1.

The Methodist Church

 Its history and founders - The Methodist Church had its birth in the great work
which God performed through the Revival of Religion in the 18th Century by means of
the preaching and apostolic labours of John and Charles Wesley and their fellow
helpers
 England in the 18th Century had not yet gone through the industrial revolution. It was
an age of loose living, drunkenness and brutality. Most people were poor and had
limited job opportunities.
 Home background – John Benjamin Wesley was born at Epworth on 17th June 1703,
the fifteenth of nineteen children. His brother Charles was born in 1707. His father,
Samuel, was an Anglican priest who had a hard and difficult ministry. Susannah, his
mother, was a woman of remarkable gifts who educated and disciplined all her children
herself in their early years, setting aside personal time for each one. From her they
learned a strong moral sense, a living piety, the value of reading and the place of
reason.
 The fire at the Rectory – In 1709, at night, a fire broke out and all escaped except John
who had been asleep upstairs. He suddenly appeared at a window and his father tried
to rush through the flames but could not get to him. Some of the local men managed to
rescue him with seconds to spare before the roof fell in. The house was totally
destroyed. Later John’s mother referred to him as a “brand plucked from the burning”
which is a reference to Zechariah 3:2. This became a famous way of acknowledging that
not only had God saved John from the fire, He had also saved him for a purpose. John
certainly was someone who was “on fire” for God.
 School and University – In 1714 he went to Charter House School and then on to
Oxford University where he obtained a BA in 1724.
 Ordination – At Oxford he felt drawn to the ordained ministry and was ordained in 1725
and in 1727 became a minister of a small church in Wroot but it was not a happy time.
 The Holy club – He returned to Oxford in 1730 where his brother and a few students
had formed a small group called “the Holy Club”. John took over the leadership and the
activities expanded to include Bible study, weekly Communion, obedience to Church
order, prayer and visiting the sick, the dying, the poor, the illiterate and the prisons. The
other students made fun of them and gave them nick-names, one of which was
“Methodists”.
 Mysticism - Wesley was deeply attracted to mysticism, with its focus on the interior life.
He was looking for a sense of inner peace. In 1735, his father died and his last words to
John were; “The inward witness is the strongest proof of Christianity”.
 Georgia – In 1735 a friend asked him to go as a minister to one of the newly
established American colonies. Bad storms battered the little ship during the voyage and
Wesley was often afraid for his life. He was strongly impressed by a group of Moravian
Christians on board who seemed to have the peace and assurance he was seeking. He
spent long hours in discussion with their leader, Spangenberg, who asked him, “Do you
know yourself? Does the Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?”
His ministry in Georgia was a failure and work with the new colonists proved very
unrewarding as his parishioners were constantly back-sliding. He returned to England
broken and disillusioned.
 His Conversion – Wesley’s “evangelical” conversion was really the end of a long
process of searching. On 24 May 1738 John found the faith he had been looking for. He
described it in this way: “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……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, Christ alone for my 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.” In a moment, everything had changed. God came into
the centre of Wesley’s life and transformed his will, his mind, and his heart, and
 changed a rather rigid self-disciplined, yet always sincere person, into a leader on fire
for God. John and Charles now had a Gospel to offer – salvation by faith.
 The Evangelical Revival begins – Wesley visited the Moravian community in Germany
and was impressed by their sense of Christian community, their careful attention to
teaching, and their small group meetings in which people sought to know more of the
grace of God. When he returned to England and began preaching, he soon found many
Anglican churches closed to him as it did not like the “new” teaching and were alarmed
by this “wild enthusiast”. However, he and Charles continued to preach wherever they
could and were joined for a while by George Whitefield (a powerful Calvinist preacher)
who began “field preaching” in the open air. John Wesley also began to preach in the
out-doors, though at first a little reluctantly, because it reached the common people in a
way that the established Church could never do.
 Conversions – With Wesley’s new found effectiveness in preaching, thousands of
people were converted. People were changed and they even began to change the face
of England.

 The hymns of the Revival – Methodism was born in song. Many hymns were written,
often by putting Christian words to popular tunes of the day. Many people were illiterate
and so the hymns became a vehicle for teaching. Charles Wesley was a gifted writer
and wrote over 3000 hymns.
 Methodist Societies – John Wesley had a genius for organization. When people
responded, he never just left them there, they were brought into fellowship with other
Christians, taught about their faith, what was required of them and about holiness.
