Back when I was a wee United Methodist seminary student, one of my bucket list items was to visit the John Wesley sites in England. I admit that, upon leaving the UMC, I had kind of “forgotten” about this goal.
For those of you that don’t know, John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist movement that began in England and then spread worldwide.
A few years ago, my family and I were visiting a museum in London when we stumbled upon the site of John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, where he felt his heart “strangely warmed”. Soon after, we were called to Godalming, the hometown of James Oglethorpe, the first governor of the colony of Georgia in the 1700’s. It was with Oglethorpe that John Wesley had his (abbreviated and) somewhat disastrous trip to minister to the Native Americans in the American southeast. Of course, along with this move to Godalming meant taking charge of the United Church, a partnership between my own denomination and the Methodist Church of Great Britain.
It seemed that, while you could take the boy out of Methodism, you couldn’t take Methodism out of the boy. Or at least I can’t seem to escape it.
During a recent conversation with our Circuit Superintendent, he mentioned that he was planning to train into London for the annual Wesley Day celebration at John Wesley’s church. I quickly invited myself, which he was gracious enough to allow.
This was something of a pilgrimage experience for me. While I am naturally dedicated to my new denomination, the United Reformed Church, this trip definitely reminded me of how deeply my family’s Methodist roots went.
The celebrations started with a Communion Service at Wesley Chapel, the church John Wesley himself had built in 1788. The chapel itself is gorgeous. With a service about to start, I didn’t feel at liberty to take too many pictures, but here are a few.
Our first stop was the tomb of Wesley himself in the chapel garden. Each stop was accompanied by prayer and a brief hymn.
Next was the tomb of Wesley’s mother, Susannah, in the cemetery across the street.
At this point, I should note that Wesley Day is actually a BIG DEAL in some worldwide Methodist Churches, especially in Africa. There were a couple of rather large groups from the Gambia and Ghana that had journeyed to England just for this day. While we made our way through the city, they brought joy and exuberance to the celebration by singing and drumming as we walked. The poor Londoners we passed had no idea what to do with us.
From the cemetery we noisily made our way to the site of the Aldersgate experience that I mentioned above.
We ended the day at St. Paul’s Cathedral with a special Evensong Service. It’s easy to forget that, while Wesley founded Methodism, he himself remained an Anglican priest for his entire life. The Anglican Church still honours him today for his reforming work within the church.
As I said above, this was a long held (if delayed) dream come true for me. Many thanks to my Superintendent, Paul Glass, for allowing me to tag along and to the denominational staff that planned the event.
Payne Family Live 