-speaking world. The world was his parish and he, more than anyone else since the New Testament cannon was completed, has influenced the holiness theology which we proclaim as biblical today. Rightly, he is called the father of the holiness movement.

·          Francis Asbury (1745-1816) was Wesley's "general assistant" in America.  In 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church in America was formed.

7.      In 1843, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection was organized because of the refusal of the Methodist Episcopal Church to take an official stand against slavery (Wesley had helped to abolish slavery in England. In fact, the last letter Wesley wrote before his death was to Wilbur Wilburforce, British Prime Minister, urging him to continue the fight to abolish slavery.)

·         The issues of slavery and church government in the Methodist Episcopal Church caused preachers such as Orange Scott, Lucius Matlack, and Luther Lee to leave their mother church.

·         In 1841 Orange Scott stated ""I have little hope that the Church (Methodist Episcopal) will ever be reformed in relation to slavery" In 1842 he wrote, "There is therefore no alternative but to submit to things pretty much as they are, or secede." Not submitting, thousands of Methodists seceded. The Utica Convention was called in New York in 1843. With Orange Scott presiding, a federation of churches called the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, was formed.

8.      During the late 1800s, a widespread emphasis on the teaching of holiness swept across various denominations in America. This resulted in the formation of holiness unions (groups of people interested in encouraging this teaching in their own denominations), rescue missions, camp meeting associations, and new congregations. Mergers among many of these groups from 1882 on eventually resulted in the organization of the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1922.

9.       As part of its historic past, The Wesleyan Church celebrates the involvement of its early leaders in the first ordination of women for Christian ministry in 1843.

·         Elizabeth Cady Stanton shared her frustration with a group of Quaker abolitionists on July 9th, 1848, the other women not only agreed, but also demanded immediate action. Ten days later in the Wesleyan Chapel of Seneca Falls, New York, they held the First Women's Rights Convention in American history.

·         In attendance were Lucretia Mott, Amy Post, Frederick Douglass and Abigail Bush.

10.  The Wesleyan Church has been active in other social causes such as prohibition and the “Right-To-Life” Movement.

11.  In 1968, the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Pilgrim Holiness Church merged to form the Wesleyan Church.