“Societies” of new Christians were formed in each new place, each with their own
leadership. They were not intended to be “alternative churches” because Wesley always
regarded the Revival as a movement within the Anglican Church. However there was
antagonism between the Societies and the local churches and they gradually got
pushed out and developed a life of their own. Somehow the nickname “Methodists”, first
used at Oxford, became attached to these new Societies, because of the methodical
way Wesley taught them to live.
 Class meetings – In 1740 at Bristol, Methodists were first put into small groups called
classes, with the purpose of collecting a penny a week from them to pay for a new
chapel. The leaders of these classes soon began to care for their members pastorally
and Wesley was quick to see the possibilities of this system. Methodists grew in faith
because they were taught and they were given clear rules to live by.
 Local preachers –The powerful work of the local preachers who held and maintained
the work in the local Societies began in 1742.
 Growth – John Wesley travelled on average 1000 km a month, mostly on horseback
and preached over 1000 sermons a year for the 40 years of his ministry.
 Social battles – The Revival did much to rid England of its social evils. Wesley did not
hesitate to get involved in the problems of his day. He also kept a close watch on public
life and sought to cleanse it and purify it. Many notorious laws were changed because of
the influence of Methodists in high places including the abolition of the death penalty for
petty offences.
 Wesley died in 1791 at the age of 87. He never wanted Methodism to split away from
the Anglican Church and become a separate Church, however forces had been
generated which made this inevitable and within four years of his death, the Conference
was forced to take the steps which broke Methodism away from the Anglicans and
allowed for its own ordinations and the administration of the sacraments.

Summary from Faith & Life 1990 ‘The life and work of John Wesley’
2. Methodism in South Africa
In 1806 Sergeant John Kendrick arrived in Table Bay with the British troops. Kendrick
envisioned a “new order”, finer than the imperialism of Britain and France; The
“Methodist Rule of Life” he had learned as a leader and local preacher. For 4 ship-
bound months, Kendrick had gathered with other Methodist soldiers to observe the
“divine ordinances” that gave inner discipline to their lives and brought greater meaning
to life than military routine.
With George Middlemiss and other Methodists they built a meeting place of stones
outside of Simonstown. However, their military masters believed that if soldiers became
Christians they would fail as fighters and opposed them at every turn, including ordering
the burning of a chapel they built in Wynberg. But Kendrick held out and gave
sustainable life to the embattled community of Christian soldiers.
Kendrick died in November 1813 before his urgent letters bore fruit, requesting the
Wesleyan Missionary Office in London to send a minister to secure the work. Rev John
McKenny arrived in August 1814 but was promptly banned from preaching by the
Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, and so he went to Ceylon. 16 months later his
replacement, Rev Barnabas Shaw and his wife arrived in Cape Town where they bought
oxen, a wagon and supplies with funds from the sale of their small property in England.
They had been in Cape Town for 5 months and the ministry among the soldiers was
secure under lay leadership. Meanwhile Lord Charles Somerset had refused to allow
Shaw to work among the slave and indigenous population for fear of offending the slave
owners and local Dutch citizenry. These were the ones Shaw believed “wanted him
most” and so he decided to go beyond the reach of the Colonial administration to
Namaqualand.
Namaqualand
Chief Jaantjie Wildschutt with 4 others left Nciemies, their Khoi/Namaqua gathering
place and set off for Cape Town to find a teacher. They wanted to better prepare
themselves for the changes that were taking place as the land became more developed.
A chance meeting of Chief Wildschutt and Barnabas Shaw ‘in the middle of nowhere’
set a pattern of partnership between Wesleyan missionaries and leaders of African
communities that would be repeated often in coming years. Both believed God had
brought them together.

Wildschutt brought the Shaws back to the gathering place at Nciemies, later re-named
“Leliefontein”, where they took up their abode in a hut. Just as well they had no furniture,
as the hut “was of small dimension”. The Khoi/Namaqua nomadic way of life was not
sustainable so within days Shaw began teaching agriculture and soon fast growing
crops of lettuce, peas, onions and radishes augmented the traditional diet. Shaw, a
capable amateur blacksmith, forged ploughs, expanding the lands under cultivation. The
Khoi/Namaqua community quickly applied the lessons. Wheat became a major crop for
local use and sale. With wheat came fodder and the stock previously fed by wandering,
was now fattened in the home fields. Soon they were making butter, soap and candles.
Carpentry, brick making, stonemasonry and construction followed, including the building
of a church. By the 1830’s Leliefontein was an economic hub in the region.
Rev Edward Edwards joined them in 1817 ensuring that spiritual formation went on.
Conversion to faith in Jesus was followed by literacy and the training of school teachers,
local preachers and class leaders. These made Leliefontein’s transforming Christian
influence possible in communities throughout Namaqualand and the Namaqualand
Mission. In 2006 the Mission numbered 26 Societies, two Ministers and a host of deeply
committed local preachers and leaders.
The Leliefontein history of holistic mission that, “does every possible kind of good to
people’s souls as well as to their bodies”, where people discover dignity and reconciled
community through faith in Jesus and express that dignity and reconciliation through
economic empowerment and development, sets the standard and pattern for all
Southern African Methodist Mission.
In June 1825, two Namaqua preachers, Johannes Jager and Jacob Links, accompanied
by a visiting English missionary, William Threlfall, set off to re-establish a mission
community in Warmbad (in what is now Namibia). On reaching Warmbad, the San
guides that they had employed on the way, attacked and killed them while they slept,
taking their meagre possessions. They are revered as South African Methodism’s first
martyrs. But the mission to Great Namaqualand did not fail. 5 Mission communities were
established north of the Orange river, with Leliefontein as their base.
Cape Town 1820
When Rev Edward Edwards’ arrived back in Cape Town, his first concerns were the
soldiers, the slaves and the Khoisan and to take up the ministry that had been
impossible to date. The majority of Cape Town’s population in 1820 was made up of
slaves. Although the resident Khoisan people were not slaves, they were treated as if
they were. For 150 years Cape Dutch policy had been to prevent, as far as they could,
the preaching of the Gospel to slaves and the Khoisan.
Edward’s went to the marginalized people and began creating cohesive communities of
faith. Dignity for the oppressed was to be found, neither in changing the minds of the
oppressors nor challenging oppressive customs and policies, but first in the discovery of
grace, an encounter with the Lord who loved them and gave himself for them, in the
inner transformation of the new birth and the outer expressions of holiness, of love for
one another, of disciplined lives and the arts of co-operation and mutual support.
Edwards began his services in a hayloft in Plein Street. Services for soldiers were in
English; for slaves and Khoisan in Dutch (which Edwards made a point of learning).
Societies were formed in private homes, on Robben Island, on the farms at
Rondebosch, Diep River, Somerset West, Stellenbosch and as far afield as Caledon.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was ready when life at the Cape was changed forever:
1 August 1834, the freeing of the slaves.
In 1834 Shaw bought land in Somerset West on which he settled a number of
emancipated slaves, many of whose descendants still occupy their cottages.
Methodism in the Eastern Cape
A second line of advance for the Methodist church was opened when the British
Government sent out settlers, who arrived in Algoa Bay, the Eastern Cape in April 1820.
The religious wants of the emigrants were not overlooked, and, where a hundred
families combined to form one party, they were at liberty to choose a minister of any
denomination, and the Government would make an annual grant towards his support. A
number of Wesleyan families, chiefly resident in London, decided to take with them a
Wesleyan minister, and the Rev. William Shaw, who was in no way related to the Rev.
Barnabas Shaw, was selected as chaplain to the London or Sephton party.
The Sephton party named their new home “town” - Salem. The furnishing of its town hall
which was used on a Sunday for the services was extremely scanty. For a pulpit a
writing-desk was placed on the top of a flour barrel, the preacher stood on an empty
ammunition case, and the people brought their own stools or chairs. But if the service
was plain, the sermons were rich in spiritual instruction, for Revd Shaw was a close
student of the fifty volumes of Wesley's Christian Library, and his preaching was
enriched by his acquaintance with the best Puritan writers. The provisions stored in the
building attracted rats, and the rats were hunted by snakes. On one occasion Revd
 Shaw was addressing the congregation when someone exclaimed: “Oh, sir, there is a
puff adder between your feet!” Looking down, Revd Shaw saw one of the most
venomous of African reptiles lying on the ground. He quietly stepped aside, and the
deadly intruder was quickly dispatched.
The cornerstone of the first church at Salem was laid on 1 January 1822 and Salem
became the mother of churches in this area.
The Methodist church of Southern Africa
Over time it became increasingly inconvenient and difficult for the Missions to be
controlled and directed from England. The British Methodist Conference in 1882
constituted a South African Conference with jurisdiction over all Methodist Missions,
churches and ministers in South Africa, exclusive of the Transvaal Province.
In 1930 these two groups united and legislation necessary to effect this was obtained
from the Union Parliament in the passing of ‘The Methodist Church of South Africa
(Private) Act 1932’ and the church became officially known as ‘The Methodist Church of
South Africa.’
(The above is substantially a summary of Revd Tim Attwell’s article in the New Dimension, August
2006)

3. What makes us unique

3.1 What makes us unique as a Methodist Church?
Methodists stand within the protestant tradition of the worldwide Christian church.
Preaching the Gospel is central to Methodism. It offers salvation and calls people to
respond personally to God’s love. The strength of Methodist teaching is that it also
challenges us to grow toward Christian maturity and to show that our faith is real by
living holy lives. We are called to renew the world in righteousness, justice and peace
according to the vision of the Kingdom of God. Methodists place emphasis both on
knowing their faith and living it out in real ways.
Inclusivity: “If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand, for we are family
(II Kings 10:15).”
Every member a minister: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who
called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” I Peter 2:9
Every member is a missionary: “In the Providence of God, Methodism was
raised up to spread Scriptural Holiness throughout the land by the proclamation of
the Evangelical Faith.” [The Methodist Book of Order para 1:7]
3.2 The Four “Alls”
Although the Methodist Church does not have a simple doctrinal statement to wave
at people, the essence of Methodist teaching has often been expressed in the “4
All’s”. These are slogans rather than detailed theological pronouncements, but as
long as one appreciates this limitation, they are quite useful.
 “All need to be saved” (Original sin)
 “All can be saved” (Salvation by Faith)
 “All can be saved fully” (Sanctification)
 “All can know that they are saved” (Assurance)
3.3 The Methodist Spirit (Extracted from “Our Methodist Roots” by Peter Storey)
It is one thing to hold to certain convictions, it is another thing to express them in a
way which will galvanise a nation. John Wesley was the most powerful Christian
evangelist since the Apostle Paul, because like Saul of Tarsus, he was a man in
whom the essential elements of vital faith found a special harmony – a balance which
 made the Methodist ethos quite the most sensible kind of Christianity anyone had
seen.
3.3.1 There was the blend of Passion and Intellect
Seldom has the world seen such a singleminded Passion. The Aldersgate
experience had in Wesley’s words, “taken a heart of stone and warmed it into a
flame” and if he were intolerant of anything, it was the lukewarm and the insipid.
In the 53 years between his conversion and his death, Wesley preached some
52,000 sermons which means that this incredible man preached 2-3 times a day
for 53 years - that takes a magnificent obsession.
But this warmed heart had brains as well. This Oxford Don made the point time
and again that the Christian faith was common sense. His authority was
Scripture. Experience was not the test of truth – revealed truth was the test of
experience. “I have declared again and again that I make the Word of God the
rule of all my actions and that I no more follow my secret impulse instead thereof
than I follow Mohomet or Confucius.” He abhorred shallow enthusiasms and
called upon his simple local preachers to study 5 hours each day. Here is a blend
of Passion and Intellect – what Paul in Romans 12 calls “the worship of mind and
heart”.
3.3.2 There was the marriage of Love and Discipline
The Love of God is the wellspring of the Methodist message and this love flowed
freely in the heart of John and the hymns of Charles. John notes in his journal
that as he preached “my heart was filled with love, my eyes with tears and my
mouth with arguments”. But in the midst of such deep sentiment there was no
sentimentality. This love like the love of Jesus had a steel core of discipline.
Wesley didn’t only make converts, he made disciples.
Sufficient to quote just one example of that discipline: In a letter to a local
preacher he writes:
“My dear brother,
Is it true that you have baptized several children since the Conference? If it is I
cannot but interpret it as a clear renunciation of connexion with us. And if this be
the case it will not be proper for you to preach any longer in our Society. But the
land is wide. You have room enough to turn to the right hand or the left. I am your
affectionate brother, John Wesley”
3.3.3 There was the blend of Faith and Works:
Even as he discovered salvation by faith alone, Wesley instinctively saw the
potential danger in this doctrine. For the rest of his life non-evangelicals called
him an enthusiast and evangelicals called him a papist. He was neither: He was a
Methodist. Quite simply he could not countenance a faith which showed no
practical expression. Saved by faith and repentance we may be, but such faith
and repentance must express themselves outwardly in “ceasing to do evil and
learning to do good”. Any form of quietism was anathema to this man who saw
quite plainly that in the Gospels alone there were enough ethical commands to
keep him busy for the rest of his life.
3.3.4 There was the fusion between Personal and Social Religion:
For Methodists who know their Wesleyanism the debate between so called
pietists and activists is a sterile non-event. For Methodists there is no “personal”
Gospel, no “social” Gospel: there is only the whole Gospel expressed both
personally and socially. In John Wesley this balance preceded Aldersgate: the
Holy Club which he led at Oxford as early as 1730, was established “that
members might cultivate their spiritual and intellectual life and devise means of
increasing their service to their fellowmen”. Thus neither his deep piety nor his
 sharp social concern originated in 1738. They were already seen as essential
expressions of Christian duty.
What did happen at Aldersgate is that duty became liberated into a joyous
response; both these elements of the one faith were set alight by a personal
encounter with the love and power of God. From then on while Wesley’s major
role was that of preaching men and women into the Kingdom, he simultaneously
fought to bring English society more into conformity with the Kingdom. He
promoted every crusade for justice and protested every infringement of it.
He attacked slavery and proclaimed liberty to be “the right of every human
creature as soon as he breathes the vital air”; he protested the legal system and
called judges “tyrants”; he denounced war as the foulest curse he knew – “a
horrid reproach to the Christian Name”.
He was the apostle of the poor and denounced the abuse of money and privilege.
The liquor traffic, political corruption, religious persecution of Catholics in Ireland
– all received his attention. He was forbidden to preach in prisons for a long
period because of his criticism of the conditions he found. He used the press, the
pamphlet, the pulpit and the private letter. He believed that if God could make
men Christian, God could also make England Christian and if most of the world’s
most significant advances in justice and human rights were won in that country,
they were in no small part due to the evangelical revival. The first co-operatives,
the beginnings of social work, the liberation of slaves, the emancipation of labour,
popular education, the Trades Union movement; all of these and more were
established by the spiritual descendants of Wesley.
But note one most important fact: All of this social and political involvement was
never at the expense of preaching personal commitment. Wesley knew that the
roots of politics lie beyond politics, in theology. He campaigned that the people
should have bread, but he preached so that they should never live by bread
alone. His social commitment was based not in humanitarianism but rather in that
great love with which God had so loved the world.
Now: Take this blend of Passion and Intellect, Love and Discipline, Faith and
Works, Personal and Social Religion, mix into it a special quality of Joy which
came from knowing that “the best of all God is with us” – on our side in the battle
of life; put it to the music of “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great
Redeemer’s praise” or any other of the more than 6000 hymns written by Charles
Wesley – and you begin to catch the “Methodist spirit”.
3.4 Methodist rule of life (in John Wesley’s words)
3.4.1. Do no harm
“Doing no harm, avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is more
generally practised”.
Besides the open and publicly acknowledged sins of life, all doubtful and
dissipating pleasures, selfish indulgence, personal ostentation, love of money
and covetousness, all gains made to the injury of others by trading upon their
ignorance, weakness or necessity, all dishonest evasion of lawful dues or
neglect of civic duties, all abuse of public office or influence for private ends, and
all foolish, careless or malicious talk come under this condemnation.
3.4.2. Do good
Doing good by being merciful after one’s own power, doing good of every
possible sort to the bodies of people as well as to their souls and, as far as
possible, to all. Within this obligation is embraced personal testimony for Christ,
sacrificial giving to the work of God, missionary effort, the manifold forms of
 social and philanthropic service, and the pressing necessity for promoting lasting
peace and goodwill among all people. Every Methodist should be an evangelist
and in spirit a missionary. The familiar line, ‘O let me commend my Saviour to
you’, expresses the true genius of Methodism.
3.4.3. Attend upon all the ordinances of God
These include public worship of God, observance of the Lord’s Supper,
maintenance of Christian community, private prayer, reading the Scriptures, and
habits of self-discipline. The practice of family worship is earnestly commended.
The New Testament contemplates families as Christian as well as individuals.